Your used car consumer guarantees are stronger than the sales pitch

Buy a used car from a licensed dealer and you already hold rights nobody charged you for. NSW Fair Trading puts free dealer cover at three months on a car under 10 years old that has done less than 160,000km. Used car consumer guarantees sit above even that.

What rights do you get when you buy from a dealer?

You get two sets of rights at once, and neither one is an optional extra. First come the consumer guarantees in the Australian Consumer Law, which the Queensland Government says reach any used car you buy and do not switch off because some other warranty happens to be running. Second comes a statutory warranty, a fixed period of cover the law forces a licensed dealer to carry, and that one changes with the state you buy in.

Which sits above which matters. In NSW the dealer guarantee comes out of the Motor Dealers and Repairers Act 2013, and NSW Fair Trading treats it as extra cover layered over what the Australian Consumer Law already hands you. So a dealer telling you the guarantee has run out has not told you your rights have run out.

Victoria gives buyers something the other states do not. Consumer Affairs Victoria allows three clear business days from signing with a licensed motor car trader to pull out, and weekends and public holidays are not counted in them. Pull out, and the trader is entitled to keep either $100 or 1 per cent of the price you agreed, whichever figure is larger.

There’s a trap worth knowing before you sign. Take delivery of the car inside that window and the right to cancel is gone, according to Consumer Affairs Victoria, so having pre-approval on a car loan sorted beforehand removes the pressure to drive away the same afternoon. Cancelling means telling the dealer in writing and checking they actually got it while the clock is still running. Cars bought in a company name, and commercial vehicles, get no cooling-off period at all.

How long does the dealer’s statutory warranty last?

Three months or 5,000km, whichever arrives first, as long as the car is young enough and has not covered too much ground. NSW Fair Trading draws the line at under 10 years old with less than 160,000km showing on the day you buy, and the Queensland Government uses the same pair of cut-offs for its class A statutory warranty.

Queensland is the more instructive state, because older cars are covered there too. Pass 160,000km, or buy something that rolled off the line more than a decade before the sale date, and you drop to a class B warranty of one month or 1,000km, which the Queensland Government says has been the rule since 1 September 2019. That is a fraction of class A cover, on a car statistically likelier to break.

The three schemes line up like this, per NSW Fair Trading and the Queensland Government.

Cover	Car must be	Time limit	Distance limit
NSW dealer guarantee	Under 10 years old, under 160,000km	3 months	5,000km
QLD class A statutory warranty	Up to 10 years old, under 160,000km	3 months	5,000km
QLD class B statutory warranty	Older than 10 years, or 160,000km and above	1 month	1,000km

What does the statutory warranty not cover?

Parts that wear out, damage you caused, and any fault the dealer declared in writing before you signed. The Queensland Government leaves out batteries and airbags, tyres and tubes, and the hoses running to the radiator and the heater. Filters, oil, spark plugs, distributor points and wiper rubbers are out as well, and so are paint, upholstery, aerials and any audio gear bolted in. Air conditioning is in under class A but out under class B.

Whole categories of vehicle sit outside the schemes too. Both NSW Fair Trading and the Queensland Government publish their exclusions, and a Queensland buyer can sign the warranty away on a car more than 20 years old being sold as a restoration project.

• NSW drops the guarantee on a car sold unregistered that needs major repair work.
• Auction buyers in NSW lose it where the dealer’s notice rules guarantees out.
• Caravans, trailers and anything above 4.5 tonnes gross vehicle mass are outside the NSW guarantee.
• Queensland excludes written-off cars, consignment sales for private owners, motorcycles, caravans and commercial vehicles.
• Neither state covers harm you did yourself through misuse or neglect once the car was yours.
• NSW also excludes light paint or trim marks you could have spotted on a reasonable inspection.

One line of the fine print works in your favour. NSW dealers use Forms 6 or 8 to name the defects they are leaving out, with a repair estimate attached, but NSW Fair Trading says anything that leaves the car unsafe, brakes or tyres for example, cannot be written out that way. Hand back a form that tries it.

Is the dealer’s extended warranty worth paying for?

Not until you know what it adds to cover you already have for nothing. The Queensland Government says you pay no extra for the statutory warranty when the seller is a licensed dealer, and NSW Fair Trading says buying an extended warranty leaves your position untouched, both under the Motor Dealers and Repairers Act 2013 and under the Australian Consumer Law.

An extended warranty is a product, then, not a right. NSW Fair Trading notes you normally pay for one, that conditions and exclusions come with it, and that one of those conditions can be sending the car back to the selling dealer for every service. That condition carries a cost of its own, so price it against capped price servicing for the brand you’re buying before you agree to it.

Ask the dealer one question: what does this policy cover that the statutory warranty and the Australian Consumer Law do not? On a late-model car there may be factory cover still running, which is the first thing to confirm, and those terms vary by manufacturer more than most buyers expect, particularly across the newer brands. Best for buyers planning to keep a high-kilometre car for years, where statutory cover lapses fast and no factory warranty is left.

What should you do if the dealer refuses to fix it?

Put the request in writing, keep every document, and take it to your state regulator if the answer is still no. A phone call leaves no record of what you asked for or when you asked. Write down the fault, the date it appeared and the odometer reading, then say which cover you are relying on: the statutory warranty, the Australian Consumer Law, or both.

Name the outcome you want instead of leaving it open. A repair, a replacement and a refund are three different requests, and a dealer handed the choice will take the cheapest one. Attach the sale contract, any form listing excluded defects, and your service invoices.

If the dealer still refuses, the complaint goes to the regulator where you bought: NSW Fair Trading, the Office of Fair Trading in Queensland, or Consumer Affairs Victoria. Each one publishes the rules it enforces, and the rules differ enough between states that reading your own is worth twenty minutes of an evening.

Before you sign anything, settle two questions: how old the car is, and what the odometer reads. Those two numbers decide which statutory warranty you get, and the Australian Consumer Law applies either way. Whatever the dealer offers on top is a product you are choosing to buy, not a right being granted to you.