Since this is an old car with a ton of miles on it, I'm not going to be protected by lemon laws.
What I've got here is evidence of fraud, but fraud is relatively unlikely to be prosecuted and also fuck the police. So that puts me solidly in the realm of a lawsuit and the numbers involved are small enough that we're talking small claims court.
And it's not like I can sue him for the cost of a $7k car, I bought a $2500 car with the awareness that it was a $2500 car, to be made whole in this situation I either need him to refund the sale and take back the car, or to pay for the costs that I reasonably expected to be covered by that $2500 that weren't.
I also can't dump $7k into it and sue him for that, now that I know what's up with the car I can choose to ask him to refund it and take it back, or keep it and ask him to refund the difference between what the car is worth and what I paid. And if I ask nicely and he doesn't do that I can sue. (I think technically I don't have to ask but personally I think it might be easier to ask and threaten suit and see what happens than it would be to have to actually go to court and collect)
For anyone who isn't familiar, the Craigslist listing for this car is screenshotted in my pinned post, but I'm going to go over the things he lied about in the listing point by point.
Registered until May 2026
He said that the car had belonged to a family member, and that he had owned it for the last four years, that it was well maintained, that he knew the creaking sound was shocks and he decided to sell the car instead of having them done, and that the car had a dealer plate because he had his personalized plates transferred, which is also why he didn't have the title but that he would give me the dealer paperwork.
I drove the car for about a mile, large bastard and I did a brief visual inspection, I filled out the bill of sale while large bastard zelled the money and the seller didn't give us the 'dealer' paperwork to look over until after the money was transferred.
That is where I screwed up, taking it at face value that there was an uncomplicated reason for the paperwork being weird and not insisting on looking at it first.
Now, let's go over the issues with the car and the things I'm going to have to pay for to make it kind-of match the listing and his description in person:
Front axles need to be replaced
Car was not registered and fees mean that it will cost about $500 to get legal
It was also purchased from an impound auction (meaning it didn't come from his uncle and he didn't know the maintenence history) and it's a 2005 with 200k on the odometer and a 3.0L engine.
But here's the thing - some of that is stuff that I can't sue for (the 9k extra miles on the clock, I saw that, accepted that, and verified that as part of the sale) or wouldn't be unreasonable as part of buying a $2500 car.
The way I'm looking at this is "what are the things that an average car-literate person would miss if they owned a car for four years?" versus "What are things that were lied about?"
The oil leaks are pretty minor, the power steering pump isn't something that most people notice until it goes out, and a ton of car owners have no idea what size their engine is. Those are all things that are pretty easy for the average car owner to get wrong or not notice (ditto the differential oil and the brake fluid I've discussed elsewhere - most people have no idea what the service schedules are like for those). Even though the leaks and the power steering pump may be the most expensive potential fixes, they're also the kind of risk you assume when you buy an old car and are the kind of things you see on well maintained older cars that run well. That kind of fix is what I anticipated when I saw the listing.
The things that are surprising, were directly lied about, and were *not* factored into my decision to buy the car are:
Two year's worth of registration fees and a smog check (listing said that registration was good until 2026)
The pain in the ass with the title, for which I'm going to miss a day of work (listing said clean title, seller lied about the paperwork he was giving us)
Axles need replacing (when we asked about the audible creaking, he said he knew it was shocks - if he had said 'i don't know what that is' or 'yeah the front axles are bad' I wouldn't have bought the car, but since he claimed he'd been driving it for four years and knew it was shocks, I accepted that as reasonable maintenance on an old car)
Prior ownership status (the unknown history of an impound auction car makes it a no-go compared to a 2-owner car that was held by one family for 20 years)
I could honestly even see the axles as a "pay your money take your chances, people don't know cars" thing when buying an older car except he said that his mechanic had said it was shocks.
I would like everyone to note that at least 2 of these issues (title status and history) could have *theoretically* been avoided if I had run a carfax report or similar on the vin, though I'm actually impressed with his lie about the license plates. The vehicle history report DOES show only one owner until July of this year, which makes sense both as an uncle selling a car to a nephew without bothering to do a title transfer until replacement plates were requested, and as a car from a single owner that got impounded and auctioned and resold by a liar.
I'm currently torn. I've spent a couple hundred dollars on the car (aside from what I paid the seller) but there's no sense in throwing good money after bad, so it's possible that I'd be better off trying to revert the sale. On the other hand, this seems recoverable with some work that I'm capable of doing and I don't dislike the car but I wouldn't have bought it if I knew the history.
I guess I'll know more when I figure out what code the engine is throwing.
I'm also searching this guy and his girlfriend's number on Craigslist twice a day because if they did this to me, they're doing this to other people who probably can't afford to take this hit as much as i can and who might not be able to fix the fraudulent vehicles at costs as low as I can.
So at the moment I'm considering texting something like "hey so you're a piece of shit but if you send me back $1200 to fix this hunk of junk and get it registered I won't sue you" but before I do that I need to verify his address, employer, and mom's house.
I think $1200 is a reasonable ask ($300 for axles, $500 in fees and smog check, $400 for the fact that this was an impound a year older than he sold it as) but if I actually have to file paperwork he can have the car and I want my money.
The lesson here is, once again, never buy a car from someone who does not have the title physically in their hand and passes it to you signed before you transfer funds.
Also do a vin search. There are free services out there. If I had even asked about a vin search this guy would have ghosted me.
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