Comebacks: consumer rights, warranties and how to price the risk

What the Consumer Rights Act actually obliges you to do, why the first thirty days are different, and how to hold a warranty reserve so a comeback is an inconvenience rather than a month's profit.

Updated 1 August 2026 · 5 min read · Written for UK independent dealers

Every dealer gets comebacks. The ones who stay in business have priced for them; the ones who have not treat each as an unlucky surprise, which is expensive both financially and in the arguments it produces.

This is a practical overview, not legal advice — take proper advice on anything specific.

What you are actually obliged to provide

Selling to a consumer, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 requires that the car is of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described.

Satisfactory quality on a used car is judged against what a reasonable person would expect, taking into account age, mileage and price. A ten-year-old car with 120,000 miles is not expected to be faultless. But "used" is not a defence against a fault that should not be there at that age and price.

Two things follow that dealers routinely underestimate.

Description is binding. If your advert says "full service history" and it is partial, that is a breach regardless of how the car drives. This is the easiest kind of comeback to avoid and one of the most common.

Pre-existing faults are yours. The test is whether the fault was present or developing at the point of sale, not whether it appeared afterwards.

The thirty-day line

The first thirty days give the buyer a short-term right to reject — a full refund if the car is faulty in the ways above. You do not get a chance to repair it first if they choose to reject.

After thirty days and within six months, the buyer must give you an opportunity to repair or replace. If that fails, they can seek a reduction or reject. Crucially, in this window a fault is presumed to have been present at sale unless you can show otherwise. The burden is on you.

After six months, the burden flips to the buyer to show the fault was there at sale, which is much harder for them. Rights can extend to six years, but they become progressively harder to exercise.

The practical consequence: the first six months are where your exposure lives, and the first thirty days are where you have the fewest options. Everything you do at prep is buying down risk in that window.

Selling "sold as seen" or "no warranty" does not remove these rights from a consumer. Terms attempting to exclude them are not enforceable.

Pricing the risk

The way to stop comebacks hurting is to hold money against them on every car, before you need it.

A warranty reserve is a per-unit amount you set aside mentally (better, in your figures) against future comeback cost. It is not a warranty product — it is your own provision.

Scale it by risk. Not every car carries the same exposure:

The point is not that every car costs you that. Most cost nothing. It is that across forty cars a year, comebacks average out to a real number, and if it is in your buying calculation you can absorb it. If it is not, every comeback comes out of a specific car's profit and feels like a disaster.

Include the reserve in your maximum bid calculation, alongside prep. If a car only works when you assume nothing goes wrong, it does not work.

Third-party warranties

Selling a warranty product alongside the car is common and can be a genuine profit line. Two cautions.

It does not replace your statutory obligations. A customer with a faulty car can come to you regardless of what policy they hold, and telling them to ring the warranty company when the fault is your responsibility under the Act is both wrong and the fastest route to a complaint escalating.

And be careful how it is sold. Selling insurance products is regulated. Make sure your arrangement is properly structured.

Reducing comebacks at the buying end

Most comebacks are decided before the car arrives.

Read the condition report properly. Red items are defects, not advisories. A car with three or four is telling you about its previous owner.

Be sceptical of complexity. Air suspension, twin turbos, complicated four-wheel-drive systems and early hybrid drivetrains all have expensive, well-known failure points. There is nothing wrong with buying them — but price the risk honestly rather than treating them as ordinary cars with a nicer badge.

Beware very low mileage on modern diesels. Short-journey use is hard on particulate filters and the resulting bills are large.

Do not buy unexplained warning lights. "Probably just a sensor" is the most expensive sentence in the trade.

Reducing comebacks at the prep end

Service it if it is close. A car sold two thousand miles from a service will come back for something, and you will end up doing the service anyway in a worse atmosphere.

Brakes and tyres. The two things a customer notices immediately and the two things that generate the angriest calls. Discs, pads and tyre depth should never be marginal on a car you sell.

Fluids and battery. Cheap to do, disproportionately common as comeback causes.

Fix the small stuff. A non-working window switch is a £40 part and a customer's entire impression of your business.

Write down what you did. A prep sheet given to the customer at handover reframes the relationship: you are the dealer who prepared the car properly, and disagreements start from a much better place.

Handling one well

When a comeback happens, the cheapest resolution is nearly always the fast one.

Answer the phone. Get the car in. Diagnose it before discussing liability — arguing about responsibility for a fault nobody has identified helps nobody. If it is your responsibility, fix it without a fight; the repair costs less than the review.

If it genuinely is not — wear and tear consistent with age and price, damage since sale, misuse — say so clearly, explain why, and offer a fair price for the work. Most customers are reasonable when treated as though they might be.

The dealers who suffer most from comebacks are not the ones who get the most. They are the ones who fight every one, and pay in time, reputation and stress far more than the repairs would have cost.