Nos4r2
Lieutenant Commander
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2004
- Messages
- 1,533
Sold my old Ford mondeo on Ebay today-it didnt have enough ground clearance to get up the farm track to where my boat's stored so it had to go.<br /><br />The bloke came up to collect from about 130 miles away on the train. He looked tired when he arrived and was strangely uncommunicative but appeared quite intelligent.<br />I thought nothing of this, showed him around the car, we signed the paperwork and off he drove.<br />He didn't even check that the lights worked or the tyres weren't bald before he drove off...<br /><br />I got home from work to find an email saying he wanted his money back as the car was a deathtrap, he'd been in a major accident with it and it was all my fault for apparently selling him a car with a major mechanical defect etc etc...<br /><br />Here's an excerpt from the email I received-as much as I can post without giving any clue as to his identity:-<br /><br /> The traffic was moving reasonably freely; I was in the middle lane<br />on a straight stretch of the road and completely comfortable with the road<br />conditions and the progress of other drivers. Then everything suddenly<br />changed<br />in an instant. It was as if I'd hit a patch of black ice. The rear end<br />of the car<br />stepped around to my left and I was suddenly broadsiding down the middle<br />lane<br />with the car totally out of control. Nothing I could do with the steering<br />wheel produced the slightest effect; the car was just veering off by itself.<br />It first smashed into the central reservation barrier; bounded off that,<br />spun<br />around and smashed into the hard shoulder barrier before being spun off<br />that, too by 90 degrees and ending up pointing the wrong way up the road<br />and finally<br />being hit by a HGV that was unable to stop in time to prevent a<br />final collision. Mercifully, all other drivers present at that moment<br />had managed<br />to avoid involvement.<br />I clamboured out of the vehicle in disbelief and was amazed to find that<br />I was still<br />in one piece, with no ill-effects other than a cricked neck, some<br />bruising and (not surprisingly)<br />being severely shaken up.<br />A worker from Motorway Mainentance who happened to be driving right<br />behind me at the<br />time saw the whole thing and luckily used the flashing beacons on his<br />vehicle to warn<br />approaching drivers of the danger ahead. He pulled over and blocked the<br />hard shoulder,<br />where the Mondeo had ended up. With the help of the HGV driver (who'd<br />also stopped)<br />we were able to push it right up to the armco barrier for a bit of extra<br />safety.<br />I exchanged details with the lorry driver (whose vehicle had sustained<br />only superficial<br />damage) and he was quite quickly on his way again. Meanwhile the guy<br />from Motorway<br />Maintenance had turned self-appointed accident investigator and<br />established the cause of the loss of<br />control was a severed track-rod. His strong suspicion was that it had<br />been partially cut through<br />which would be an extremely serious matter if true. How many of your<br />neighbours have you<br />upset that badly?<br />The break was certainly suspiciously clean and in an easily-accessible<br />part of the rod although by<br />torchlight at the side of a busy motorway it was impossible to tell for<br />sure. Further investigation needed.<br />I took note of his name and address and made<br />him aware that he would probably be needed as a witness. The area in<br />which the incident<br />happened was one of compulsory free recovery, so in due course a<br />low-loader arrived and<br />took the car away to a secure compound<br />(end of excerpt)<br /><br />I can't think of any major defect that could possibly have that effect on a front wheel drive car, and having spoken to the recovery crew that have the car there it appears the break in the trackrod was caused by the wheel hitting something and was sheared cleanly off<br />I suspect this guy's fallen asleep at the wheel and swerved when he suddenly woke up and hit the barriers-but it's niggling at me and I'd like a few opinions as to whether me telling him where to get off was the best thing I could have done. The guy's threatening to sue me in order to get the money back he paid for the car.I have no intention of doing this if at all possible as the car is a total write-off. In the UK as far as I'm aware the onus is on the buyer to check a vehicle before buying via a private sale, (caveat emptor)-saying that I actually thought it was quite a good car-I did a 250 mile round trip in it just before I stood it up whilst selling it. To my knowledge there were no mechanical or structural defects with the car that could possibly do this.<br /><br />Any ideas guys?
<br /><br />Here in the US, you would be free of liability if you could document the time of sale with a receipt. After the sale, the new owner is responsible for the vehicle and insurance.
