Can I return a car I bought online? The 14 days

Can I return a car I bought online?

In most cases the law gives a buyer fourteen days to cancel. The Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, regs 29 to 35, attach a fourteen-day cancellation right to a distance or off-premises contract — a contract made without the buyer and seller meeting at the trader's premises. Buying a car from a website and having it delivered is the plain example. At ONECARS, a car bought online and delivered is treated as exactly that: fourteen days from delivery to change your mind and return it.

What counts as buying a car "at a distance"?

A distance contract is one agreed without the buyer and the trader being face to face at the trader's premises. Ordering online, over the phone or by email, with the car brought to you, falls inside it. Walking onto the forecourt at Plas Acton, looking at the car, and signing there generally does not — that is a sale made on the premises, and the fourteen-day cancellation right in the 2013 Regulations is not the one in play. It is worth knowing which of the two you did, because the rights that follow are not identical.

When do the fourteen days start?

For a car bought at a distance, the ONECARS fourteen days run from delivery — not from the day the order went in. So the clock starts when the car is on your drive and you can look at it properly in daylight, which is the point of the right in the first place.

Does the car have to be faulty for a distance return?

No. A cancellation under the 2013 Regulations is not a complaint about the car. It exists for the simple reason that a buyer at a distance has not been able to stand next to the thing before agreeing to buy it. If the car turns out to be bigger than the garage, heavier on fuel than expected, or just not the one, that is within what the right is there for.

What if the car is actually faulty?

A faulty car is a different part of the law, and it does not expire with the fourteen days. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, s.9, goods must be of satisfactory quality. Section 22 of the same Act sets a short-term right to reject lasting 30 days from delivery. After a failed repair or replacement, s.24(10)(b) allows rejection, and a deduction for use may apply once the first six months have passed. These sit alongside the distance-sale right rather than replacing it, so a car delivered three weeks ago is outside the fourteen days but still inside the 30.

What does the law say about a fault in the first six months?

Under s.19(14) of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, a fault found in the first six months is presumed to have been present at delivery unless the trader proves otherwise. That presumption is about who has to show what, and it is a meaningful difference: inside six months the burden sits with the trader. There is more on how that works in practice at /read/rights/fault-with-a-used-car-in-the-first-six-months.

Does "sold as seen" change any of this?

Section 31 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 says a trader cannot exclude or restrict liability for goods being of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described. A form of words on an invoice does not remove those rights from a consumer buying from a dealer. The same point is set out at /read/rights/what-sold-as-seen-means-from-a-dealer, and the wider question of returning to a dealer at all is at /read/rights/can-you-return-a-used-car-to-a-dealer.

Worth noting too that the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, Part 4, prohibits unfair commercial practices, including misleading omissions — leaving something material out, not only saying something untrue.

What if I only reserved the car and then changed my mind?

A reservation is a separate thing from a purchase. An ONECARS reservation holds a car for fourteen days; inside those fourteen days it can be cancelled for any reason and the fee is refunded in full, and if the buyer goes ahead it comes off the price. There is no admin fee added either: the price shown is the price paid. So a change of heart before buying is handled by the reservation terms, not by any of the legislation above.

What does ONECARS do before a car goes out for delivery?

Every car is checked on 34 points by ONEFIX, our own workshop on the same site at Plas Acton, Wrexham, and the list is published at /how-we-check-our-cars. Where that check puts work on the sheet, ONEFIX does it before the car is handed over — a car with work outstanding is not handed to its buyer, and that is a rule in our system rather than a promise. Every car page carries the car's photographs, its full spec and, where the car is old enough to have been tested, its MOT history from the DVSA, test by test, with the mileage at each test. You can see the cars at /used-cars — the 2012 Mercedes-Benz E220 SE CDI at £3,995 is one with a long tested history to read through. Delivery is free within 20 miles of Plas Acton on weekdays, in hourly slots, with the car checked, valeted and fuelled first: /delivery.

After the sale, ONEFIX next door services, repairs and MOTs the car, and every ONECARS car comes with a free three-month warranty on the engine and gearbox, up to 2,500 miles, with the repair done on site. The cover is described at /guides/what-our-warranty-covers.

Who sorts it out if a buyer and a dealer disagree?

Two separate schemes handle two separate things. The Motor Ombudsman handles disputes about a vehicle sale; the Financial Ombudsman Service handles complaints about credit. Which one applies depends on what the disagreement is about, and they are not interchangeable.

What is worth keeping hold of?

Paperwork, in one place, from the day the car arrives. The order form, the delivery note, the V5C, the MOT certificate and any service record all matter later, and keeping the dates written down — when the order was placed, when the car arrived — is what makes the fourteen days and the 30 days easy to establish rather than something to reconstruct from memory. What should come with a car is listed at /read/guides/what-paperwork-should-come-with-a-used-car. Our office number is 01978 356983, and we are at Plas Acton Garage, 282 Chester Road, Wrexham LL12 8DU, with a second forecourt at Ruyton near Shrewsbury.