I gave the purchaser an opportunity to share in the refund if she provided me the receipts and a copy of the recall letter. For whatever reason, she declined, so that part of the ethical dilemma is over. This morning, I brought my 535 in for warranty service, and mentioned the recall notice and potential refund for the repairs on my old car. I had no documentation, but the service rep looked everything up and said she would handle all of the claim submission for me today.
I never did see all of the receipts, so I don’t know what the refund will be. But since we weren’t expecting the refund anyway, my wife and I are giving it to charity. I contacted the Customer Relations person I spoke to last week to tell him that the dealer handled everything just like he said they would (he asked me to follow up if there were problems) and I asked him to give me the name of his favorite charity, and I would split the donation. So, half of the refund will go the American Cancer Society and the other half will go to help fund a foreign mission trip for high school students.
He didn’t need her help. A visit to the dealer that did the repair and a little charm they can retrieve the file on the car and make a copy of the invoice. The dealer has a file for each VIN. Sometimes files for older vehicle are stored off-site, if that is the case it may take a few days.
If it had been my car and I sold it with all repair documents I wouldn’t expect reimbursement, because she did pay you what you asked for the car. She is now the owner of the vehicle and repair documentation since you gave them to her for whatever purpose she saw fit. It’s not likely, but since you’re hopefully considered a family friend she may have intentions of splitting the money. If so you could take it and give it to the cancer society or turn around and give it back to her as a wedding gift, your choice, but I wouldn’t allow a matter such as this to destroy a long time relationship. If the wiring job you had done had failed after the sale would you have paid for the repair? I wouldn’t have. It also sounds as if you’re financially stable. She is young and getting married and might make things a little easier getting started in her married life. I have a similar issue. My son who was driving my car, but has intentions of buying it from me (our agreement when the car was purchased) was paying the insurance premium. A lady hit the car and although the damage doesn’t look good it’s still safe/driveable and has high mileage, we decided to not repair the car. Do I owe him the money the other person is paying me although the car was still technically mine, even though he’s been paying the insurance premium and repairs/maintenance? The damage to the car was almost $1000. more than I paid for the car 5 years ago. I’m not giving him the money right now because I want him to live up to his side of the bargain and not feel like he’s always going to get something for nothing. My son is young and has had recent problems taking care of his finances so I’ve been keeping the money, but once he finishes paying me for the car out of his hard earned money and learns how to save and manage his money I plan to give him all the money (he doesn’t know this) since it was our agreement he would buy the car from me and keep up the maintenance/repairs and insurance. The only reason I haven’t already done so is because I want him to learn the responsibility of paying his debts and taking care of his money for bills/future instead of wasting everything he makes.
I wanted to let the posters here know that I did indeed receive the reimbursement check from the dealership earlier this week. A lot took place since my last post, but I will briefly summarize:
The dealership told BMW they couldn’t process the claim because the business changed hands and in the process, all their service records were destroyed. BOGUS!
I retrieved as many receipts as I could from the current owner (some were missing) and faxed them to my contact at BMW Customer Service. They said, “We’ll take it from here - stay in touch.”
I received a check from the dealership for all related payments that I could find. At least one labor reciept was missing.
Since I wasn’t expecting to get anything, my wife and I gave it to a worthy charity.
The new owner’s father and I are still close friends, and he knows I received the reimbursement check.
I paid for lunch today.
I wasn’t part of the conversations between the dealership and BMW Customer Service, but I doubt it was pleasant. While I can’t speak for all representatives of BMW Customer Service, the one that I dealt with was a real class act.
Thanks a million for the followup. And I’m sincerely glad that this issue did not affect your friendship. There’s no question that you posted one of the most difficult ethical dilemas I’ve ever heard. The only reasn it was resolved amicably, the only possible way it could have been resolved amicably, is that you are all good people. That, in the end, is what really matters.
Glad this is all resolved for the best and I will only add that the story about the service records being destroyed is more than likely pure BS.
They know that many people do not keep track of their receipts so what better way to eliminate the potential problem of a customer appearing with a complaint about a repair that was performed 6 months or a year before under the old owners. No records = sorry.
I’m with Bing. These are the problems you run into dealing with friends and autos. IMHO, I would completely divorce myself from any thought on what transpires from here on. It would be none of my business and just idle conversation if the other party brings it up.