Do I have any legal standing here?? (long.. )

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have a question or looking for advice to see if I have any legal standing on this. I know that not everyone has legal expertise and that is fine. Though I am sure many or some of you have gone through what I am currently going through or know someone that has. I recently was in the market for a “new to me car” and was taking my time when it came to looking for what I wanted. I had an idea of what I was looking for but if I didn’t or couldn’t find it, I didn’t see it as the end of the world.

On June 25th I found a car that not only matched what I wanted, but pretty close to where I lived. I called the business and found that it is run by one guy who is the owner. I asked him if he was open. He said that he closed at noon and that “He wasn’t staying open a minute later.” I was kind of put off by that statement but said to my boyfriend, “Fuck’em”. Come Monday, June 27th, (after not being so annoyed with the guy) I went on his website and took a second look at the car. I knew it looked good, but I wanted to make sure that it was a good car. I asked my boyfriend, with him being a mechanic, to drive up there (I was working an hour away) and take a look at the car. Drive it, do his mechanic thing and tell me what he thought.

He drives up there and opens the hood, just about everything is original on it (which wasn’t a surprise), no rust on the car at all (and with living in Maine, that in itself seemed like gold) and takes it for a drive. Runs good. It was a pretty humid day and the temps in the high 80s, he puts the AC on high and drives around the city for a while. No problems on the car. Runs great. I called him from work and tell him that I will take it and had him fax over the buyers order to my credit union. I am working till 5pm, he closes his dealership at 5pm. He begins to give me a hard time about having to wait for me to come up after work. “He closes at 5pm. How is it fair that I have to wait for you!” I’m thinking, seriously?? I have been in customer service for 20 years… this guy sucks at it.

I am able to convince my boss to let me out of work an hour early so that I can drop off my deposit without inconveniencing the dealership owner. I get there an hour later to drop off the deposit. He’s upset because he believed that he was getting the full check. I informed him that the bank was closed and that he would have it tomorrow. I went about my way.

The next day I have the check and I call him to tell him that I will meet him after work. He again states that he closes at 5pm and that I need to be there before that. At this point I have had it with his attitude. I believe, from my boyfriend looking at the car and driving it that it is a very good car. I can deal with this guys selfish behavior long enough to get the car and never deal with him again, but he has hit my breaking point. I said to him, “Kevin! I have a fucking check in your name for 6300 dollars. I am the customer here. I am doing YOU a favor by buying this car from you. If anyone should be inconvenienced by this set up, it should be ME! Not you! So this is what you are going to do. You are going to stay there until 6:30pm until I get there. I am going to give you the check and you are going to give me the keys. Do you understand?!!”

He responses then, “You better be here by 6:30pm.” Click.

So I get the car. I am in heaven. Love the car. Runs smooooth. A little to easy on the gas, which I take a mental note so not to get me in trouble in the future.

Fast forward to Saturday July 9th. The car starts to overheat. Not just a little over heat. Full out, no antifreeze in the car or what left is boiling. Smoke coming out of the hood. I get it home after dumping water in and picking up more antifreeze at the store. My boyfriend looks at it. He replaces the thermostat and the fan switch. He did this because he thought the fans weren’t coming on when the were suppose to. It doesn’t fix it. While the car isn’t overheating (smoke,etc) it is dumping antifreeze underneath the car when it is stopped.

Boyfriend takes a second look. Head Gasket is gone. I’m pissed. All these evens happen so at this point we are at Yesterday where I call the car dealership guy and ask him to pay for the head Gasket kit. It is probably a 200 dollar part. He downright refuses. He doesn’t remember who I am or that fact that I bought a car from him 3 weeks ago. (“Jennifer? Jennifer who? Honda? I didn’t sell a Honda!”) I look back at my paper work. 60 inspection warranty. Do I have any rights here? Customer rights? Lemon law rights? Anything? I could call the Better business bureau, but it seems like they have less pull these days. Attorney General? Or did I just get completely screwed over in this deal?

I know the horrible customer service won’t get me anything. Though would writing bad reviews on craigs list and making a "Don’t buy “here” facebook page, get me into trouble?

Thanks in advance.

2

I am having a really hard time believing you could drive a car without a head gasket from June 27th to July 9th and not notice anything. Frankly, I am not sure a judge or jury will believe it either. it is really an incredible claim.

However, you can make the claim in court that he defrauded you, or will not fulfill his warranty. if you do, without lying, if you can strive to avoid making that fact clear, that it went from June 27th to July 9th, you may get somewhere. Talk it over with a lawyer, most trial lawyers will consult for free.

3

I’m not saying that it didn’t work when I bought it and I have no plans on lying to anyone. I’m a criminal justice major with a long line of police officers with in my family. I also have no intentions of jeopardizing my future or my integrity for this or anything with in my life.

With that being said, my concern or I was inquiring if this would fall under the lemon law? I understand there is a 60 day inspection warranty, but isn’t in some states there is a certain number of days where the dealer has to buy that car back if the buyer has buyer’s remorse? I believe Maine has one, though I don’t know the specifics.

Also, where I do feel completely burned by this guy and just the way I was treated by him, is it within my legal right to write bad things about his business online (CL, Facebook page, etc) without having to worry about slander? It isn’t against him personally, just his business.

If I came across that I am trying defraud him, that is not my intention. I just feel where I have only had the car for 3 weeks or less; there was more protections towards the buyer.

4

Speaking the truth is never slander or libel. But you should be sure you can prove its the truth before you do just in case he does claim a slander. Internet slander has gotten some special treatment, and I do not know what it is.

You need to check the law in your state.

If the car immediately ran poorly and got worse, that is different. Since it ran well when your bf test-drove it and you had some conflict with the guy, perhaps he purposely removed the head gasket. (this is no simple task though, it could take many hours) If he did it on purpose you might collect punitive damages as well.

As I suggested, see a lawyer familiar with the laws in your state. I’m not.

5

No advice but damn that really sucks!

6

By “gone” - do you mean it was literally not there? or that it was there but it was completely ruined?

7

Here’s the Maine used car buyer’s guide, from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. http://www.maine.gov/sos/publications/usedcar.html

Unfortunately, it sounds like you don’t have much legal recourse. No lemon law on used cars in Maine, no 3 day cooling off period. The ‘60 day warranty’ just means the car passed the state inspection within the last 60 days. Dealers aren’t required to give any sort of warranty on a used car.

8

The attitude of the car dealer is pretty amazing in this economy. Used car dealers are dropping like flies in the Southwest.

I have noticed with the very hot temperatures people go off in a flash. My wife and I had words last night, and we never conflict. We were both just aching to let off some steam. We are fine today.

I think you are on the right track going contacting your attorney general about lemon laws in your State. Maybe try the Better Business Bureau. At the very least you will screw him with a complaint, especially if it is not resolved to your satisfaction.

Sorry about your miserable experience.

9

You can certainly leave reviews on sites such as google, yahoo, yelp etc. regarding your experiences. I might not make a “don’t shop here” facebook page. But situations such as this are why review sites exist, to keep other people for having to deal with kind of stuff. I will say though, that if your boyfriend didn’t know the headgasket was busted (I am assuming this is the case, because I don’t see how a car could run “smooth” missing a head gasket, or that your boyfriend would have not noticed it were it completely missing when he originally looked under the hood) it is possible that the dealership guy did not know of the problem either. Did you sign anything stating you were buying the vehicle “as is”? While good customer service would suggest that he might want to pay for the repair, it seems in Maine he is under no obligation to do so. Also, for $200 I am not sure it is worth the trouble of legal action. That really isn’t very much as far as car repairs go.

I say leave an honest review on yelp, google and yahoo! Don’t go there again and be done with it. In regards to your review, I would avoid saying something like, “these guys suck!! don’t buy a car here! Booo! Ripped me off!!! Scam artists!” simply because I personally tend to give that kind of review less weight when deciding whether shop somewhere than an honest “this is what happened to me, take it as you will” review.

10

I meant, gone as in not working. Sorry about that.

At this point, (because I don’t think I have any real legal recourse) I’m just going to let it go. Don’t get me wrong, I will write reviews in as many places as I am allowed so that other people can be aware of what I am going through.

My boyfriend believes it was working when the car was bought. We thought, or I was hoping, that there were some sort of protections for myself where it happened so soon after buying it. I was hoping for the lemon law to kick in or something.

I’m in a good spot. My boyfriend is a mechanic and the part is fairly inexpensive in the world of car parts, so I can get it fixed. I (probably) would have been okay with the owner saying, “I’m sorry. That just isn’t covered.” and was nice about it and seemed like he half halfheartedly cared. Instead I have a non-driveable car with a car payment and the guy that sold it to me (I felt) had the attitude of, “Sucks to be you. I got what I wanted so screw you” mentality.

And this quote is on his webpage… which burns me more.

I hate playing the victim, but after that phone call with him I was so pissed. I thought there had to something out there that could help or protect me. So I will write a few reviews and go about my way hoping that someone else doesn’t have to deal with it.

11

You should probably limit any reviews you write to the head gasket issue and his unwillingness to do anything about it. No offense, but in your OP, right up until the head gasket blew, you sounded kind of unreasonable yourself. He’s a one-man operation, and doesn’t want to stay past his closing time. You have no idea what he’s got planned afterwards. Maybe he’s got to pick up his kids from daycare. Maybe he runs all of his errands right after he locks the door. Hell, maybe he hates working past 5 and started his own business so he could decide on his own how late he would work every day. If he’s satisfied with his lifestyle based on closing at 5, why should he change it for a single potential customer?

12

Used cars in the US are generally sold “as is”. As the buyer, you are required to do all of your due diligence prior to purchasing the car. The wheels and the front end suspension could have fallen off as soon as you pulled out his lot, and it would not be his responsibility. That’s how used cars are sold. Treat it as a lesson learned.

13

Perhaps that is true.

I just figured if a person is trying to sell a car and earn 6K, that they would meet the customer half way. I have been working within the customer service field myself since I was 16 as well as been a consumer. I have never seen customer service that bad.

Though with that being said (where I try to look at the full picture), if his attitude really bothered me from the beginning; I had every opportunity to walk away from it before buying it. His attitude didn’t start at the end. It was there from beginning to end.

Absolutely.

14

Well keep in mind as well, you weren’t asking him to stay an extra 15 minutes. You were asking him to stay at least an hour and a half past quitting time. Depending on how long it takes to fill out paperwork and get things in order it could be up to two hours. I wouldn’t be super thrilled if I had to stay an extra two hours at work, with nothing to do for that first hour and a half. In fact, I would be pretty darned pissed. So while I get where you are coming from, I definitely understand why he was not super thrilled to stick around.

15

I can definitely understand this - however the seller is being an idiot in setting quitting time at 5 PM. I assume that the entire company closes at 5 PM. How does that cater to working people???

If it was just this salesperson insisting on leaving at that time, a) he could arrange for someone else to be there to deal with paperwork, or b) he could just lose the damn sale to someone else.

16

I’d look into a lawsuit against the mechanic you had go over the vehicle prior to purchase.

17

You realize he wasn’t "earning 6K, right? Unless he has some kinda access to free cars.

18

On the off chance you’re serious - on what grounds? Should it be possible to determine that a head gasket is 3 weeks from failing without disassembling the engine?

19

It’s too bad, used car dealers often suck.

Attitude aside though, you’re just going to have to fix it and move on.

20

Nope, I don’t think that the mechanic could predict head gasket failure, but if he has a better shot at it then the dealer.