Liability on used car sale

Maintenance/Repairs
61

NO. The state waived the car as we spent almost the amount in which they could consider waiving the car and they knew we needed the car for work. The waiver was good for 2 years and the car died less than a year after the waiver was granted.

The car would have never passed as the state tightened the standards on all levels.

We are accepting responsbility for not getting the car checked out fully before we brought it. We arent going to take repsonsbility for being screwed over by a seller who had no business selling a car AS IS to someone who couldnt get the car registered. We are not going to accept repsonsbility for a hugely problem car that was stuck on us as after we found out the emissions problems; we tried to return it to the seller by a certified letter stating he sold the car with prior failed tests. By this time however the money was already spent; we didnt spend any more money as it was obvious the car was a money pit and we just needed to wait for a hearing to try to recoup some monies.

Second before you state the car like the guy from OK did; was inoperable; inoperable means the car isnt able to be driven. The car in this case was driven alot by the seller and just couldnt pass the emissions test.

62

First let me state that OK4450 is probably the best source for information on this site. He has help me with repairs many times over the years and I respect and value his opinion.
Second I agree with you that the seller could not legally sell the car to you. Colorado law is very clear on this issue.
It says in order to sell a used car a new emision inspection certificate is required even if there is still time left on the current certificate. This is for the protection of the buyer.
You decided to buy the car with out this current inspection sticker therefore as far as I am concerned you waived your protection under the law.

63

We agree with you that OK4450 has alot of usefull information. We dont need him quoting or misquoting CO law however so that someone else is placed in the same situation we were in.

Second how did we waive our rights by buing a car without bing handed that emissions report? The law doesnt state that at all. The law is very clear the seller is responsbile and just because we failed to get the emissions report doesnt place the burden on us ever!!! Blieve us we check every session for any screwy laws and this one has yet to come into play and we hope to god our lawmakers dont even think about it!!!

64

Looks like I’m back on this.
Read my posts. Where am I making things up and “misquoting” law? After referring to pages 52/53 in the CO statutes I said:
“If I read this right”.
I also asked for others to read it to see how they intrepret the statute.
So how many others have read it yet?

The statute does not say inoperable and parts cars; it says inoperable cars and vehicles that otherwise may not be able to be tested. What does the latter part of that mean?
Does that mean that someone who is selling a car in Alamosa falls under this description?

Does anyone out there think a used car that sold for a few grand really entitles someone to 150,000 dollars - and counting, according to this vehicle owner.
If so speak up, and don’t do it as an “anonymous”.

65

OK4450:
I read the law provided by the link you posted and this is my understanding.
The seller can sell a vehicle that will not pass the emisions requirment if he provides that information to the purchaser at the time of sale.
~Michael

66

There are many ways you could have mitigated the losses. If RTD is not an option then how about hiring someone to do the deliveries/pickups for you? What about UPS? See, you may have to outlay moneies up front to keep the business going not just throw your arms up in the air and expect the litigant to absorb the full amount of your losses. That is what the courts will say. If your business is running so close to the ragged edge that you cannot scratch up enough to pay for another way to get your products to/from your customer, then what would you have done if the car had legitimately broken down? Who would you sue then? I feel for your loss but I don’t believe the person who sold you the car is liable for the lost money from your failed business.

67

You waived your rights in this case by purchasing a used vehicle when there was not a current inspection slip with it. The law is very clear in this case. The vehicle must have a current inspection slip when sold. The only I repeat only exception is a licensed Auto dealer can give the customer a voucher to have it done. In this case the customer has the option to refuse. If the customer decides to have the inspection done themselves and it fails they return it within 3 days to the dealer for repairs or refund. The law does not give this option on private party sales. The emmision inspection must be done by the seller before the car is offered for sale. The seller violated the law as well as you because you purchased a vehicle that could not be legaly sold.
An example I contract to purchase 5 pounds of illegal drugs. I give the seller the money he runs off with it and never gives me the drugs. I try to sue him in court am I going to win? A court of law can not inforce an illegal transaction. The selling and purchasing of this vehicle was an illegal transaction.
~Michael
Dartman69

68

Dartman, I read it the same way based on the latter part of that sentence. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve read it a dozen times and it always comes back to that.

Colorado has 64 counties with only 6-7 of them having emissions testing. It’s hard for me to believe that CO law would require that the seller of a car in Durango for instance, would have to drive 350-400 miles to Denver to have the vehicle inspected before selling it to someone from a testing county.
It boggles my mind.

What happens with all of the vehicles that someone may purchase off of eBay and then have shipped to Denver?
What about car dealers bringing in otherwise fine cars into the area? Is the auction service or the person they bought it from in another state required to travel along and make sure it’s on the up and up emission wise?

It could be that I’m offbase on all of this and there’s something I’m missing.
These people got a judgement and that should be the end of it. At the most, they possibly could be entitled to the purchase price of the car or the repair cost needed to make it emission worthy.
I can just imagine what the judge thought when they were demanding a complete lifestyle reimbursement.

69

OK4450:
The way I read the law regardless of what county the vehicle is sold in it is the sellers responsibility to either
A) Provide the buyer with a statement that the seller does not warrant the vehicle to pass the emissions test, and the buyer is responsibile for complying with those requirments before registering.
or
B) Provide a valid inspection slip at the time of sale.
These laws do not apply to wholesale transactions between dealers.
As far as a purchase from out of State the law looks at them as new to the area and the burden of inspection would fall on the owner. Whether the item was purchased and shipped into the state or was brought to the state as personnel property during a move.
I agree it is complicated and the poster is trying to blame all there problems on someone else. They should have never purchased the vehicle with out the inspection certificate, and the maximum they should have been entitled to in court would be the cost of those repairs not $150,000 dollars and counting.
~Michael

70

First of all; we never asked for $150,000. The case was filed twice. Once in small claims where we asked for the maximum of $7500 and when it couldnt be heard there; it was refiled in county whihc we asked for $15000.

This $7500 including purchase price of $1650, repairs of $3000 plus; emissions reapirs of $375 and the balance was damages with court costs on top of that and they amounted to $240.

This case could have been settled by the seller for about $5000 which was our costs to the time we sent him a certified letter telling him this is waht he did. This would have allowed us to buy another car and the car would have been returned to him. The seller didnt want to settle this and with our budget cuts; we had to wait a long time for a hearing. Meanwhile we contiued to have problems with the car and between the little we earned; we only had enough to cover bills and not save for a car.

We cant find other work due to our disability and we used to work for UPS until they decided they didnt want any disabled people working for them; so they fired us.

We have no friends who can help with our delivery work. We were also out of work a very long time after we got fired from UPS. We were working very hard to get back on our feet but this car was dragging us further and further behind.

We know you dont belive us OK4450 but its the truth. If we go to Durango to buy a car; the car must pass the emissions where we live as that is the only place where we are allowed to register a car. If we have a second home in Durango where we can put a car; fine but if we spend 90 days or more in the emissons area with this car; we have to have a test done.

If we buy a car in Elbert which is on the border with Doug but has no emissions test; we still have to have a test done where we live so the Elbert county seller must ensure the car passes the test; by taking it to the test himself or by making the sale contigent on the car passes the test if the buyer takes it.

If the Elbert county seller doesnt want to do that; then he can sell the car to a resident of Elbert, or one of the other counties that isnt in the emissions programs; donate the car to charity or sell the car for parts.

There are 7 counties that require the emissions test out of 64 with 2 of them only requiring it in the western part of the county (they have a boundary list).

We cant help that our legislature set the emissions laws up like this but when you think about it; it does make sense. No one is forcing the hand of the seller to sell the car to an emissions area buyer so its his problem if he wants to deal with the problems associated with it.

We do feel that if someone is going to blatently break the law that he should eb the one paying the price and not the buyer. This seller kept the car in Vail; which is Eagle county and no emissions so why did he bring the car up to Doug to sell which has emissions? The car was also registered in Vail but again that doesnt matter because of who he sold the car too. He took the car to the test; twice and the car failed twice. So why did he then turn around and sell the car to us? Did the car by some miracle now pass? of course not since it was 3 weeks later.

He then compounds the problems he caused us by lying to the judge and the judge believed him enough to screw us some more. This isnt right.

71

Mr Dartman; we dont know if you live in CO or not but we have no ability to waive our rights in this case since we are the victim. We are the one who was deliberatly sold a car that could not legally be sold. We as a resident of the state of CO are entitled to be sold a car that passed the emissions test as that is existing law and since if it doesnt pass Arapahoe county isnt going to allow us to register our car so how are we going to drive it? We cant and we can assure you we would be pulled over so fast without a temp tag or other legal plate on the car.

This may not make sense to you but all of us who live in the emisisons area deal with this daily from the dont drive or limit your driving days when we have winter time; to stay in doors if it get really bad. The EPA has monitors all over this area and if EPA decides to make them srticter; the paper just printed an article that says most of Denver metro wont pass. (The news reports tell you if its a blue or a red day for about 6 months of the year.) We have a special blend of petrol as well.

Please dont act like this is new in CO and as such we should pay such a heavy price for it when CO used to be much worse when it comes to air pollution. The idea is to get cars which dont pass the emisions test off the road and not keep them on.

72

I am going to speak my mind on what is right.

  1. You purchased a vehicle for $1,650.00 and spent $375.00 on emmision repairs.
  2. You spent $3,000 on other repairs.
  3. You were unable to get the car inspected so you request the seller of the car pay you $5,000.
  4. He refused so you sued him for $7,500.00
  5. That didn’t work so you sued him for $15,000

What in your wildest dreams made you think the seller would give you $5,000 for a car you paid $1,650 for. The most he should have been liable for was the $375 you spent on emmisions repair. It was your choice to spend double the price of the car on other repairs. To purchase a car for $1650 that needed in excess of $3500.00 worth of work was foolish at best.
~Michael

73

I am not acting like it is new. I am simply explaining that if you had folloed Colorado law like you wanted the seller to do you would not have purchased a car without a current emmision slip. You should not have waited 5 months after purchase to get an emmisions inspection, and you should not have expected the seller to reimburse you any more then you paid for emmision repairs.
Just out of curiosity what year and make vehicle did you purchase?

Not that it matters I live in Washington State where it rains 8 months out of the year and when the sun shines like it did today the sky is the brightest blue.
~Michael

74

We have brought at least one other car without getting a the test done. There were no problems as we have stated before since the emissions is something people deal with daily. The car was a Honda Accord so we didnt expect to have problems with a HOnda either.

We didnt expect there to be problems with this purchase so we went ahead and took the crook at his word. CO law allows us to take the title in and get a temp tag and renew it and there were no problems before. The only difference this time was we waited longer as we had been out of work so long and the work we were doing was seasonal and then the car fails. Not once but twice and we didnt want to put more more into the emissions repairs with the car still questionable about passing so we made an appt and took it to the state. From one state office ; we went to another state office and then we found out according to the state; the car had 3 prior failed tests and was unlikely to pass so then its having to deal with them about what do we do now.

Your lucky WA is beautiful without alot of pollution problems. Our mts trap the bad air and create alot of problems here. You can see the pollution very thick in the air at times. WY is also like that though we dont think they have emissions up there. (several refineries)

75

My point is not what happened in the past or whether or not what the seller did was legal. My pont is the law says you are to get a current emission inspection slip at time of purchase. The fact that you gave the seller the money when he did not have a certificate makes you at fault. You can attempt to blame it on whomever you wish but if you had insisted that the seller provide a current emisions inspection certificate before you gave him any money I am sure he would have not sold you the car.

76

The car was being returned to him with $3000 in new repairs and another $375 in other repairs so why shouldnt we be entitled to that money back as well as our purchase price? The sale was void when the emisions report came back as a failed test; 3 failed tests; 2 of them in the sellers possession.

We were being reasonable when we are the victim. The guy could have afforded it since if he couldnt have; he should have sold the car for parts, outside the emissions area or donated the car to charity. He used our money to pay his bills with while sticking us with a problem car that also failed the emissions test. IN any other judical district but the 18th; we would have easily won our case but the 18th discriminated against disabled people and there is no way you ever get a fair hearing.

Before you bitch that we are playing for pity here; we have sued in other counties and while we didnt always like the outcome; we didnt have the accomodation problems or the 2 sets of law / application of the law like we do in the 18th. It also didnt take 2 years to hear a small claims or a county court case. The 18th judicial is the problem here as well as the seller. There are still huge accomodation problems here which is why we keep filing complaints with DOJ and one of these days we are just going to turn around and file a case in the federal courts on them. Its very hard for a disabled person to exist in CO and when you have to depend on yourself to get things done; its even tougher. Thats why being taken advantage of is even more wrong.

77

Before you bitch that we are playing for pity here; we have sued in other counties and while we didnt always like the outcome; we didnt have the accomodation problems or the 2 sets of law / application of the law like we do in the 18th. It also didnt take 2 years to hear a small claims or a county court case. The 18th judicial is the problem here as well as the seller. There are still huge accomodation problems here which is why we keep filing complaints with DOJ and one of these days we are just going to turn around and file a case in the federal courts on them. Its very hard for a disabled person to exist in CO and when you have to depend on yourself to get things done; its even tougher. Thats why being taken advantage of is even more wrong.

  1. You would not be entitled to the $3,000 dollars because it was your choice to spend it. If you had the emmision inspection done before the purchase you would not have spent the money. You chose to spend $3000 dollars on a $1,500 car and wait 5 months to get an inspection.
  2. The only thing you are a victim of is playing the victim. If you would have spent the effort you put forth posting to this board checking on the car you would not have had a problem. You would have known it had failed multiple times.
  3. As far as using your money to pay his bills what happen to him selling a $400,000 house. Your measly $1600.00 would be a drop in the bucket compared to what you said about him in earlier posts.
  4. No court is going to discriminate against you because you are disabled. If you can truly prove that they did I will put you in contact with an excellent civil rights attorney who will try your case of discrimination for free in Federal Court.
  5. Your multiple court appearances simply tell me you seek out an individual that appears to have access to funds and try to run him through the ringer.
  6. It is no harder for a disable person to exist in colorado then any other part of the United States. I had a small amount of sympathy for your case in the begining but it disapeared fast when I saw that you were using your disability to take advantage of the rest of society.
    ~Michael
78

Maybe so but where is it that the seller has the right to stick a buyer who he knows lives in the emissions ares with a car which they cant even register as the car wont pass the emisions?

YOu keep sticking us with 100 % of the blame; 100 % of the fault and 100 % of ragging. How much blame are you giving to the seller?

He stuck us with it as he needed the money as he was overextended and then he got lukcy as we waited to get the emissions done.

YOu know we live in the west (small town America) where people are actually nice (at least the people who have lived here a long time especially in the rural areas); they help each other out and they dont do things that give give them a bad repuation. If someone is stuck with their car in a rural area or small town; people actually stop by and lend a hand. We see that all over rural CO and all over WY. We help people out and they do the same for us. What they dont do and what we wont do is screw someone over just to make a few dollars.

79

On 6/20 2007 You said:
The seller could have settled with us but he didnt want to pay for the repairs we made as well as $1000 for all the problems he caused so he dragged this on for over 2 years until he made out and we got royaly screwed. By the way; the seller has a $400,000 house in a very exclusive area and he sold a vacation home in Vail for a $75000 profit yet he couldnt fix the car before he sold it or even sold the car in Vail. We lost our home and more besides.

Do you really expect me to believe that someone who owns a $400,000 home and just sold a vacation home in Vail and made a profit of $75,000 needed to screw you out of $1600.00. Get real.
In my area we help our neighbors as well. There are also people out here that will screw you blind given 1/2 a chance. Thats why you don’t give them that chance.
As I have said in previous posts if you would have asked for that inspection certificate at the time of purchase there would be no problem.

80

Hi,

My opinion for what little it’s worth.

To the OP, you sound like a reasonable person. You sold a 7 year old car, probably in reasonable condition. It’s not unreasonable for a 7 or 8 year old car to have a ding or two. Last year I sold a 98 Windstar van privately because I was offered a pittance for a trade. Most dealers were asking between 5k and 7k for similar Windstars. I sold it for $3700, I did a lot better than trading it in and the buyer saved about 2k compared to buying from a dealer. I was nervous like you for selling privately, but since I never heard back from the buyer I have to assume they were satisfied. I guessing that the buyer of your car probably saved about the same amount buying it privately, maybe more since a clean Toyota would fetch a premium from a dealer.

Ok4550,

I suggest you save your energy for folks like myself who appreciate your advice. I believe the purpose of this forum is to offer advice,opinions, and possible solutions to the posters, not to high-jack a thread to advance one’s own agenda.

Ed B.