Bad Post-Sale Experience with Org Member... what can I do? - Page 3

BMW_Hatchback · 01-01-2010, 09:20 AM

there are a good bunch of sellers and buyers here. I bought my Ti from a friend's family so I never had an issue with after sale activity. When we test drove my Ti, we learned the thermostat was no good, and I noticed it needed some body work on the passenger side door.

The best thing you can do when buying an aged vehicle, is to the test everything as much as you can, even if it takes more than one day.

Unless you have incriminating evidence, you won't ready the troops and hound dogs here. Don't get me wrong, I am pretty sure you were wronged here, because I'm sure you wouldn't have bought the car if you knew. But at the same time, a thorough investigation should've revealed all of the said problems to you had you not rushed the transaction. Although there isn't much the seller can do right now, the nonchalant attitude you claim he is giving you I do not respect.

MacUser · 01-01-2010, 11:21 PM

While I think it sucks that you were deceived, on the bright side, it sounds like if you sink a few thousand dollars in the car, it'll be a great car. I paid $3500 each for mine, but I've probably sunk over $2000 between the two of them ($800 just for 4 tires), so I've got about $4500 in each of them. Neither are perfect mechanically or aesthetically, but both run well and look good. It stinks that you thought you were getting a better deal than you ended up with, but I think you still could end up with a car worth close to what you put into it.

Really, $2300 for a ti that can be driven home and parked doesn't sound too bad to me. In fact, that's one of the few things I asked both of the sellers ... "Will this car get me home?". I know I'll be sinking more money into them, but it's becoming like a hobby for me. I just put in a new window regulator (check out my blog post), and man, that was actually fun trying to figure it all out. I got a lot of satisfaction fixing it.

You could have spent the $2300 on an old Civic, but some of the problems you've experienced with the ti you'd still have with the Civic. Once you got the Civic all fixed up what would you have? An old Civic, just like all the other Hondas out there. With the 318ti, you've got a great-looking, great-performing, rather unique vehicle.

**Bozola** · 01-02-2010, 02:16 AM

+1

Quote:

Originally Posted by MacUser

While I think it sucks that you were deceived, on the bright side, it sounds like if you sink a few thousand dollars in the car, it'll be a great car. I paid $3500 each for mine, but I've probably sunk over $2000 between the two of them ($800 just for 4 tires), so I've got about $4500 in each of them. Neither are perfect mechanically or aesthetically, but both run well and look good. It stinks that you thought you were getting a better deal than you ended up with, but I think you still could end up with a car worth close to what you put into it.

Really, $2300 for a ti that can be driven home and parked doesn't sound too bad to me. In fact, that's one of the few things I asked both of the sellers ... "Will this car get me home?". I know I'll be sinking more money into them, but it's becoming like a hobby for me. I just put in a new window regulator (check out my blog post), and man, that was actually fun trying to figure it all out. I got a lot of satisfaction fixing it.

You could have spent the $2300 on an old Civic, but some of the problems you've experienced with the ti you'd still have with the Civic. Once you got the Civic all fixed up what would you have? An old Civic, just like all the other Hondas out there. With the 318ti, you've got a great-looking, great-performing, rather unique vehicle.

THAT318 · 01-07-2010, 04:16 PM

cant say i got screwed in buying mine, dad just called me from the auction one day said he bought me a car. started but didnt run. 2 years later i finally decided to spend money in putting it together. $900 for the car, $125 for the drive shaft, $150 for fuel pump (courtesy of my connections at autohaus)$450 in registration, inspections and other misc. things dmv wanted to charge me for, and countless dollars in cigarettes smoked while trying to diagnos problems on my first car. so for about $1500 i have a car, not perfect but runs, does what a car should, while looking different than all other not h/b bimmers.

you bought a bmw for 2300 you better expect problems. dont ever trust the seller of the car, you have what they want and they will tell you whatever they want to get that money from you.

KingLouieII · 01-07-2010, 05:01 PM

Yeah, I agree with Jess on this too. There's no way for the seller to disclose every single detail wrong with the car and the car is 11-15 years old, its bound to have issues down the road. I got my ti two months ago for what I thought was a freakin steal, borrowed it from the guy for the day- was able to drive it on highways, etc. and even had my mechanic put it up. And the car still has things to be fixed that I wasn't aware of back in November.

But there's definitely gotta be something in law books against intentionally deceiving someone thats looking to purchase a car, and can understand the frustration. To the buyer, knowledge is everything

THAT318 · 01-07-2010, 05:05 PM

but knowledge isnt always something you can make use of. you even said you drove it for a day took it on the highways and what not, even had your mechanic look at it, and im sure it had problems neither of you noticed.

Ji Money · 01-12-2010, 04:29 AM

SNOWti,

I got shafted when buying my two ti's and one of them was really my fault, but hang in there man. The transmission problem he had to have known about.

One of my ti's needed immediate attention on the brake pads and all. The one thing he disclosed about the car. Well the wheels had locks on them the seller didn't even mention that fact or even provide me with the key! What an @sshole...

zboot · 01-12-2010, 06:24 AM

$2300 may not sound like a lot to some. To those of us barely scraping by paying $2300 for a car that you've been told is in more or less ok condition and then having to spend almost that amount just to keep it from falling apart is a big deal.

Most sellers can't be expected to disclose everything wrong with the car, but accidents, prior damage to the car, major issues (like the transmission one), are pretty big things that require either idiocy or deliverance to forget to report to a new buyer.

You need to out this seller. Sure, he may no longer be active here, but he could be active somewhere else. 318ti is not the only bmw forum where I'm a member. I belong to 7-8, three of which I'm relatively active and from time to time buy and sell stuff on. I certainly would benefit from knowing who not to give the benefit of the doubt.

I've always accorded forum members who seem to be active at the time of a sale with more trust than I would some guy I'm calling up on CL. Perhaps I shouldn't, but I feel that's part of what makes belonging to a community like this worthwhile, aside from essentially free technical information about my car.

My feeling is to first try and work things out with the guy privately which it seems like you have done. Now I think it's perfectly fair for you to make things public.

**cooljess76** · 01-12-2010, 08:24 AM

but how far should the seller be held responsible? I mean, If you sold someone a car, they test drove it and bought it from you and two days later the engine blows up, should you have to buy the guy a new engine even if it costs more than you received for the car? I'm sorry, I just see things from a sellers standpoint and I wouldn't be willing to give away a free car or take a car back after the buyer broke it. There's no evidence that the seller knowingly sold a car with a bad transmission. He even let the guy test drive it in which it didn't show any signs of problems or if it did, the buyer should have mentioned it and negotiated a lower price or walked away. There's two sides to every story, we're only getting one side here. Everyone here is saying "oh he knew there was a problem before he sold it", but really, how do you know? As far as I'm concerned, you test drove it, you inspected it, you bought it and that's that. It's a used car. While I understand that a tranny goes bad over a long period of time, they all have to break sometime. Usually around 100-150k miles. If you want sympathy, you need to prove that the seller decieved you. You can't just say "he knew". It's not the sellers responsibility to install new brake pads, tires, change the oil and fill the tank with gas. Especially if he's letting the car go for cheap. Why would anyone invest all kinds of money into a car that they're getting ready to sell? If he spent $2000 making the car nice, he'd have to ask $4300 to get what he wanted out of it. Most people aren't willing to do that because it's not worth their time/money, they just want to get rid of the car and move on with their other projects. And again, we're only getting one side of the story here. I bet SNOWti probably didn't even pay the seller's asking price, he probably talked him down a couple hundred bucks.

MacUser · 01-12-2010, 08:43 AM

Did this guy mention any of the problems in the forum?

I'm trying to document everything I do or have done to my ti here on 318ti.org, either in the forums or the blogs. For example, on Saturday evening, my SRS light came, so in total I had three fault lights on after the gauge cluster swap: the Transmission Control Module light (because the donor was an automatic and my manual doesn't have a TCM), the ABS light, and the SRS light. After swapping back the old cluster, the TCM light is off (no bulb in the manual dash), no ABS light (I'm guessing an incompatibility issue or the new cluster has a problem), but SRS light is still on. My ti goes into my mechanic tomorrow to have the fault code read. I'm sure I'll document everything in my blog and I'll tell the future owner to search 318ti for all my posts. Yesterday, I asked about an A/C compressor in a part-out sale. Guess what that means. It means "I have A/C issues". Until you see a repair list in my blog here, I still don't have A/C.

In another post yesterday, I mentioned some parts repainted before I owned it had orange peel, which I'm polishing away. I take lots and lots of photos. There are no photos of this because I couldn't get good shots of it, but it's there for all to see. There are some areas that need some bodywork. I plan to document that also.

When I get around to a cooling system rebuild, I hope to do it myself and have pIctures galore. Anyone who buys a ti from me should be well aware of everything done and when it was done. If it ain't on 318ti.org, I didn't know about it.

**cooljess76** · 01-12-2010, 11:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MacUser

Did this guy mention any of the problems in the forum?

...

Anyone who buys a ti from me should be well aware of everything done and when it was done. If it ain't on 318ti.org, I didn't know about it.

+1 I'm basically doing the same thing as far as documentation, but also keeping receipts and all other physical documentation as well. At this point in my project, it would be easier for me to state the things that I HAVEN'T swapped out because practically every mechanical part has been swapped out. I have tons of paperwork and service slips from the previous owner who purchased the car new and had all of the maintenance/service/recalls/repairs done at the BMW dealership that he bought the car from. However, I do all of my own work, which is why I post my experiences here.

The problem is, not everyone does what we do. Not everyone keeps records, documents or otherwise requests records from previous owners. In this case, the seller seems like me in that he buys and sells cars regularly when the opportunity presents itself. Heck, i search about 4 cities daily for 318ti's, parts and other items of interest. When that ClubSport popped up on the forum for $1500, I jumped on it. I literally called dibs within one minute of the for sale thread being posted because I knew it was a race before the next guy snagged it. I had no intention of keeping it, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to buy it, fix it and turn it around for a very healthy profit. I had no knowledge of the history because the seller wasn't a very active member and didn't disclose much other than the transmission had problems, he had it rebuilt, installed it himself and a few days later it made a popping sound and wouldn't engage. This was his reason for the cheap asking price, he just wanted to get rid of it. So I bought it, towed it home and later found that when he installed it, he failed to use all of the mounting bolts so the tranny was barely bolted to the engine. I thought to myself, "no wonder this thing didn't work, the damn thing was loose and not installed properly." When i took the tranny off, I found the spline on the clutch disc had sheared off, leaving nothing for the tranny's shaft to engage with! So I bought a clutch disc, installed it and reinstalled the tranny correctly. BINGO! The damn thing purred like a kitten! Spent a couple weeks cleaning it up and fixing minor things, but nothing expensive because I knew whatever I spent would take away from my profit. When I sold the car, it was obvious that it needed a paint job. I pointed out that the hood came off of my other Ti because the clubsport's hood was peeling(I even gave the guy the original hood as well). I pointed out that I replaced the oil filter housing gasket/o-rings, I pointed out that the previous owner had the tranny rebuilt and I replaced the clutch. That's all I knew about the car. The buyer test drove the car, looked it over and bought it. If the transmission started giving him problems later down the road, how would that be my fault? I only owned the car for a couple months. I didn't know the history, all I knew was what I did to it and what the previous owner told me. Should I pay to have the tranny rebuilt or replaced? Heck no! I bought that car with the sole purpose of fixing it and making a profit. Just like the guy who sold this car to the OP.

You can't just say that he knew there was a problem therfore he should pay to have it fixed. First of all, you can't prove it and second, he test drove it and bought it. You/we can beat this dead horse into the ground, but the fact still remains that HE HAS NO PROOF OF DECEPTION. And still, nobody has answered my question. How long should a seller, that buys and sells cars to fund his projects, be held reponsible after a sale is made? The guy had 3 Ti's just like me. There's no way that he could've know each and every detail. Maybe the tranny never gave him problems, maybe his wife only drove it and never noticed or reported any problems. Who knows, all I know is there hasn't been one stitch of proof and I've only heard one side of the story.

MacUser · 01-12-2010, 01:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cooljess76

If the transmission started giving him problems later down the road, how would that be my fault?

It depends. How far down the road? If it happens before he gets down to the end of YOUR road, it's your fault. Make sure you live on a short road!

Quote:

Originally Posted by cooljess76

How long should a seller ... be held reponsible after a sale is made?

Until the buyer gets halfway home. Then, it becomes cheaper to tow it home than back to your place. But trust me ... don't sell a ticking time-bomb to your next-door neighbor, because other rules come into play, like the "I'll burn your house down while you sleep" rule.

BUT ... how long does the new owner have a right to be pissed about the deal? Four hours? Four days? Four weeks? Four months? Four years? Nope! The correct answer is FOUR EVER!

Ji Money · 01-12-2010, 05:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SNOWti

Interesting this dudes posts - http://www.318ti.org/forum/showthread.php?t=24527 - bad tranny ti wont sell near 2500... really.

That link doesn't work but that appears to be the evidence of this guy's lie about the transmission that people are doubting he had to know about.

b.u.ti-ful · 01-12-2010, 05:45 PM

I do not read it that way.

Looks to me like he is just giving somebody advice.

Ji Money · 01-12-2010, 05:53 PM

The page finally loaded. So there was an issue but the seller acted as if he knew nothing about it. That's kinda shady in my view.

"the only thing wrong with the car is something electrical with the transmission i don't know how to fix it and i don't have time to go get it fixed."

"some wire that goes to the top of the tranny was riped but fixed now runs good so yea it didnt cost me a fortune... so its still up for sale "

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