Topic: Car Repairs

[ober]

So... now what?

[charlie]

So after stewing all day, my wife decided she was going to call them and ask if they could somehow drop the lady who put down the deposit and let us buy it for $4000 instead.

So she called, and when the neighbor called back she explained that she had just crashed the car, scraping it against a parked UPS truck. The lady who was going to buy it was coming by to get her deposit back. We walked over and saw the scrape, and while it wasn't pretty, it wasn't horrible and wasn't super noticeable. So we told her to not put the car back up for sale, and that we would buy it. Woo hoo!

They had insurance, but they were leaving the country this week and the place their insurance works with needed 2 weeks to do the repairs. So we thought maybe they could just get the cash for the repair work and knock down our price by that much. That would have been awesome, but they have a clause in their contract prohibiting it. So we just had to figure out how much to knock the price down for the scrape. The estimate was $1800, but I don't think they wanted to sell the car for $2200. So we were in kind of a pickle.

Meanwhile, we took the car to our mechanic to see if there was anything bad about the car. The neighbors said they just spent $3000 on repairs and maintenance before selling it so we were hoping nothing important needed to be done. We found a mechanic we trust a couple years ago, so we wanted to know what he had to say.

He took a thorough look at it and... he said there was about $3015 more work that needed to be done. Son of a fucker. He said he could see they did get work done, but they replaced the catalytic converter and focused mostly on the front (new front tires and brakes) while the back of the car had issues. It needed new shocks, but shocks for this car are hard to find and are expensive. It also needed new rear brakes, a new battery, new spark plugs (which are hard to get at so they cost a lot in labor) and a differential leak fix. Fuck me.

[ober]

Holy shit.  So... you're looking at other used cars?

[KnuckleBuckett]

Just my opinion, but never purchase a vehicle from anyone who had no interest in maintaining it.  Screw that noise.  For example would you buy a car from you?

-not trying to sound like a tool-

Find a reputable used car dealer that will let you drive the vehicles you are interested over a weekend.

BTW a new catalytic converter on a vehicle that young seems a bit odd.

[charlie]

Just my opinion, but never purchase a vehicle from anyone who had no interest in maintaining it.  Screw that noise.  For example would you buy a car from you?

-not trying to sound like a tool-

Find a reputable used car dealer that will let you drive the vehicles you are interested over a weekend.

BTW a new catalytic converter on a vehicle that young seems a bit odd.

I don't get the feeling they had no interest in maintaining it, I think they just had a mechanic that did shoddy work, and perhaps said that the repairs my mechanic found weren't necessary.

But you're right, I wouldn't want somebody to buy my Kia off us (we maintain our main car, a Jetta, much better). That said, at the right price it's worth it for us to upgrade. The savings we get from going to our neighbor rather than a dealer are huge, and are the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford a car.

These neighbors were good people, they let us use the car all week while we decided and waited for the insurance stuff to be worked out. The real question was whether the car would be worth the investment. Will it require $1000 in repairs every year or $5000?

We're mostly looking for something to last 3-4 years and the fact that it's nice and has added benefits (AWD, leather, room for 6, extra cargo space, etc) just adds to the allure.

[charlie]

Holy shit.  So... you're looking at other used cars?

So now we had to figure out what to do. We had made it clear we wanted to buy the car and had said we'd do it at $4000 before the scrape, but now with all the repairs we wanted to do (at least $2000 worth right away) we didn't have the money to do both. We could knock down the price because of the scrape, but then the neighbors thought they could get that fixed in time after all. We didn't want the scrape fixed, though, since we wanted the car now and since we would rather put that money towards the repairs.

I felt bad because now I didn't want the car at $4000, but our poor neighbors were screwed if we didn't buy it because they were leaving and they went a week without trying to sell it.

Eventually my wife and I decided to offer $3000. So I did. I talked to the husband and he didn't look happy at first, but he said he'd check with his wife. So he did and later came over and said she just wanted to get rid of it so she was happy with $3000. So that's what we did and now we have a new to us car for $3000, with some more money due on repairs and stuff soon.

All's well that ends well I guess. I'm happy. I know it's a risk, but the status quo was a big risk too and I think we got a better deal than we would have in most circumstances.

[Jake]

Congratulations!