so i took the car out after calming down...

[sarg]

Dealers will tell you it is 3 months, but consumer protection for cars is in fact 6 months.

The easy bit is taking them to court and getting the judgement.

The difficult bit is doing anything with that judgement - most home traders will just ignore it, not worth the paper it's written on, you won't get the money, will just lose the court fees.

So afraid to say that you should treat any non-finance offering (if they offer fiance, they need FSA approval, court judgements would terminate such approval) home based trader as a private seller.

My personal rule is I don't even view a car with a trader that does not publish their address and a landline phone number

[mannyo]

Could it not still be low fluid though, given that the car appears to already have a new gearbox and shows signs of a leak around the gearbox oil pan. I recall very similar symptoms when the fluid ran low in a previous car. There were no fault codes on the car I had at the time since there was no diagnostic port and the car was already old at the time.

[The_Laird]

Before you jump off a cliff, it must be worth a) taking a trip to the citizens' advice bureaux and b) checking the oil level. Or even a call to Mackie's (the gearbox guru's) in Glasgow for advice.