Another unhappy buyer - private sale

captainawsome

Thanks for all the great help as usual. He's mentioned me giving him his money back for the car if I won't do anything else, but I will just have to stand firm and tell him it's not my problem unfortunately. Thanks again

wiltsguy_2

this seems to be becoming more common as of late. Private buyers wanting dealership warranties....whats next? they will want PCP deals where they can hand the car back after 2 years for a set figure!!

If he has sought advice he would have been told, be nice to the seller and appeal to your good nature as he has no chance.

Clive_Woody

captainawsome wrote: »

Thanks for all the great help as usual. He's mentioned me giving him his money back for the car if I won't do anything else, but I will just have to stand firm and tell him it's not my problem unfortunately. Thanks again

Suggest he contact your employer if he has repair needs as I am sure they would be happy to provide him with a quote to repair HIS car.

yenool

TBH from my experience of buying cars (I seem to be a lemon magnet..) I don't think most dealers would even offer to rectify this kind of fault described on a 130k miles 10 year old car sold for £3200. It all sounds very much wear and tear due, if he wanted a new car he should have bought one.

He haggled a discount and my guess is also this car would have cost more money if buying from a dealer too. As long as the car was roadworthy at the point of sale I don't think you have done anything wrong.

I would feel no obligation to repair the car. If he was a close friend I would offer to help for the sake of the friendship... but not for a 'friend of a friend' acquaintance. Buyer beware.

Legally I doubt he has any rights - unless OP is really a trader on the side?

captainawsome

yenool wrote: »

TBH from my experience of buying cars (I seem to be a lemon magnet..) I don't think most dealers would even offer to rectify this kind of fault described on a 130k miles 10 year old car sold for £3200. It all sounds very much wear and tear due, if he wanted a new car he should have bought one.

He haggled a discount and my guess is also this car would have cost more money if buying from a dealer too. As long as the car was roadworthy at the point of sale I don't think you have done anything wrong.

I would feel no obligation to repair the car. If he was a close friend I would offer to help for the sake of the friendship... but not for a 'friend of a friend' acquaintance. Buyer beware.

Legally I doubt he has any rights - unless OP is really a trader on the side?

Certainly not a trader I can assure you. My heart couldn't take dealing with this crap everyday. Thanks for your input

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

yenool wrote: »

Legally I doubt he has any rights - unless OP is really a trader on the side?

Yep, the ambiguous bit is where he was doing a lot of travelling to look at cars to buy - assuming this was for his company not himself. If he is selling several cars a year he has wandered over into trader territory and has acquired responsibilities even if in his mind this was his car not one of his fixer-uppers.

captainawsome

IanMSpencer wrote: »

Yep, the ambiguous bit is where he was doing a lot of travelling to look at cars to buy - assuming this was for his company not himself. If he is selling several cars a year he has wandered over into trader territory and has acquired responsibilities even if in his mind this was his car not one of his fixer-uppers.

The cars I was looking at where to be my next private car, also registered in my name an bought with money through my bank.

Just to be clear on exactly what it is I do....I am a mechanic (or trchnician as were now called) in a dealer. I have very little contact at all with customers face to face unless I am on road test with them (rarely). I work in a single place and do not travel about to work, I also have absolutely no connection, or interest, in buying and selling cars or cars sales from my place of work. I don't do foreigners or work outside for myself in any way, it's not worth my job and I consider my free time valuable. I know a lot of mechanics buy and sell on the side to make extra money, but this isn't me

Joe_Horner

Knowing your posting history on here, and coming to the conclusion long ago that you're one of the straight ones who don't come here to BS, I'd agree with the advice that it was private sale and he can jog on.

But, just to counter-balance that because a blanket "private sale" verdict on here can be dangerous:

Be aware that if he decides to get all legal about it then you may have to go the extra mile to convince a court that it was private. You hadn't owned the car all that long, you're a mechanic in a dealership by trade, and (as you point out yourself) a lot of guys in that situation do a little light trading on the side - often by repeatedly buying and selling "their own cars" at a profit.

That doesn't mean cave in, or even offer him a breadcrumb of "help", but it does mean be ready to defend your position if needed.

forgotmyname

Could the buyer convince a court that you are a trader and knew the car had the faults mentioned? Normally i would have said tell them to sod off but a few second thoughts on this one.

To me it would be a hard decision, your a mechanic, done some long trips and noticed it required the oil topping up, only owned the car since March.

Did you tell them it used a fair bit of oil? Where did you purchase the car?
Did you know about the driveshaft knocking and did you mention it?
Tyre pressure light is a non issue? depends what the fault is, if its the controller then it coult cost quite a bit to put right.

As mentioned you need to be careful, they may have a chance of convincing them that you knew of the cars faults and doubt on whether your a trader or not.

Another forum i use there is a guy in heaps of excrement. He was a bit of a trader and repaired cars for club members and bought and sold some also.
A non club member joined asking for advice on a dodgy car they bought and stumbled on his username and posts of buying/selling and traced through to previous posts of the previous owner and the issues he had.
Some of which this guy fixed and some of which were bodged and hidden.

captainawsome

The car never used that much oil when I had it, not even close. a couple of hundred ML I would top up max. And that was every 3-4weeks doing anywhere between 100-250 miles per week.

I bought the car off eBay, private sale again. The only reason for me selling is because it's heavy on fuel and the seats hurt my back (sounds stupid but try living with it, it soon becomes very tiresome)

Was not aware of any driveshaft knocking, nor was he after road testing it, I'm still non the wiser on that one.

The tyre pressure warning, is most likely to be a puncture or a deflated tyre for some reason. If it does end up being a control unit, how could that possibly be something I could predict?

The last car I had before that one I had for 6 years, had no intention to change but it was written off beyond repair. I did intend to keep this one long term but it was too uncomfortable so bought a newer version of my old car. The way I look at things is, it would be very hard to prove I'm a trader because im not a trader. It's not like I have something to hide and am covering my steps.

What happened to the guy off the other forum?