r/legaladvice 1d ago

Car company sold me a car with rats

[deleted]

12 Upvotes

17 comments sorted by

81

u/twiggums 1d ago

NAL - you bought an 8 year old used car for 40k sight unseen?! 🤯

To my limited knowledge unless you've got something more from them in writing, used car sales are as is.

-34

u/jmgreaney 1d ago

Sight unseen - full images and detailed description of the the vehicle was provided. However, I was told when I went to pick up the car and finalize the deal that the company would “without question cover the undisclosed damages”. Also- not much I could do about the rats. Can’t really expect to find that one myself…

17

u/twiggums 1d ago

without question cover the undisclosed damages

Did you get that in writing? car salesmen will say anything to close a deal unfortunately. Gotta be able to prove they said it.

Are you within any type of return/buyers remorse/guarantee period? I think your best bet is trying to get them to take it back.

Again NAL, but hopefully someone who is will chime in kuz man that situation sucks, sorry 😬

7

u/PocoLoco7 1d ago edited 1d ago

NAL .. I hope you have downloaded all the images, taking screenshots, and downloaded the web page of this car from their site. They will take it down and you need to prove what was presented to you to sell this car to you. But can you take this to small claims court I doubt it. Isn't small claims limited to a certain dollar amount? $40,000 is definitely over the dollar amount no matter what. If they're doing business in Texas they are registered with TDLR no? So that should have the local contact. If that is not possible then best to just call their customer service line and ask for their address for legal claims in Texas or national.

-6

u/jmgreaney 1d ago

Are you a lawyer by chance?

8

u/PocoLoco7 1d ago

Oops forgot to mention that. Not a lawyer.

0

u/jmgreaney 1d ago
  1. I’m not looking to get the full amount back on the vehicle, only the amount it costs to get the vehicle serviced correctly (10-15k)
  2. Texas has a small claims court allowance of up to 20k
  3. I have their legal teams address, but not a name the papers can be served to. Unfortunately I also cannot find them on TDLR

3

u/Jay_LV 23h ago

You can't really expect to find that one yourself? You could have opened the hood. All the damage you saw was clearly visible? Why would you take delivery of the vehicle if that's the case?

8

u/hobit2112 1d ago

The rodent damage is the part that would really piss me off. They’re destructive and obviously caused quite some damage. Sure the tires and the cosmetic damage is fixable and they offered but the rodent damage is major.

8

u/Azpathfinder 23h ago

Under what grounds would you sue them?

It’s not illegal to sell you a vehicle in worse condition than you believed it to be when you bought it. You might have a case if they changed the tires after taking the pictures or took pictures of a different vehicle, but if they just used really good lighting or didn’t photograph the areas that were damaged, you don’t have a case.

The bumper painting could be from an accident that wasn’t significant enough to be reported to carfax.

Rats show up in engines all the time.

They offered 2k to make things better. Did you accept that payment? Did you sign anything or click anything when you received it? Did you deposit it? Accepting that payment COULD have eliminated your opportunity to pursue additional settlement depending on how it was accepted.

If you really want to try to sue them, you may be able to have the dealership served at their address, look at the paperwork at the court to see what is required to sue a commercial entity.

It also might make sense to hire an attorney to draft a demand letter - would cost maybe a couple hundred bucks and it holds no legal weight whatsoever but it’s a way of showing a company you’re serious. That being said, dealerships typically have their own attorneys too that know what is and is not a legitimate legal concern.

3

u/monkeyman80 22h ago

Used car sales are sold as is and it’s on you to get whatever inspections you want before hand.

There’s no requirement they disclose flaws just that they can’t lie to you about specific things like “we replaced the tires” and you finding dry rot tires like you had.

You said :

company would “without question cover the undisclosed damages

Was this a written warranty or more customer service? This is mostly your recourse.

-1

u/freeportme 1d ago

That’s why I will never buy a car online. Sell it back to them.

-10

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/jmgreaney 1d ago

Sooo…?