Fit To Drive
By
GAVI"N LYALL
RE,CEN1Ly, the Court of Appeal awarded damages to a plaintiff who had bought a secondhand car on hire purchase and, when it turned out to be 'utterly un- roadworthy' (the court's de- scription), had sued the hire ar(- purchase company. The case )used predictions that many more such suits would follow, and it sent the hire-purchase corn- I:anies scurrying to their trade association for Le assurance. Alas, they got it. With the second- ;land season nearly on us, bolstered by a tower- er1,8 waiting list for new cars, perhaps we might Zattline a few of the pitfalls and handholds in "le game.
h.ire If you have bought a car (or any goods) whose th-Purchase value is under £300 you can sue the finance company (who have in fact bought iitie goods—you are only the hirer), either because is not'of 'merchantable quality' (this applies goods only)—or because it is not 'reason- lY fit for your purpose. The finance company dodge the 'merchantable quality' provi- inft: it can escape the 'reasonably fit' one by easertiog in the agreement a clause saying, in a ,iect, that they have left that for you to judge, 11`1 by making sure that the clause is pointed out to you.
h :the plaintiff won her case because the court w!'d that the clause in her particular agreement inas neither clear nor unambiguous, and had not, eb fact, been pointed out to her. By now, how- e'er, most companies dubious of their own :cape clauses are revising them, and taking steps 'henstlre that they do get pointed out.
the having unwittingly acquired a vehicle with 41 staggers, and no ambiguities in its HP agree- tents, is there any way in which we can get part °or money back? Not, certainly, by guarantees. Signing that you ifeept a guarantee on any car, new or old, usually rolves signing away a number of common-law 111°Its of comeback that you would otherwise vave had automatically. Second-hand dealers arY, but if one of them refuses to sell without a tharantee, it is a safe assumption that you stand c' lose by signing. v_It is a criminal offence to sell a car which, nether the seller knows it or not, is unroad- worthy—provided you have not given him to suppose that you knew it was unfit, and were going to doctor it yourself before going on the road. The simplest way to establish this is prob- ably to ask him if it is all right to drive away, and then do so. If ,you have a car that is road- worthy but not much more, you can sue the dealer if he made false representations about it. In this sense, calling it a 'nice job' will probably be dismissed as a puff; calling it 'perfect' would be good and false.
Incidentally, the new Ministry Roadworthiness Test for Ten-Year-Old Cars (which has been coming in in a few months' since mid-1958, and may actually do so before 1961) will not give documentary proof that a car is in sound shape. It tell/ show that the vehicle's brakes, steer- ing and lights are up to the legal requirements— at the time. It will not prove that they will stay that way, or that the car is otherwise legally fit to drive. Testers are asked to refuse a certificate if they notice faults in the body, chassis or engine that would make a car unsafe, but (and here the whole concept rises gently from the ground and loses all contact with reality) they are not asked to look for such faults. In other words, the owner of such a car could get pinched for not having a roadworthiness certificate; if he has one, he can still get pinched for driving an unroadworthy . .
vehicle. Whether the Ministry will point this Out when the tests come in. I cannot say. Even if they do. dealers can be relied on to hush it up again.
Tired of balancing their chins on their knees in the cramped back seats of our largest and lushest cars, a number of magnates have recently taken to having themselves chauffeured around the city in the comfort of their own taxis. So taxi- owning ceases to be a Chelsea joke and becomes a respectable proposition, and even without chauffeurs, a private taxi has its advantages.
One is that you may pay no purchase tax. Real taxi-drivers get theirs taxless, but you will pay tax on a new one; secondhand, the Customs and Excise will probably give you a nod and a wink provided you do no conversion beyond taking off the hire signs.
There are four types of taxi now running in London. The new Austin automatic transmission diesel FX4 costs (taxless) just £1,200; the new coach-built Beardmore Mark 7 costs £1,198 (Perkins diesel) or £1,095 (Ford Consul petrol engine). Their predecessors are the Austin FX3, and the Beardmore Oxford, the latter being at least seven years old by now. They start from a new price of around £1,000, their secondhand cost usually dropping by about .£100 a year.
After ten years a London taxi must by law go out of service, no matter what. But mileages may vary enormously. An owner-driver working only by day will average some 30,000 miles a year. A company-owned cab working two shifts will more than double this, since mileages are higher at night. In general, an owner-driver will also have looked after his vehicle better, but all taxis (and the older ones especially) are built to be repaired : a driver quoted the cost of a new rear wing for an FX3 as under £5.
All models have, turning circles of ,about 25 feet (even the Mini-Minor turns around 29 feet).
A diesel engine • averages, in townS;•about 30 m.p.g., the petrol engine under 20. ,The diesel lasts about twice as long as a petrol engine, but is more likely to blow up at high speedS; a diesel will cruise easily at 50 m.p.h., a. petrol cab at 60-65. Watch the brakes, though; taxi-drivers be- lieve they are not usually as good as those on private cars. Taxi-drivers always manage to stop in time, of course—but that, they say, is because they are better brakerS than private drivers.
'1 III) 1 liinkiii I he (11*(7/MA1a/11.1'A Hull you might have kept your collar aml tie On:
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