A sharp fall, but from a small base
In the most recent 90-day window measured by Veste, the Financial Ombudsman published 32 decisions naming CA Auto Finance UK Ltd, of which 39.1% were upheld (using the Ombudsman's definition of upheld plus half of partially upheld decisions, divided by the total). In the prior 90-day window there were 47 decisions, with an uphold rate of 61.7%. That is a fall of 22.6 percentage points, alongside a drop in volume of 15 decisions, or 31.9% fewer cases than the previous window.
Both windows meet Veste's minimum sample threshold of 30 decisions, so the comparison is not resting on a handful of cases. But 32 and 47 are still modest totals for a firm handling car finance disputes at scale, and a swing of this size can occur without any change in how cases are being decided, simply because a run of cases with one type of fact pattern happened to land in one window rather than another.
The numbers in context
Across the whole period Veste holds decisions for CA Auto Finance UK Ltd, running from 23 August 2023 to 10 June 2026, there have been 226 published decisions. Of these, 117 were upheld, 14 partially upheld and 95 not upheld, giving an overall uphold rate of 54.9%. That sits well above the baseline uphold rate across Veste's entire corpus of 401,815 decisions, which stands at 28.8%. Car finance disputes involving unsatisfactory quality of goods, of the kind that dominate this firm's caseload, have tended to succeed more often than the average Ombudsman complaint across all sectors.
Looking at annual figures, the uphold rate for CA Auto Finance UK Ltd has moved around from year to year without a clear one-directional trend. In 2024 the firm had 32 decisions with an uphold rate of 48.4%. In 2025, volume rose sharply to 119 decisions and the uphold rate rose to 59.2%. So far in 2026, with 72 decisions recorded, the rate sits at 51.4%. The figure for 2023, at 33.3%, is drawn from only three decisions and Veste's minimum sample threshold of 30 means this year cannot be treated as a reliable characterisation of the firm's performance in that year.
What the monthly series shows
Veste's monthly trend data covers 24 months, from July 2024 to June 2026. It illustrates just how much the uphold rate can move from one month to the next even before looking at the 90-day comparison. In October 2025, of eight decisions, only one was upheld, an uphold rate of 12.5%. The following month, November 2025, six decisions produced an uphold rate of 66.7%. In May 2026, of 11 decisions only two were upheld, a rate of 22.7%, before June 2026's five decisions produced a rate of 40%.
At the other end of the range, several months in mid-2025 recorded high uphold rates on modest volumes: May 2025 saw six of seven decisions upheld (85.7%), and December 2024 saw all three decisions in that month upheld (100%). Volumes in every individual month sit well below the 30-decision minimum sample Veste applies before treating a rate as robust enough to characterise. Given this volatility, a single 90-day window falling below the average may reflect the ordinary month-to-month noise visible throughout the series, rather than a new pattern.
The most recent two full months in the series, May and June 2026, both recorded uphold rates below the firm's 2026 year-to-date average of 51.4%, at 22.7% and 40% respectively, on total volumes of 11 and five decisions. Those two months fall inside the current 90-day comparison window and are consistent with, though not proof of, the fall Veste has measured over the wider three-month period.
What is driving the published decisions
The published case summaries Veste has reviewed for this firm concentrate heavily on the quality and condition of used and new vehicles bought under hire purchase agreements, rather than on lending decisions or affordability checks. Among the related complaint categories Veste tracks, goods and services complaints under Section 75 account for 155 decisions linked to this firm's caseload area, with an uphold rate of 62.6%, and irresponsible lending complaints account for 31 decisions with an uphold rate of 56.5%. Both figures sit above the corpus-wide baseline of 28.8%, suggesting that the type of complaint reaching the Ombudsman about this firm, principally disputes over vehicle condition and lending assessments, tends to succeed more often than the average complaint across all financial products.
Four individual decisions illustrate the range of outcomes and the kinds of facts the Ombudsman is weighing. In one case (DRN-6265656, decided 2 June 2026), the Ombudsman upheld a complaint over a new car bought in May 2023 that developed persistent electrical and mechanical faults from April 2024 onwards; an independent inspection found fault codes remained despite dealer repair attempts, and the Ombudsman directed CA Auto Finance UK Ltd to accept rejection of the vehicle, refund a deposit of £29,695, refund rental payments for periods when the car could not be used, reimburse the cost of the independent report, pay interest and pay £300 compensation for distress and inconvenience.
By contrast, three other decisions from around the same period were not upheld. One (DRN-6417254, 10 June 2026) concerned an eight-year-old car with 53,289 miles that developed a timing chain fault seven months after purchase; the Ombudsman found the fault stemmed from a lack of maintenance since 2019 rather than a pre-existing defect, and that the buyer had reasonable opportunity to check the service history beforehand. Another (DRN-6351904, 5 June 2026) involved a similar timing chain complaint where an independent engineer attributed the failure to low engine oil and post-supply wear, leading the Ombudsman to find the car satisfactory at the point of supply. A third (DRN-6305245, 3 June 2026) concerned a wet belt failure that emerged after almost three years and 17,000 additional miles of ownership; the Ombudsman found no evidence the fault existed when the car was supplied.
These four decisions are illustrations of the kind of factual disputes reaching the Ombudsman, not a representative sample of the 32 decisions in the current window, and they should not be read as demonstrating a trend in either direction.
Separating observation from interpretation
What Veste's data shows is straightforward: a fall in the number of published decisions and a fall in the proportion upheld, measured over a 90-day window anchored to the newest decision date in the corpus rather than to today's date, because the Ombudsman publishes decisions in arrears. What the data does not show is why. Veste's evidence does not include information about changes in the firm's internal processes, changes in the mix of complaint types reaching the Ombudsman, or any regulatory intervention. A fall in volume alongside a fall in uphold rate is consistent with several possible explanations, including simple sampling variation given the monthly totals involved, none of which can be distinguished from the figures alone.
It is also worth restating how Veste counts firms: decisions are grouped by the business name recorded on each Ombudsman decision, so subsidiaries of the same banking or finance group are counted separately rather than rolled into a parent entity. Readers comparing this firm with others in the same corporate family should bear that in mind.
The longer view
Taken across the full 226 decisions Veste holds for CA Auto Finance UK Ltd since August 2023, the uphold rate of 54.9% has remained persistently above the corpus-wide baseline of 28.8%, through periods of both rising and falling monthly volume. The annual figures for 2024, 2025 and the year to date in 2026 sit within a range of roughly 48% to 59%, which suggests the latest 90-day fall to 39.1% is a departure from the pattern seen over the past two and a half years rather than a continuation of a gradual decline, though whether it persists into future windows cannot be determined from the data supplied here.
What this means
For a firm handling hire purchase disputes over vehicle quality, the published record shows outcomes that vary considerably from month to month, with the current 90-day window sitting at the lower end of what the firm has recorded historically. Given the volatility evident throughout the monthly series, and the fact that even the current and prior 90-day totals of 32 and 47 remain modest compared with a full year's caseload, the most useful conclusion is one of caution: this is a measurable change in a defined period, not yet evidence of a sustained shift in how complaints against this firm are being decided.