Selling Car With Fault

spacey2012

Thats the rules of private sales at car auctions.
On the header of this site it says :
MONEY SAVING EXPERT :

You could ask them to change it to Morals saving Expert if you wish.

Th OP came here wanting to "Save Money" and looking for advice on how to re-coup some investment on a faulty car.
Entering it in to a private sale at a car auction where it is "Sold as seen" and no declarations are requested is one way to do this.
If someone buys it without inspecting, well that is the auction rules.
Morals and Money rarely connect together well.

scotsbob

spacey2012 wrote: »

Thats the rules of private sales at car auctions.
On the header of this site it says :
MONEY SAVING EXPERT :

You could ask them to change it to Morals saving Expert if you wish.

Since when did the desire to save money and morality become mutually exclusive?

motorguy

Stoke wrote: »

Just say it's had a head gasket failure. Plenty of people will still be interested.

No. Definitely not.

It could be a cracked head, which would be a lot more expensive to repair. You could have someone on the phone giving you ear ache and demanding money back.

Describe the symptoms, but definitely dont give a diagnosis. Let them draw their own conclusions.

cyberem78

Thanks for all the advice - the car is a Vauxhall Corsa and the coolant is disappearing from the jug with no signs of it leaking out anywhere. Engine shudders on start-up sometimes and also a strange slurping noise when accelerating. I just assumed it must be the head gasket as everything else looks normal.

Stoke

Alternatively, you could snake oil fix it, and then say in your advert "I've fixed it using a product" and it's working. Cars with snake oil fixed head gaskets can last, they can also fail.

fivetide

cyberem78 wrote: »

Thanks for all the advice - the car is a Vauxhall Corsa and the coolant is disappearing from the jug with no signs of it leaking out anywhere. Engine shudders on start-up sometimes and also a strange slurping noise when accelerating. I just assumed it must be the head gasket as everything else looks normal.

No mayo under the oil filler cap?

As above though list it spares or repairs and simply say it is LOSING coolant (not loosing) and then you haven't tried to diagnose it and no one can get annoyed at you for saying it was one thing when it turns out to be something else.

Either a DIYer will pick it up or a mechanic will take a punt on fixing it up and selling on at a profit.

Make sure you put up plenty of pics of inside/outside if it is in good nick.

Gavin83

cyberem78 wrote: »

Thanks for all the advice - the car is a Vauxhall Corsa and the coolant is disappearing from the jug with no signs of it leaking out anywhere. Engine shudders on start-up sometimes and also a strange slurping noise when accelerating. I just assumed it must be the head gasket as everything else looks normal.

It's probably leaking into the engine then. Is there excess smoke from the exhaust?

cyberem78

I had a mechanic take a quick look over it and there WAS white stuff under the oil cap but he said that it could be 'normal' as some cars were like that cause of condensation - but given the circumstances I don't wholly trust that. There is no smoke from exhaust though.


Thanks for all the suggestions.

vaio

save the moral dilemma (if any) add steel seal and keep the car

spacey2012

The most common head gasket failure is "supping" where it draws water in to the cylinder.
This is also the one most likely to be sealed by something like Steal seal.