Chasing a "private" seller after a car breaks

To me the ad reads like the car was breaker being offered complete, seen little recent use with dodgy rear tyres and a short MOT. You're in Newcastle and the car was in Kent and you expected it to drive home?

I don't know how you even managed to read the advert. I got three lines in.

I don't want to be 'that guy' but if the car was nowhere near as described, why not just cut your losses and walk away? You were quite within your rights if the car wasn't what he was saying it was and as it was a private sale anyway there was no obligation to buy. In this case I would have to side with the seller (not in terms of threats etc) as the car was sold as seen and he wasn't lying when he said the gearbox was working as you managed to drive away in it. I think it this case it's just bad luck or a dose of the rose tinted specs at the time of buying.

Yeh i think cut your losses but give him a good slagging on fiat forums . If hes trading under all those different names , has bad feedback etc , i think hes one of those people thats knows exactely what there doing - for all you know he may have bodged that box so it would work for a bit .
I think its happened to all of us at one point [ or in my case all the time - the rotten golf gti - the smoking cossie - the st focus with oval wheels !!] . Chin up .

In a private sale, it is the buyers responsibility to make sure the car is roadworthy and as described. It wasnt and you bought it anyway, so you have no case at all really.
One of those deals where you should have turned away and got the train home again. I have been there myself over a car with a crunchy gearbox, bought it anyway and it turned out OK-ish, getting me home and crunching away for another 10k miles I owned it for but obviously I got no recourse from the seller.

I'm assuming the gearbox was OK for the first few miles? If so, it's kinda hard to see how the seller would have known it was about to fail. I bought a car recently, where the gearbox also went, but a) I knew the seller had no clue and would have told me, if he had. b) Old cars break, so it was my problem.

However, you could write something like this.....

Dear traveller Mc Fiat-breaker,

As you know, I recently bought a Panda from you and its gearbox failed after just 30 miles. As you can imagine, I am more than a little disappointed and whilst I know you are not responsible, please can I ask you consider a partial refund to help me afford the repairs it now needs? I ask this merely as a gesture of goodwill, as I have spent £1200 in total, have a car I cannot use and no money to repair it. I know old cars have there problems but I hope you can put yourself in my position.

Kind regards etc etc


You could take him to small claims, but it'll cost you more time and more money. Plus, as has already been said, you'll still be lucky to see any money come back to you. I won a County Court judgement and the ''payment plan'' the courts allowed them would take nearly 8 years to pay off!

Good luck with it all fella. Personally I would try my letter and if it that fails, chalk it up to experience. We all get burnt from time to time. I bought a pair of 323i with valuable parts and brought them down to London from Scotland, at quite some expense. When they arrived they were rotten 5hitboxes with no decent parts in sight. You pays your money and takes your chances.

Harsh but true.

As a buyer just about every older car i've bought i've found extra stuff wrong or stuff has gone wrong after buying, just the way it is, i've just got on with it and fixed it, luckily i've not cleaned myself out buying an older car and left myself with nothing in reserve to fix it.

But as a seller

Sold a clean solid MK2 Granada 2.8 Ghia X about seven years ago, was a bargain at £600 with nearly a years MOT, old ba*ta*d who bought said he'd it took it to VOSA for an inspection, who the hell does that with a £600 25 year old car ?

Claimed the car was unsafe (despite having no problems driving it from Glasgow to Manchester), then got onto the garage that did the MOT and accused them of being dodgy and to expect a visit from VOSA, the "visit" never happened so it was all bluster but the garage owner gave me sh*t over it.

Seriously left me wishing i'd sold the car to a banger racer (i had had offers but decided it would have been a shame)

You win some, you lose some.

I bought an 1800 Cav off a guy on here in 2010, lasted all of four weeks before running its big-ends one afternoon on the M5. No biggie, didn't make a fuss about it, just cashed the tax in and sent the rest over the bridge. The white Xantia I also bought off here afterwards for half as much lasted almost 18 months with nay a spanner laid on it before it died. When buying a snotter, set yourself a limit of the equivalent of a week's wages, use 'em till they die and throw 'em away.

In the last ten years I bet I've only really spent about £2k on dailies, and got probably half that back when I've sold or scrapped them. Which leaves more money to play with interesting old shoooooite. Or guitars, in my case.

Sounds like the time I drove all the way to Newcastle from Glasgow to buy a Porsche 924 that was described as excellent only to find when I got there it was badly hand painted and lying in bits with the front wheels off and the dash board out. Remember that Mr Panda?

Should have done what I did on that occasion and walked away if the car wasnt as described or seemed dodgy. I didnt ask you for my petrol money or to reimburse me for a wasted day so you cant really ask him to refund you on a car that you inspected then drove away.

Dave.