Private car sale woes - 3 year update - car driven with no MOT

[SixTwoSix]

18/02/20 - Thread necro, go to post 96 if you've not read all this before

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/posts/33362552/

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Sorry for the wall of text but unsure what to do.

We sold my wife's car to a friend/colleague at work a few weeks ago. She works in my office and had overheard a month or so prior that we'd be selling her car before my wife had her baby.

I mentioned it again to her at work, mentioned a price we'd be willing to accept due to convenience of not having to list on autotrader and that we've known each other so long through work. So two weeks ago, the ladies own car has a catastrophic breakdown in the morning, in the afternoon we get a knock at the door and she came over with her boyfriend, they look around our car, test drive it, we have a chat and they go home. I get a message a few hours later saying they will take the car.

Next day they come to get the car. They commented that there was a weird whine from the engine, we said we'd noticed it too, it's been present since we bought the car in October 2015, the dealer we bought it from said it was because it's chain driven. I'm not mechanically minded so took his word for it. Her boyfriend said that sounded right and the sound would probably go away when it warmed up, the lady said her mums car was the same. The sound has been there constantly since we've had it, it's been through two MOT's and two jobs in our regular garage and never been commented on.

A few days after she bought it, she asked me for a receipt for the car, don't think twice about it, print a template up from the AA website and give it to her.

Fast forward to yesterday, she comes to me at work, says it's been inspected at a dealership and they've advised the noise present is possibly the gearbox input bearing. She says what do I want to do, give her a refund and take the car back or pay for the repair. Dealership has told her worst case, it could be a 1000 pound job. I'm shocked, unsure what to say, honestly didn't know it was a major problem. She said she's also got a witness statement from someone at work stating my wife knew about the noise and wanted the car sold before it became a problem. (my wife and I work in the same company). Speak to my wife, she said someone moaned about her whining fanbelt a few weeks before, something we had fixed before we sold the car. Definite case of crossed wires here.

So just had a letter through the door from her, along with the dealer report from yesterday. The letter basically states what i've just said, quotes sale of goods act that she's within her 14 days and the vehicle is unfit for purpose. She's given us 14 days to respond in writing or she will take legal action.

Part of me wants to be stubborn, we were honest about the car, i'm sorry for her that it turns out there is a bigger issue but had we known about it, we would never have sold it. Also if the car wasn't safe, I wouldn't have been or even letting my pregnant wife drive it. Additionally if I knew there was an issue, why would I sell it to someone I see daily in my own office at work but i'm getting off point.

The other part of me that considers her a friend wonders if I should be flexible here, try and meet her in the middle somehow, pay something towards the repair. Trouble is we used the money from the car to pay our council tax bill and don't have any spare cash, would genuinely struggle to help her.

So, don't know what to do, guess I should be getting legal advice, just wondered if anyone here has been through anything similar before I progress this on Monday.

tl;dr...sold a car, had a problem we didn't know about, buyer wants money back and return of the car.

 

[Demon]

If the noise was present when they saw the car, then tough, sold as seen is sold as seen and as long as the car is as advertised, which it obviously was then AFAIK there is no come back. .

Or has the SOGA changed to include private sales. ?

 

[SixTwoSix]

If the noise was present when they saw the car, then tough, sold as seen is sold as seen and as long as the car is as advertised, which it obviously was then AFAIK there is no come back. .

Or has the SOGA changed to include private sales. ?

The noise has been present since we bought the car, took the dealer at his word that it was from the chain-cam engine when we got it. With the exception of an ABS ring being replaced at the last MOT and the fanbelt a month ago, it's been excellent. We'd only sold it as with a baby on the way and her wages plummeting, we needed to share a car. I sold my car, she sold hers and we got a practical car.

 

[On Holiday]

Like you say it's been fine for X amount of time.

A dealership has said it's possibly X which is a £1000 job. Guarantee you can at least half that at an independent garage.

The problem with "sold as seen" is somebody has told the buyer that your wife "wants rid before it goes pop" essentially, that doesn't look good and they can have comeback on you. I would clear up the confusion here and tell the seller that it is crossed wires and that wasn't what was meant.

Personally..
I'd tell them they can live with it; if it goes wrong and does transpire to be a pre-existing problem characterised by the noise then you'll offer to help them out (to shut them up).

Just to confirm: It's not a problem, it still drives fine, right? Just that the dealership think the noise is X?

 

[SixTwoSix]

Like you say it's been fine for X amount of time.

A dealership has said it's possibly X which is a £1000 job. Guarantee you can at least half that at an independent garage.

The problem with "sold as seen" is somebody has told the buyer that your wife "wants rid before it goes pop" essentially, that doesn't look good and they can have comeback on you. I would clear up the confusion here and tell the seller that it is crossed wires and that wasn't what was meant.

Personally..
I'd tell them they can live with it; if it goes wrong and does transpire to be a pre-existing problem characterised by the noise then you'll offer to help them out (to shut them up).

Just to confirm: It's not a problem, it still drives fine, right? Just that the dealership think the noise is X?

We've had it for about 18 months with a minor ABS and fanbelt issue.

The actual description of the problem is "Gearbox bearing noise present suspect input bearing but will require stripping to confirm", the buyer has taken this to mean it's unsafe and can't be driven. I don't know if this is true or not.

As for the comments in the office, it was a running joke about her screeching fanbelt for a few weeks as it squealed down the car park in the morning. We had this fixed before we sold the car.

 

[Participant]

Tell her the consumer rights act doesn't apply and it was sold as seen.

This is why I never sell expensive things to people I know.

 

[SixTwoSix]

Tell her the consumer rights act doesn't apply and it was sold as seen.

This is why I never sell expensive things to people I know.

Felt like the easier option to sell to her and also like we were doing her a favour at the same time.

 

[MissChief]

A difficult one as I'm assuming you'd like to keep things civil, being that you work with her. If it was a standard private sale to someone you don't know I'd be telling them to jog on.

Take the car to a reputable independent mechanic? Does the noise increase or change with engine revs or speed? If you pop the clutch at speed so the engine speed drops to idle does the noise stay the same or drop?

 

[chaparral]

says it's been inspected at a dealership and they've advised the noise present is possibly the gearbox input bearing.

What car is it ?

I remember replacing the gearbox input bearing over 20 years ago on one my MK2 XR2 and my 85 S1 RS turbo escort and another FWD ford my parents owned but i can't remember which one ,
The 80's fwd ford gearboxes where bad back then for there gearbox input bearings failing..

 

[Participant]

A difficult one as I'm assuming you'd like to keep things civil, being that you work with her.

'Keep things civil' like sending OP a letter threatening legal action?

 

[Gaygle]

'Keep things civil' like sending OP a letter threatening legal action?

Yeah I agree, it seems like she has already gone all out with threatening legal action - I'd say that "friendly" and "civil" went out of the window when the buyer started quoting laws and talking about witness statements. No matter how this turns out, you and the buyer aren't going to be friends anymore.

The one thing you haven't mentioned is what the car was, it's mileage, condition etc and how much it was sold for. This is very important as if it was a £300 1989 Honda Civic with 200k miles on the clock, then it's different to it being a £30,000 BMW 5 Series with 20k miles.

The other issue here is that the buyer *knew* about the whine before she purchased the car, so how can she come back and tell you that she wants you to buy the car back off her or pay for the repair to her car? Provided you haven't mislead her and have been as honest and truthful as possible, then she can quote the Sales of Goods Act (lol this obviously is not applicable at all) to you until the cows come home. The moment money changed hands, you have no further responsibility or obligations towards that car or the buyer, unless you have purposefully mislead her.

 

[Jamauk]

It was a private sale, sold as seen. The 'fault' was identified when they bought it and accepted what you said in regards to it. I doubt anything could come of the witness statement, if you also sold your car to get something practical saying that it was sold because of imminent failure wouldn't stand up at all. If they had it checked at a dealership they obviously had doubts that they should have had checked upon purchase in way of an AA/RAC check type thing. I wouldn't even consider being civil, just ignore the person at work, being civil went out upon threats of legal action.

 

[Hades]

Sale of Goods Act does not cover private sales. If she wanted comeback then she should have bought from a dealer and paid dealer prices. She could expect recompense if the car was misrepresented. But she inspected the car and was aware of the whine before sale. So the car was not misrepresented. The tricky part is proving that. But the onus is on her to prove you misrepresented it.

Depending on whether you what to keep things civil at work you might want to just offer to take it back and resell it. But escalating immediately to threatening letters would annoy me enough to probably tell her to jump.

 

[Rilot]

What car and how much did you sell it for?

 

[Iamzod]

Ignore the letter, she doesn't know what she is doing as the Sale of Goods Act was replaced by the consumer rights act a couple of years ago and this is a private sale meaning neither would apply any way.

She is just trying it on.

 

[Jamauk]

As I said before just ignore the threats, etc. The only thing to remember though is to keep things civil in work (as in just another co-worker) as from what you've said of her, her next port of call would be trying a conduct issue in work for some sort of revenge.

BTW, does she have a letterbox!?

 

[MichaelAwkward]

Make a complaint to HR about her for threatening legal action with absolutely no basis - essentially a guilt trip.

She needs a reality check.

 

[kaku]

Threats of legal action, witness statement...

Maybe a bit of buyer's remorse or somebody got in their head about it, but it sounds like they've gone completely overboard. IMO it's tough, but you may as well stick to your guns at this point. If they've gone in this hard over some perceived issue I'd imagine that they'd still see it as "that bloke who tried to palm a dodgy car off on me" even if they were to get their money back.

As others have said, depends a bit on the car/value - still an unfortunate situation to be in.

 

[dacads]

Sounds like you were honest so it's hard luck for them unfortunately.

 

[Skillmister]

Can't believe she went all legal on a work colleague, as if that would ever end well.

Tell her to do one. Also make notes of what was said abut the noise when they inspected etc on the off chance she does try and take it further. But it will cost her more in legal fees than the car will be worth assuming it's sub 5k ish