Sold a parts car with a possibly bad engine

[The_Jeff]

I had a junk chassis on craigslist advertised "For scrap" and "missing doors, engine, cat, battery, tires".

This father/son team show up, pay, take half an hour to winch and pry the wheel-less heap onto their landscaping trailer.

"Do you have the cat" they ask.

"Nope" I say, "it said so in the ad". Father glares at son.

"Well we drove 50 miles and burned a lot of gas."

"Sorry".

As for bill of sale, don't put your name on stuff if you don't have to! Eg never titled in your name. Spill the major details out in the ad, if there are any questions, ask them to show you their printout of your ad.

 

[Kuato]

Most of the above. Apologize, remind him you told him you didn't know about the engine and he bought it "as is", and that you're done.

 

[mrsilv04]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
As for bill of sale, don't put your name on stuff if you don't have to! Eg never titled in your name. Spill the major details out in the ad, if there are any questions, ask them to show you their printout of your ad.


Let's see. The buyer will already have your first name, your address, and your cell phone number.

What's your point again?

 

[d00df00d]

I always assume used cars are broken unless I can verify that they aren't, regardless of what the seller says. That goes double for something like a parts car. To me, that's just the obvious thing to do.

 

[MCompact]

Originally Posted By: Kuato
Most of the above. Apologize, remind him you told him you didn't know about the engine and he bought it "as is", and that you're done.


I disagree; DO NOT APOLOGIZE- the only thing you did wrong was sell the heap to an imbecile.

 

[The_Jeff]

Originally Posted By: mrsilv04
Originally Posted By: eljefino
As for bill of sale, don't put your name on stuff if you don't have to! Eg never titled in your name. Spill the major details out in the ad, if there are any questions, ask them to show you their printout of your ad.


Let's see. The buyer will already have your first name, your address, and your cell phone number.

What's your point again?


If you get sued instead of going through the whole he said she said thing you can start it off by asking the judge to dump the case due to lack of (paper) evidence.

I use my cell phone for lowlife dealings so they don't have my landline (and reverse lookup) and so my wife doesn't promise anything (like a return phone call) when called out of the blue.

 

[fdcg27]

So the guy apparently bought the remains for the engine?
As long as you were honest in your representation of what you knew of the engine's condition, which was nothing, then you owe him nothing legally or morally.
There are plenty of yards that sell known good engines and will also warranty the piece, although not the install labor.
There are even sources of used engines that supply a compression test along with a fresh timing belt to be installed while the engine is out and it's easy to do.
The buyer got what he paid for, no more and no less.
When you roll the dice, you sometimes win and you sometimes loose.

 

[dlundblad]

The guy has a lot of nerve IMO. Don't apologize for him being an idiot either. As mentioned, he bought it as a parts car as is. You owe him nothing.

If you told him the engine was fine then that's another story.

 

[MCompact]

Originally Posted By: eljefino

If you get sued instead of going through the whole he said she said thing you can start it off by asking the judge to dump the case due to lack of (paper) evidence.

I use my cell phone for lowlife dealings so they don't have my landline (and reverse lookup) and so my wife doesn't promise anything (like a return phone call) when called out of the blue.


Problem is, the case will almost certainly heard in Small Claims Court(AKA "The Gong Show"), and the rules of evidence are extremely relaxed. Plus, you will almost certainly get a judge who knows next to nothing about vehicles or vehicle repairs. Hopefully the judge will at least have common sense- but don't count on it. When I was hearing District Court cases the judge stuck with Gong Show would usually take copious notes if the case involved a vehicle repair and then give the notes to me so I could separate the wheat from the chaff. As an aside, it was amazing to hear some of the lies customers and/or shops would tell if they thought the judge was mechanically illiterate...

 

[PierreR]

I have dealt with many of those idiots.
Dont appologize ever.
Dont pay anything to him.
He bough it as is wich means its his problem if it falls apart after 0,0000001mm of driving (if it could) that just means that he has not inspected the car properly.

Or if the engine that you never have had running and told him that it has never run while you have owned it, locks up after the starter has turned it over one time, that is also his problem because he failed with his inspection here too.

"my word is good enough" have i also heard many times and when i want to see the evidence its always missing or from a completley different engine.

I tell the that if they want a car with warrantys then buy a used one from a dealer because a private person has no responsability for that.

The only one that is going to loose at court is him.
Once they hear from you that it was sold as a partscar with a engine that you never have had running. If you still have the add that would be good just in case then they can read it for them selves. Once they have done that, hes out and has to pay for the time that has been wasted by the court.

 

[Kuato]

Originally Posted By: MCompact
Originally Posted By: Kuato
Most of the above. Apologize, remind him you told him you didn't know about the engine and he bought it "as is", and that you're done.


I disagree; DO NOT APOLOGIZE- the only thing you did wrong was sell the heap to an imbecile.



I disagree with your disagreement.

But I agree with you that the buyer was an imbecile; OP did nothing wrong, he told the buyer that he did not know if the engine ran.

By apology I don't mean "oh, I am SO sorry I wronged you" apology, but rather the "sorry bub but I told you I didn't run the engine and it was 'as is' and it's your car now. No refunds have a nice day" kind of apology.

 

[HerrStig]

If he never (in front of a witness) told you WHAT he wanted the car FOR, and you never prepresented the engine was intact and running, I don't see you are liable becaue you didn't misrepresent anything. For all you knew he needed body parts.

 

[KrisZ]

If the car was sold "as is", I'm surprised the OP is even entertaining the idea of continuing communication with the buyer. It does not matter what was or wasn't said, the car was sold, collected, the funds were exchanged and the change of ownership occurred (I presume it did with the DMV).
If that's the case this is the end of story. I would tell the guy to stop calling me, explain why and if he persisted I would go to the police for harassment.
At the very least, his number can be blocked by the phone service provider.

I had something similar happen when I sold my 91 Tracer back in 2000. I told the guy that the transmission was leaking ATF and he even brought his "mechanic" friend to inspect the car. I think it was a week or so after the transaction that the guy called me saying the transmission needed to be fixed and it would cost a lot of money. He sort of left it hanging there so I just replied “So, what do I have to do with this? You inspected the car, had your friend inspect the car and I told you about the transmission”. He started saying that he didn’t expect the cost to fix the transmission was so high, blah, blah, blah, basically a bunch of excuses to sucker me into feeling sorry for him. I said “Sorry can’t do anything about it, stop calling me.” That was the last I heard from him. I wasn’t yelling or showed anger in my voice, just firmly stated that I cannot do anything for him.

 

[hattaresguy]

This is why I don't sell cheap cars anymore, I don't want to deal with the people they attract.

I tried to sell my sisters old car a few years ago for $400, it was rusty but it ran, and was a pretty clean and straight Olds Cutless, scrap value was about that maybe $350 if you drove it in.

So someone could have bought it, turned the key for 6 months and drove it to the junkyard way ahead.

Everyone who came to look at it seemed to expect to see a late model Impala...yeah its $400 its going to have some rust spots and peeling paint. One guy after wasting half an hour of my Friday afternoon I simply told to buzz off when he offered me $200 complaining the paint on the hood was bad, I told him maybe the Chevy dealer down the road could help him.

I ended up donating the car and got a $1k tax write off out of it.

 

[pacem]

Thanks for all the valuable feedback and the tips to use in future transactions.