Have I been done over?

tomstickland

Yes, you were taken for a ride. However, you agreed to sell the car for £200 inc tax disc. You should have spent that week looking into whether engines were available or the value of a car minus a working engine.

anewman

tomstickland wrote: »

Yes, you were taken for a ride. However, you agreed to sell the car for £200 inc tax disc. You should have spent that week looking into whether engines were available or the value of a car minus a working engine.

It's easy enough to say that as someone who knows what they're talking about. The average person who has no idea will listen to what they've been told and begrudgingly accept it because they'll expect to be told the same elsewhere. It's called trusting someone (which seems to be a bad thing to do these days).

They have taken advantage of someone who did not know better. If this was you in this situation, firstly you'd have displayed some knowledge of mechanics so they wouldn't have tried to rip you off. Secondly, if they did, you'd laugh and go elsewhere because you know your stuff.

I know of a shop where an ex-employee said they take advantage of people in a similar way. They book in laptops, computers, mobile phones etc for repair with a non-returnable deposit, then return them without even having tried to repair them saying they are unrepairable. Net result, shop makes money on deposit, customer probably throws away a perfectly good phone/laptop/computer that had they taken somewhere reputable would now be repaired at a reasonable price. One shop has told them it's unrepairable, if they don't know better they're not going to waste their time going to another shop!

The difference here is that this relates to electronics and computers rather than the workings of a car. It's still taking advantage of something people do not understand the workings of, it's the same thing. I wouldn't be a victim of such a shop with my computer because I build my own computers, and am reasonably savvy when it comes to installing OS's, drivers, removing viruses etc. That doesn't make it acceptable for them to victimise others!

tomstickland

Yes, I agree. However, the OP should have used some of that week to ask around a bit.

gilbert_and_sullivan

I think we all make an ocassional big mistake car wise, it seems to be your turn MissJ.

Hindsight's a wonderful thing (and some here know exactly what to do after the event, but would be just as lost if they faced similar circumstances)....when faced with an older car facing a huge bill and a decision to make it's a horrible moment and you didn't have the benefit of time to think and weight your options

it's possible someone took advantage of you....even if they did it's a small loss in the grand scheme of things, you could have been talked into fitting a recon/new engine at huge cost and that may well have been a bigger mistake.

It might be worth speaking to the proprieter of the garage concerned and explain your feelings....the reply if any will tell you whether you need to find a new garage.

mark5

I've made a few big car mistakes "G&S"!