For the second time in three months, a Richmond car dealership has lost a pricey civil lawsuit for selling a false bill of goods.

Special education teacher Clarence Casillan was awarded nearly $40,000 by the B.C. Supreme Court after purchasing an Audi A4 from Daewoo Richmond—now known as Auto Couture—in 2006.

After reading warranty details on the dealership’s website, and after being directed to Daewoo by a workmate, Casillan came upon an Audi A4, which he eventually purchased for a little more than $25,000.

Both the website and the car salesman assured Casillan that his Audi was covered by a powertrain warranty.

But things quickly began going wrong with the Audi soon after he drove off the parking lot.

The car failed to start a week later, the problem turning out to be electrical.

A month later, the fuel pump died.

And about five months after he’d made the purchase, it broke down again, and this time the remedy was the replacement of the engine, at a cost of $13,512.

That’s when Casillan was informed that there was no warranty coverage for the car.

“The representation that the Audi was covered under a warranty from Daewoo as stated in the webpage advertisement and carelessly confirmed by (the manager) was not true. There was no free warranty,” B.C. Supreme Court Justice Dillon ruled Thursday.

“The only remaining question is whether the requisite intent for fraud exists. On balance, I conclude that Daewoo must have known that the webpage was sufficiently misleading to be false, as confirmed by (Jason) Rawlins, the sales manager. Rawlins was reckless as to whether his representation that a warranty existed on the car was true or false, such that I conclude that the element of deceit has been met.”

Casillan was awarded damages of $39,933.91, which includes the purchase price of the vehicle, the cost of towing the vehicle, and the repairs to the engine.

In July, a Tsawwassen woman won her lawsuit against Daewoo after she was involved in a June 2006 car crash that involved a car she’d bought a week earlier from the local dealership.

The B.C. Supreme Court awarded her judgement of $31,100 after Justice J. Gerow found the dealership had made a misrepresentation about the vehicle.

Joelle Christine Cummings won the lawsuit, and on the day she’d purchased the 2005 Nissan 350Z noticed that the rear tires were more warn than the front vehicles. But she was assured by the acting manager, Diven David Nair, that the car was only a year old and that the tires were fine.

Daewoo was found liable for negligent misrepresentation.