Sold car. Problem. Buyer wants me to pay for it

iknorr

cancan wrote:

Well, Jap cars have a habit of loosing their service history and 1000's of miles on the ship from the far east. Bless our honest importers.

If a toyota breaks a timing belt 35K before it was supposed to, you can virtually guarentee that the car was clocked.

I would guess for this to happen, 30-50k miles was clocked off that car.

Look on the bright side, he is only looking for timing belt money. Both buyers should have done more homework.

I was shown some document (the one that all jap cars have with the grading on) he showed me some numbers on it after i asked the usual questions etc. I think thats the only info that he had on the car other than giving it the once over while servicing it. It failed the NCt about 3 weeks after i bought it for a small crack in the exhaust. The links were also shot when i got it. Garage covered all the costs. They import large quantities of celicas. I assumed they knew what they were on about and wouldnt risk a belt snapping for the sake of a few man hours and a belt kit, while the engine was still under warrenty.

iknorr

warthog_76 wrote:

when you meeting him? looking forward to getting an update

Right now its my cousin that will meet him cos im out of the country for a few months. Theyr arranging something at the mo but i told him no money is to be exchanged and not to mention Solicitors. in a fone conversation the other day he said he wasnt out to fla me but wouldnt like if i contributed something about 500 euro. I havent ( or my cousin) even seen the car yet

XJR

The car was sold in good faith - his prroblem legally he has no come back.

If he had wanted to be sure about the car then he should have had it checked over by the AA or a mechanic or something - it's his problem, I wouldn't meet him or discuss it any further.

mikemac

I agree with the others. If you pay towards this then you are in effect admitting liability.
What happens in 2-3 weeks if something else goes wrong. You can't consider yourself liable for the one problem but not at liable for anything else.
You'll be getting a call about a puncture no doubt:rolleyes:

If the buyer wanted a dealer warranty then should have paid dealer prices.

Cancel the meeting, pay nothing and say nothing! And if the buyer wants to sue, I doubt any solicitor would take the case or if they did, they would have no hope of winning.

Seth Brundle

iknorr wrote:

Right now its my cousin that will meet him cos im out of the country for a few months. Theyr arranging something at the mo but i told him no money is to be exchanged and not to mention Solicitors. in a fone conversation the other day he said he wasnt out to fla me but wouldnt like if i contributed something about 500 euro. I havent ( or my cousin) even seen the car yet

Why is there an arrangement to meet the buyer. Whats your cousin going to do? Its an unfortunate situation for anyone to be in but you hold no responsibility for it. The buyer should have gotten the car professionally checked (however, timing belts can go at any time so this may still not have been evident).
Where will you draw the line? What happens if the crankshaft breaks in a fortnight? What happens when the car goes next month? What happens when he runs out of windscreen washer fluid?
Do not meet this person (either you or your cousin). Tell the buyer to leave you alone for all the reasons mentioned in this thread.

Henry Ford III

This is getting silly.

unkel

Henry Ford III wrote:

This is getting silly.

Indeed. Are you listening at all to what we are saying, OP?

Even if the car was clocked to bejaysis and should have had its TB changed 100k miles ago, it's not your problem!

iknorr

im agreeing with ye all. **** him at this stage. I got in contact with my solicitor, who weirdly enough dealt with cases like this before.
he basically said did i offer/sign a warrenty when i sold the car. answered no.
I dont have to pay for it. Even so, the randomness of a timing belt snapping can be classed as an "act of god" .
Problem solved. phone call home tonight & tell him PFO