2023 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 15:44
If a car seller withholds the actual mileage of a vehicle, then according to a current judgment he is «fraudulently» deceiving the buyer. If he notices, he can withdraw from the purchase contract.
If a used car dealer deliberately withholds the actual mileage of a car, the customer can withdraw from the sales contract. The Cologne Higher Regional Court came to this judgment, as a spokesman announced (Az: 22 U 170/06). If the dealer knows that the car he is offering has a much higher mileage than the odometer, he must inform the customer about it without being asked, according to the court. A dealer from the Aachen area was sentenced to take back the sports car he had sold and to repay the purchase price of almost 16,000 euros. The Senate saw the concealment of the higher mileage as "malicious".
Acquired at 90,000 km
According to the information, the dealer had acquired the car himself as an accident vehicle in 1996 with a mileage of 90,000 and repaired it. In addition to an exchange engine, he also used an "exchange speedometer" with 0 mileage. In 2005, he sold the then 14-year-old car to the plaintiff for 15,968 euros, after the dealer had previously used the car as a company vehicle for a number of years and had covered 68,000 kilometers with it, according to the court. The buyer later declared his withdrawal from the contract when a number of defects with a cost of 13,500 euros were discovered in judicial evidence proceedings.
These deficiencies did not count for the Higher Regional Court (OLG). Rather, the buyer is entitled to withdraw because the vehicle had 90,000 kilometers more mileage than indicated on the odometer, and the dealer kept this silent. He should have informed the customer about the installation of the "exchange speedometer" even without asking. The buyer should normally assume that the speedometer correctly shows the mileage, it said in the judgment. (dpa)
