‘Car dealers are now selling dubious cars alongside with the good ones; as a result, even the purchase of an automobile declared as new cannot guarantee the customers that they are buying a vehicle that really hasn’t been, say, involved in a crash. Now the law states that a seller must warn the customers about all the defects a car might have. Still, there are cases when a car is claimed to be brand new when it’s not, so the customer gets no warning whatsoever. So, in the end a newly bought ‘brand new car’ somehow won’t start,’ Vice President of All-Russian Consumer Protection League Andrei Artemiev announced at a press conference in Yekaterinburg.

Artemiev says one driver grew exasperated as her Jaguar kept stopping right in the middle of the road.

‘Avtoland car center, from whom the automobile had been bought, claimed that the car was fine. Only the fifth time, when the car got stuck right on the streetcar railways during a test drive with Avtoland representatives inside, did the company admit that there was a problem. In fact, these dying motor problems are quite typical of the so-called drowner cars (the ones that have sunk before). Such cases do harm to the car dealer’s reputation; nevertheless, an expert examination can help detect such problems,’ he adds.