TL2ENVY

you will win in the end my friend. And the dealer will wind up sending the car out for auction like they always do with the "trouble" cars. And someone will buy it then export it to a different country for triple the price he paid for it. hang in there brother

Rapid1

28% cyl leakage on one hole isnt necessarily going to cause an extremely poor running rig...maybe it felt like it needed a tune up. the computerized fuel/spark technology those rigs have can compensate pretty well. the issue with the CEL is that the ECU sees incomplete combustion out the exhaust, and will attempt to compensate for the low cylinder. the CEL comes on when the ECU finally sees too many things out of parameter for too long. houd had a fresh set of plugs put in, instead of further diagnosis, so that probably took care of the fouled plug that cylinder probably had and it may have run pretty well for a while, or least until that plug fouls again, but at any rate, long enuff to dump it off on someone. it would be pretty difficult for anyone to tell from a test drive until the cylinder started misfiring or the CEL came on again. and even then, it might have just felt like it needed a tune up, which a dealer would probably expect to do during reconditioning. it's pretty obvious that the when the Toyota dealer took it to the bmw dealer to get the CEL, that did finally come on fixed, that they discovered the real issue and the fact that it was known by Houdaman. there was no way anyone could have known exactly what the fix was going to cost because Houdaman didnt authorize any further diagnosis. but he did know that even just the next step of diagnosis was going to be expensive.

It's good to finally see some posters, that have a clue what the issue is here and see where the responsibility lies. it's really kind of funny, all the people that think the dealer should have known or taken the time to do a more complete inspection. they obviously dont know what goes into putting a number on a trade. sales manager says, "come back tomorrow after we've had a chance to run it thru the shop, and we'll be able to tell you what we can give you for it" hahaha...ya, right.

then, on the other hand, they would be the first to scream bloody murder if they would have happened to be the person that bought that nice X5 with the pretty wheels and found out the CEL was going to be a major repair. but what the hell? just call a lawyer and sue the dealer that sold it to you, right?

subinf

I think that is pretty much what it is going to come down to.

Gauradz67

"Toyota as reported that you have directed his attention to where you wrote "since vehicle is used, sold as is" to the right of your signature. If anything, the inserted words (which have not been intialed from anyone from Toyota to signify acceptance of such condition) is a strong circumstantial evidence that you knew the engine problems and wanted avoid telling Toyota"
---
I think that is some bs cause if writing "as is" means there is something wrong with my car and i don't want to tell you all the used car dealers are worng cause most of the used cars have AS IS sticker on it .

And they should have asked him about the prob. right there and then when they noticed as is written on it, which they did notice it cause according to H-man the salesman told him writing "as is" is not necessary.

Dude that letter is just a threat , they are trying to scare you.

I was in the same kinda situation 6 yrs ago when i bought my 97 eclipse in 2000 from a local ford dealer. When i first saw the car i fell in love with it and bought it very next day. It drove perfect. Everything int he car was perfect. After gettin the car a friend of mine told me about the carfax(carfax was very new at the time, atleast to me it was). So i put in the vin # and find out that the car was invovled in a major accident coupla years ago. The dealer did not mention anything about it. I go back to the dealer and asked him if the car has been in any kinda wreck before and he lied. He said never. I didn't tell him i know about it instead i talked to a lawyer and my lawyer sent them coupla threat letters but the dealer didn't respond. My lawyer later told me i don't have a case. Since the car was runnin fine i thought there is nothin to be done so i didn't do nothing about it .Later on i did run in to some prolems with the turbo in my car but luckily it was covered under the warranty cause car didn't have that many miles on it. Now if i would have really acted on this situation and maybe consulted a better lawyer i might have been able to get some money outta the dealer.
What i am tryin to say is these dealers are very shady. They been through this situations before so they know wut to do but if u think u have a strong case try to talk to a good lawyer. The dealer may or may not sue you. They are probably tryin to scare you. I would say fighting this case would be well worth it then payin that dealer $10,000.

Peace

harminder247

iTrader: (1)

personally, even if i knew something was wrong i wouldnt tell the dealers, its their problem now, like they say once u drive the car off the lot, its not our problem, same wid them once they take over on da car, its not my problem, and since they took it in as a trade in, they shouldve had thier mech. check it out let #$*%& u wrote AS-IS its used,old wat else they want, do they want u to warranty it for a year or some shyt, they dont do that, they put as is so the only difference is that they feeling pain cus there gettin screwed and not you, and everyone whos sayin he knew wat was wrong and shouldve told em, ahhh jus shut it dude cus if u were in his shoes, u wouldnt tell either and dont say yes you would ight cus thas a bunch of bull laterz

svtmike

i thynkn thatz the wrst, &#^ sentince i aaaah evur sseeen

gurneyeagle

WOW!

Words of wisdom!

So well written!

Impeccable spelling, perfect sentence structure, what the schools are turning out today makes me secure in our country's future.

"jus shut it dude cus if u were in his shoes, u wouldnt tell either and dont say yes you would ight cus thas a bunch of bull laterz"." Harminder, you called me out on this one.

I think I've seen the light. What h-man should do is gather his posse of 18, 19 and 20-something legal eagles and storm down to the Toyota dealership and demand the following:

- a secession (that means stop) of all harrassment;
- a refund of the money that they shorted you on the X5 trade in;
- $100K for mental duress incurred (that means they made you sad);
- reparation for all legal fees (that means pay for your lawyer); and
- a promise that they will never rip off anyone again.

Everybody feel better now? Good, because you are going to need your strength for when this comes up the next time you don't disclose a major problem with a vehicle your trading/selling a car.

Learn from history, or repeat it.

JohnDoe2

Caveat Emptor

(Latin for “Buyer Beware”)

gurneyeagle

No, hopefully he won't lose any more than he already has - legal fees, time, headaches, etc.

No one is going to win on this one, except the lawyers, as was previously mentioned.

Mindworm

Best....thread.....ever.

fast-tl

Actually it's "cessation" as in a temporary or final ceasing (as of action) but still a funny post.

A "secession" is what the South did from the North many, many moons ago. It means a formal withdrawal from an organization.

Ah...always an opportunity to learn on these forums!

gurneyeagle

Noted, and I stand corrected sir.

It's hard getting the motor running before 7:00 am sometimes. Just another example that everyone can learn something.

Where's my coffee?

graphicguy

EGGSACTLY (mispelled on purpose)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like automag, I've done my fair share of engine rebuilds with my bracket racing colleagues (don't do that stuff any more, though).

What automag states as far as leak down tests, is right except, (as he states) there are more steps involved (nice description, BTW)

28% leakdown will definitely show up in driveability....immediately. A simple test drive will leave no doubt about something being wrong. The professional assessor, the Toyota dealer, didn't experience that. He's going by what one BMW mechanic (and they aren't immune, by a long shot, to having dolts who don't know what they're doing, workin on/diagnosing cars). The Toyota dealer is being lazy. He's not willing to do a little homework/legwork to find out the real cause of the CEL. He drove the car. It drove right.

Which gets me back to my original point. The BMW mechanic is shooting in the dark. He doesn't know what, if anything, is wrong. All he knows is the CEL light was on. The computer sensors should give him a good idea what's wrong when he reads the codes. There are tons of codes, too. It could be anything from "bad gas" to a clogged fuel filter, to a bad catalytic converter to a bad oxygen sensor, to a fouled plug, etc. Leakdown tests, done by a poor or misinformed mechanic, can be "read" wrong just as easily as interpretted correctly.

CEL is almost always related to some sort of issues with exhaust gasses not being in spec. Why this guy did a leakdown test for that is beyond me. Which gets me to my original point, the BMW mechanic doesn't know what he's doing and stated an incorrect diagnosis (if you want to call it that, since he wants to do a complete engine tear down for an exhaust gas issue). In my experiences, this is typical BMW...."let's do an engine tear down to replace a $2 fuel filter...."

houda had the thing repaired (which was the CEL came on). He rightfully did not have a tear down done, since I'm of the opinion the BMW mechanic doesn't know what he's doing in this instance (stick to oil changes, kid).

In part and parcel to the dealership's reconditioning procedure (which certainly isn't houda's responsibility), the dealer doesn't want to expend any effort to get the vehicle ready for sale. The dealership would rather whine about it and try to strong arm houda for their own mistakes and laziness.

BTW, in the states anyway, there are no warranties implied nor given when someone trades in a used car. The dealer or manufacturer may choose to offer them, but warranties are not required for used cars.

WdnUlik2no

x2

Dealers do the same thing to customers all the time, and when it happens to them, they want their money back and threaten with a lawsuit. Would Toyota give the money/car back if it was the other way around? I think not. Their exact words would be "SOLD AS IS"

Like you said, maybe houdaman should have offered them an extended warranty.

gurneyeagle

Great post, graphic!

The thread is getting splintered though. Two totally separate issues:

1) Has h-man broken any laws?

2) Should he have disclosed the issue with the engine?

On #1, unfortunately, it looks like a court may end up settling this one. Unless the presiding judge is on the Board, we won't know that one for a while, harminder's legal prowess aside.

On #2, more ethical, than legal. Obviously the Board is split on this one. I come down on the side of full disclosure, based on life lessons learned. The younger crowd feels differently; so be it. Many "victims" among that group.

No one has yet to dispute that if he had disclosed the suspected problem, as noted on the BMW repair invoice, I say we wouldn't be having this discussion.

What can't be disputed is that by not disclosing the problem, our hero has brought a whole bunch of headaches down on himself.

Call me a pessimist, but I think h-man decided to dump the X5 after learning there was a potentially expensive repair on the horizon.

03JamesCLS

^^ Right there says it all, and you even stated, Sold as is. I myself got screwed this way when buying a 2000 Honda Prelude from a dealer 3 years ago when the engine completly died on me, leaving me $3-4K out. You know what they said to me, "The car was sold as is, there's nothing we can do about it."

PolishPete

Stealerships have screwed many people. How many stories have you heard about people buying cars and somethings wrong with it that the dealer didn't disclose? And they are out of luck because they signed on the line, so why shouldn't this go the other way? So doesn't it make sense that the stealerships had at lease one bad transaction agains them coming. I think they can afford one mistake. My cousin worked for a dealership and used to laugh at all the bad deals they gave...those car people...not cool.

Andrea25

yeah, that 2 weeks later thing...

that's total garbage....now if it was 2 or 3 days after they took possession of the x5...that might change my opinion a little bit..

but c'mon...2 weeks later?!?!

gurneyeagle

I agree with you on that point, except for one tiny thing that separates this case (it's going to be one in court) - the service report from the BMW dealer. It proves prior knowledge of the problem. It also indicates that not only was the problem not solved, it wasn't even really diagnosed. They recommended something be done, and apparently h-man didn't follow through with BMW or another mechanic.

That's where our hero's problems lie (no pun intended).

Everyone has their opinion on what's right, what's fair, and how they would conduct themselves if given similar circumstances. You make choices based on your life's history. What a lot of people don't realize/accept is that there are consequences to your actions.

It is survival of the fittest. My problem is the whining that goes on when you get caught for doing something that was unscrupulous (help me with the spelling here fast tl), or less than fully honest.

And let's leave the "everybody does it" arguments for the elementary school playgrounds. That argument isn't going to cut it with any judge.

SatinSilverTypS

iTrader: (1)

houdaman is not a licensed mechanic nor does he have a degree from any 2 year mechanic's school. i HIGHLY doubt he would be held liable for this in a court of law. how would he know 28% is bad if BMW told him he could take the car home?

houda, i'm sure you called a lawyer by now. follow their advice. none of us are lawyers. (well maybe some people here are actually).

my personal opinion is that you don't have anything to lose other than a few bucks for the lawyer.

SSTS

WdnUlik2no

^^^^^ agree. Houdaman got the BMW fixed (or at least he thought he did). Since when does one have to disclose something everytime they take a car in for service? Cars break down and cars get fixed. If it gets fixed then as far as the customer is concerned the car is fine again. If the dealer accepts it as a trade and signs off on it, that is on them.

There is no way that H-man could have known that the problem was more serious than BMW led him to believe. (After all they did let him drive it home). He may have brought some attention to himself by writting "SOLD AS IS", but it still doesn't change the fact that the dealer accepted the car in the first place.

I never heard of a dealer doing this, but maybe it has happened a lot. My concern with this is what would stop a dealer from just backing out of a deal if they feel the customer got the better of the deal? All they would have to do is do something to the car AFTER the trade, and blame it on the customer to scare them into giving the car back. I know that most dealers would not do this, but I know of a handful here in Atlanta that might stoop that low.

My other concern is that if he gets to keep the car, what would the dealer do with the BMW? Will they get it fixed, or will they try to pass it off on another customer and sell "AS IS".

MichaelBenz

iTrader: (2)

Ok all you do gooders....check this out and compare contrast.....I knew one of these would come up!

https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...00#post1412500

Here is the opposite side of the coin here.....by the bottom of page 1 he states....I just got this car from a dealer and didnt expect to have these problems.....now should the dealer be liable for repairs......flip side here!

Well, maybe not....I guess he did have a warrantee after all.. (edit)

subinf

Hmm, good question. I think that depends a lot on the dealer. The shop I used to work at (not a dealership) had one or two cars with pretty severely damaged engines sitting on our lot. When it was slow we would tear apart the motors and rebuid them, then sell the cars. I imagine the X5 is a little more labor intensive than a Ford Ranger motor, and I also doubt that the dealer has a lot of down time, but I could see them either putting in another used motor or fixing the problem.

I could also see them simply doing a temp fix or going to auction and getting rid of the car ASAP, cutting their losses and moving on.

gurneyeagle

I would agree with everything you said IF the paperwork from the BMW dealer didn't say that the car might need a new short block.

Let's go back to our hero's original post:

"......Heres what the BMW papers said:
"Check engine light on. Engine misfiring. Perform leakdown test to find cyl 1 is leaking 28% and cyl 2 8%. Recommend removal of cyl head for further inspection. Possible require engine short block."
BMW replaced all spark plugs and said it ran fine....I drove it for a week...."

Note that h-man says it ran fine not the BMW dealer.

They put a new set of plugs in the X5, but recommended removal of the head, stating it may even require a new short block.

H-man did know there was a problem. Even worse, there is 3rd party documentation of it.

The value of used cars is based in good part on their mileage. As the car accumulates more mileage, the value goes down. This accounts for normal wear and tear. It assumes that there are no major problems with the vehicle.

In this case, there may be. H-man didn't want to pony up the bucks to look further and chose to sell the X5. The dealer valued the car based on its appearance and mileage.

We don't know what the law is, but that piece of paper proves h-man knew there was a potentially serious problem with the X5's engine. How that palys into the whole legal arena we'll have to wait and see.

gurneyeagle

Interesting read, but different situation as you stated. He purchased a car that had a fully documented service record. Copy262 is spending money on normal wear and tear items, in this case the brakes.

Unless I'm missing something (very likely), where did the dealer withhold anything from copy262 on the condition of the car?

Is it reasonable to expect a car with 64K miles on it to need some normal maintenance items replaced at some point? Did the dealer represent the car as being fully serviced? If so, they should be paying for the brake job. Frankly, I'm surprised an Acura dealer wouldn't have brought the car up to snuff before selling it.

From the post, it seems like this occurred more than three months after he bought the car. If so, how many miles did he put on it?

On the other hand............

Is it reasonable to purchase a car and expect to replace the short block on it within days of the transaction?

subinf

BMW did say the car ran fine, according to the above quote. "BMW replaced all spark plugs and said it ran fine."

I want to know if BWM told him anything along the lines of "You know sometimes these scanners are not 100 percent accurate and we have had this problem before and fixed it by just replacing the spark plugs..." Probably didnt happen but if I did not know anything about cars I would listen to the mechanic/dealership over a scanner.

gurneyeagle

According to h-man, BMW said it ran fine, but the way he typed his original message, that was not part of the service report.

What probably happened was the dealer changed the plugs as a first shot, but they did note that there was a cylinder problem and that the head should be removed. He didn't do that.

98_2.5_TL

Next time, just don't buy a BMW. They're sweet cars, but they shit out on you, and have a bad reliability.

X5's are cool, but if you get the V8 you're gonna get screwed.

Car dealerships try to fuck you. Don't let them. It's the only way the can make money, by screwing people over, most of the time without the customer even knowing it.

IvorBigOne

They try to make the most money for the least effort, just like most businesses. The ones that don't treat their customers fairly tend to lose customers and go out of business. There are some bad people in all businesses, that's a fact.

This has nothing to do with this thread though, because there has been no evidence presented that this BMW or Acura dealer are crooks.

In fact, there is only one party looking at the wrong end of a lawsuit.

It's going to come down to what can be proven that the BMW dealer told the kid before he dumped the car. We won't know until this is all resolved, if even then, because I'm sure the kids lawyer advised him to shut up and not put his defense in jeopardy with posts here. If it can be proven that the kid knew about an expensive repair, and he rushed to sell without disclosure, I don't like the kids chances in a courtroom.

WdnUlik2no

Very good point; I read it again and I caught that too. I guess its going to come down to how the judge inteprets that BMW paper and whether or not he/she believes that BMW told H-man the car was fine.

Toyota can argue that the BMW paper shows that H-Man KNEW that the BMW needed more work and rushed to sell it off to get out of paying to fix it and pass it on to someone else. They will also probably make it a point to show that he wrote "SOLD AS IS" on the contract to further prove he had knowledge that the engine was still bad..

H-man can argue that he has no mechanical knowledge and was under the assumption that the spark plugs fixed everything; and therefore the recommendation to inspect the engine further was no longer the case. He can also say that BMW told him the car was fine after they changed the spark plugs.

It seems that both H-Man and Toyota have valid points. But I still have to say it's Toyota's problem now; they signed the paperwork and the car is theirs. But I think we both agree that if our "hero" loses this dispute/case, then that BMW paper is what is going to do him in.

This is very interesting, I am eager to see how this turns out.

subinf

^- Yeah its going to be tough. I think the burden falls on the Toyota dealership to show purposeful deception, and its going to be difficult to prove. The BMW invoice seems to be key, and I want more information about what it contained and what the suggestion of the service center was. I dont doubt that the scanner said rec. rebuild, but the service department could have just said, 'yeah spark plugs will work fine.' or something along those lines to not make it totally clear that the motor needed a rebuild. if that is the case then there should be very little responsibility on h-man to mention anything, since it could be considered speculation on what the problem was.

acutee

Let them sue you. That was a done deal and they test drove it. I don't think you should be worried. The law will go by the paper. You got it fixed and it was running fine, so let them figure it out.

gt1

I don't understand hysterical advices in this thread along the lines of "stop talking about the case and get a lawyer". H-man never said anything self damaging, in fact all facts he chose to tall us are known to the other party. I see no harm if he will continue update us on the cituation.
I think that hiring an attorney wih his own mone may be premature. This letter probably doesn't mean much. It is just another way to scare h-man. I know a guy, who, weh in conflict with some company writes them a letter and e-mails it to his lawyer buddy, who prints it on his firm letterhead and sends the letter on it's way. Success rate is amazing. It is really sad haw overlawyered we are and how just a mentioning of a lawsuit makes people to bend over and spread wide.
The dealer will probably go away, beacuse filing a suit will cost him.

gurneyeagle

Trust me, he isn't going away. NUFF SAID!

Back to the 2007 Camry Thread!

awood

After reading most of the original sender's posts, I would trade cars back and call it a day. Its a very simple solution to what could be a lot of trouble.

Taking off your plates and pulling fuses every night for the rest of your life just isn't worth it. Is it?

surferdude

The fact is we all like to see the dealer get his... The fact is we don't ever REALLY know how much the pull in. Invoice is even an inflated number I'm sure. That uncertainty makes the buyer hesitant and feel some sence of gratification. And we all know the dealer pons off bad cars on us (why I buy new even though I pay more). I personally have been scewed over when I was younger and bought my first car. Lesson learned.

Despite the "damn the man" attitude there are some things wrong with what was going on here. What if the car didn't have airbags? Would it have been the dealers problem? What about frame damage? Yes it was their responsibility to check but could they have if it was only a week later?

I am sure legally there is nothing here for them to win a lawsuit about. But does anyone know about a lemon law?

davenlei

This is a 'What if' situation....

What if the original poster decided to take his TL down to get checked out by a mechanic to see if the dealer was being honest with him in the sale. What if they discovered that the frame had a major repair work and all the airbags were re-stuffed with newspaper rather than new air bags from the owner who traded it in to the the dealer. What would the dealer do?

Let our guy do the swap to get his X5 back and the dealer get the TL back? Call it a wash since the diminished value and repair of the TL would probably be similar to the repair cost of the X5? Or, would the dealer than take two steps back and tell the guy who traded the TL in to them to put $10k in an escrow account to cover diminished value and repair costs? What if the guy who traded in the TL got a undisclosed damage vehicle from the Toyota dealer also? What then? Can everyone tell everyone else to put $10k into an escrow account? Where would this end? If the dealer prevails in this, then anyone who gets an undisclosed damage vehicle can sue the seller whether or not the vehicle came from a dealer or private party all the way to the original buyer who purchased it new from the dealer.

surferdude

I tried to sift through so sorry of this is a repeat but does anyone know anything about the lemon law and if it applied to dealers?

davenlei

For this situation the lemon law does not apply at all...
If you are talking about a different situation, start a new thread.

harminder247

iTrader: (1)

i really dont care what you think of my spellin ight, if ur concerned about my spelling come and tutor me, i still wouldnt give a shit ok, so if u got a problem wid me spelling, heres something to read, i dnto crae nad wathevre u wnnaa sya kpee ot ruoy slef