The owner of a Mercedes-Benz 400 discovered that their car had secretly been involved in an accident after the car began to change colour.

An Emirati, 28, bought the luxury car in 2014 from a showroom in Abu Dhabi for his wife.

The couple had taken a bank loan to pay Dh561,500 for the car.

Four years later, the husband noticed the paint colour on the rear end of the vehicle had begun to change.

He visited the showroom, where he was told the car had been in a crash before its sale, although he had not been informed of that before the sale.

The man's lawyer, Ali Al Hammadi, said his client then informed the showroom in an email that he had discovered the car was faulty and requested that it be replaced.

“His email was acknowledged by the showroom, which responded to it on July 11 last year, informing him that a proposal for a replacement car was being issued,” the lawyer said.

But the showroom then rejected the owner’s request to provide him with an official report on the car's damage. So the buyer lodged a complaint with the Ministry of Economy.

When an amicable settlement was not achieved, the Emirati man filed a case with the Abu Dhabi Commercial Court.

An expert told the court the German car was not imported directly from the car maker but through Yemen's port of Hodeidah.

“The damage in the car’s rear may have been caused during the shipping of the vehicle through the port and at the time of its sale," the expert's report said.

"Its price should have been reduced by approximately Dh28,000."

It said that only the damaged part was repainted.

The court ordered the showroom to repay the full price of the car, Dh561,500, to the claimant and pay all legal fees.