Not upheld: quality of goods - alleged manufacturing defect complaint against RCI Financial Services Limited trading as Nissan Finance

Decision detail

Summary

Mrs M purchased a new car through a hire purchase agreement with RCI in January 2020 for approximately £21,000. Between 2022 and 2025, she reported multiple dashboard warning lights, which resulted in three separate warranty repairs with different causes (defective camera, steering column switches, and radar unit). When a warning light reappeared in July 2025 after the warranty had expired, Mrs M complained to RCI seeking a refund, claiming the issue was an ongoing manufacturing defect. RCI declined to investigate further, and the ombudsman upheld their position, finding no evidence that the recurring warning lights indicated the same fault or that the car was not of satisfactory quality when supplied.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman applied the Consumer Rights Act 2015, which requires goods to be of satisfactory quality. While the same warning light message appeared multiple times, the ombudsman found no evidence that this indicated the same underlying fault each time. The previous repairs had separate causes and showed no subsequent failures. The most recent warning light appeared when the car was five years old with over 24,000 miles, making it Mrs M's responsibility to evidence any fault. Without diagnostic evidence of a current fault, the ombudsman was satisfied the car was of satisfactory quality when supplied.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website