Hi all,

I recently bought a car from a Peugeot dealer in the Midlands (UK). On driving it home I noticed that the steering wheel tremored when the car was travelling at 65mph and the tremoring got more violent with increasing speed. This problem persisted for 2 weeks, until I crashed the car, making it a total loss.

At the time of the accident, it was a rainy wet day and I thought I had aquaplaned, losing control of the car, but in hindsight I think it may have been down to the steering problems. I spoke to a good friend who is a mechanic about this, and he said that the tremoring in the steering wheel was due to the wheels being unbalanced, and at speed would lead to a loss of traction on the road. I was also told that the dealer should not have sold a faulty and potentially dangerous car (incidentally it was very bad accident, and was told by several people that I was lucky to be alive). What I want to know is, given that the car is a total wreck, is it possible to prove that the steering was faulty, and so potentially get a claim on this. What steps would I take if there was a claim to be made?

Thanks

Used car dealers in the UK do not have to have roadworthy certs for the cars they sell ; meaning a used car certified by a licensed mechanic before sale??

I don't know how you would prove that the accident was caused by the faulty steering wheel unless you could have a mechanic take the steering column apart and determine if this was the case. Would seem to me an expensive proposition.

If you test drove the car before purchasing, did you not notice there was something wrong, i.e. imbalanced wheels causing the stutter in the steering column ?

Were you at fault for the accident and did it involve other parties ?

When I took the car for a test I didn't go any faster than around 50mph, so didn't notice a problem as it only occurred at higher speeds.

Luckily, it was only me in the accident, but had there have been any others both parties would have been a lot worse off. However in this case I walked away from the scene with a few cuts and bruises. This being the case, I would technically be at fault, but having potentially been sold a faulty car I don't see why I should lose out on this.

The main cause for my concern is that I am a very cautious driver, and was only travelling at around 50mph when it happened. This isn't really fast enough to slide on wet ground and I (as well as a few other reliable sources) feel that the steering problems may have contributed to the accident. This would obviously need to be proven though and I haven't the slightest idea how to do it.

Actually, if your mechanic friend is saying that the steering problem was caused by the wheels being unbalanced, I'd say that that makes the accident even more your fault. You should have taken the car to a mechanic when you first noticed the problem, and if it truly was simply unbalanced tires that caused it, they would have fixed that for probably around 50 bucks here in the States. My car's maintenance schedule requires balancing and rotating the tires every 5,000 miles, so it's pretty routine maintenance, and not something that would make the car faulty.

Ok, first of all, I wish you'd quit saying "faulty car". Imbalanced tires is a maintenance issue. "Faulty", to me, means like a manufacturers defect or something.

I'm sorry you crashed, and I'm glad you're OK.

But I have to agree with froggy that you should have turned around and taken the vehicle right back to the seller as soon as you noticed the tremor. NOT continued to drive it for 2 weeks! Especially if you didn't know what was causing it! How did you know a wheel wasn't about to fall off or the whole thing blow up or something? If it wasn't bad enough to cause you to go immediately back, then I don't think you have much of a case.

Okey doke, thanks for the info anyway. Lesson learnt

Once you discovered that the car had steering difficulties and imbalanced wheels you ought to have had it repaired and sought compensation from the seller. Arguably this is all the seller would be responsible for.

Your decision to drive the car with such problems could be seen as neglience on your part and as such a court may not award you any damages under the circumstances. At best, the court may find you contributory negligent with the seller also being partially negligent.

The best course of action would have been to have repairs done immediately. Now the situation is much more difficult.