Your right to know all about your car before purchase
15th October 2014
If either of the statements, ‘I wish I'd been told about that before I bought my car’ or ‘the car salesman failed to tell me about this...’ sounds familiar - then read on.
The Highland Council’s Trading Standards team is today launching an online Used Car Buying Survey in conjunction with Trading Standards authorities across the North of Scotland. The survey is targeted at consumers who have purchased a used car only to find out later that certain information about the car was not disclosed to them by the dealer.
Gordon Robb, Trading Standards Manager for Highland Council explains; "Used cars remain the product type that Highland consumers complain about the most. Cars are often the most expensive purchase we make aside from our homes and if things go wrong, sorting them can be expensive.
“Many of these car complaints stem from issues which were not explained properly before a car is purchased. For example, was the car previously used by a hire car company or was the car accident damaged or perhaps modified in some way? Also does it have an underlying fault or is there a part due for imminent replacement?"
Trading Standards is concerned that many consumers and probably traders fail to realise that sellers are under a legal obligation to disclose upfront information which a consumer needs to take an informed purchasing decision. Importantly this includes possibly negative or off-putting information. This means a seller cannot remain silent or fail to disclose information they know or ought to know about.
The survey is aimed at finding out more about the real world experiences of North car buyers and to establish if there are steps we can take to improve the car buying experience for consumers and to advise the car trade on best practice.
Gordon Robb continued: “If you’ve recently bought a car and then subsequently realised that you didn’t get all the information you feel that you should have, then we want to hear from you. We will use the survey responses to inform our ongoing work with the trade to ensure that consumers are fairly treated.”
Car buyers can complete the survey at: www.surveymonkey.com/s/SCOTSS-Car2014
Related Businesses
Related Articles
Young people in the Highlands can call a dedicated helpline offering expert advice to anyone receiving their full Higher, National, and Advanced results on Tuesday, 5 August 2025. The pupils and students- along with their parents and carers - will be able to get support with their results through Skills Development Scotland's (SDS) Results Helpline, which opens from 8am on results day.
Wick Business Park has welcomed wind energy technology company ENERCON as the first occupant of one of four new units completed last year. ENERCON specialises in designing, producing, installing and servicing onshore wind turbines and has been operating in the Caithness area since 2013.
Additional empty homes officers are being recruited to bring more privately owned houses back into use. The new posts are being supported as part of a £2 million investment through the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership in 2025-26 which will see staff take a more proactive and targeted approach to tackling local housing issues.
The Highland Strategic Local Action Group (LAG) met in June 2025 and considered and agreed funding for 28 projects submitted to the Community-Led Local Development fund (CLLD), which makes up part of The Highland Council Community Regeneration Fund (CRF) programme. CRF is an umbrella term used to cover multiple external funding programmes administered by The Highland Council.
Highland Council has provided 12 ‘Talking Tub' resources for use in primary schools across the Highlands, in partnership with Union Technical who deliver community benefits as part of the Energy Efficient Scotland: Area Based Scheme programme. Chair of Highland Council's Education Committee, Councillor John Finlayson, said: "This is a fantastic initiative being rolled out across Highland primary schools which brings innovation and inspiration to early years children.
Visitors will find it easier to dispose of their litter at several popular spots across Highland after the rollout of additional bins. The rollout has been planned to support the tourism season as part of the Council's ongoing commitment to improve and support sustainable tourism in the area.
Members of the meeting of The Highland Council (26 June 2025) have considered and agreed the Accounts Commission's Best Value report, which was published in April 2025 and highlights organisational improvements across leadership, performance management and community engagement. In April’s report, the Accounts Commission recognised and welcomed significant progress within the organisation since the 2020 Best Value Assurance Report (BVAR) and commended the embedded culture of transformation.
A new generation of community facilities is being planned for the Highlands. At a meeting of The Highland Council (Thursday 26 June), elected members approved the work to date in progressing the Highland Investment Plan workstreams - masterplan for Thurso and agreed to nominate the current Thurso High School site as the preferred location for the new Thurso Community Point of Delivery (POD).
At a meeting of The Highland Council (Thursday 26 June 2025), Members received a progress report on the partnership approach and important successes since declaring a Highland Housing Challenge in November 2023. Since establishing the ambitious Highland Housing Challenge, important successes included: A call for sites delivered 250 sites, with a potential 25,000 housing units which will support delivery against the target of an additional 12,000 houses over the next 10 years.
The Highland Council will deliver a transformative programme of energy efficiency upgrades across Council housing supported by a £9.2 million Energy Company Obligation (ECO) funding proposal secured by Union Technical. The funding proposal will deliver approximately 1,000 individual energy efficiency measures to Council owned properties across the Highlands.