today i'm going to show you how not to get ripped off buying a used car from a
car dealer and what to do if you have been ripped
off now the first thing you do is have a mechanic like me check it out before you
buy unfortunately the owner of this car didn't know me he
bought it and is having all kinds of problems
watched one of my videos he lives in houston
and i said bring it over and let me find out what's wrong with this thing now i
bought it from a used car that had signs everywhere
no money back no guarantees and you know what that means
that means nothing there are laws for that kind of stuff
now state laws vary but most states have some kind of laws to protect the
consumers buying a used car from a used car lot for instance here in
the state of texas all used car sellers have to be bonded
by the state of texas and why might you ask are they bonded
just like the criminals who get bond to get out of jail
well because they often try criminal things and there has to be money there
to reimburse the people who got ripped off so if you deal with an
actual used car lot that's a business has a name always check that out they
have to be bonded by the state of texas so if they screw people over
there's money there to pay the person and you don't have to rely on some
sleazy car lot that says oh we're not going to pay you they're bonded by the
state of texas a lot of states have these laws and to
top that off there are laws covering the sales of cars
here in texas here's what the texas supreme court said
the purchaser of a used good can rely upon an implied warranty
created at the time of first sale and what does that mean
there's some more legalese the car has to be fit for driving
ordinary purposes for a reasonable time it's reasonably safe and without
substantial defects so it doesn't matter if they say as there's no warranty no
money back they're a used car dealer they are supposed to know about the cars
by law they're supposed to tell you everything that they know that's wrong
with the car too so if you find that the car was in a big
wreck and they didn't tell you i had a customer sue a guy years ago about that
and of course he won in court he proved it had been
wrecked they didn't tell them they're the supposed used car dealer who
are experts right even though often they just buy these
things at auction they don't know anything about them
but they have to tell you about problems and if they're big problems like a big
record the engine's going out you can either get your money back or often
you'll have to sue them so always make sure that it's a real place
check with a better business bureau see if it's a registered business with the
state of texas or whatever state you're in
and then you'll know hey they're bonded if i win
the bond is going to pay me the money and i don't have to deal with these
sleazy people that sold me the car different states have different rulings
but they're all pretty much the same here's the state of washington
every used car sold by a dealer in washington has an implied
warranty of merchant ability basically saying that it's sound
it's not a piece of junk that's going to fall apart you get it the engine blows
up day or week later it's burning oil like mad
that is wrong you take him to court you will win
now of course who wants to get involved in court nonsense in the first place
if this guy would have known me before and brought me this car i would have
said whoo to begin with it's a 13 year old
jetta with a lot of miles burning oil it is not worth 7 000
which is what he paid for it courts taking consideration price too
that's part of their merchant ability idea say you would have paid 500 bucks
for this car which is about all i would have given
right there well you bought a 500 car what do you expect right but he paid
7 grand for this thing as you can see 162
866 miles on it and check this out finger in the old tail pipe
it's greasy it's cold with oil it's an oil burner now i certainly expect this
with volkswagen with a 2.0 turbocharged engine because these
engines they're notorious for burning oil i see
nothing but oil burners especially at 160 000 miles
now the seller knew what he was doing cosmetically this has been all cleaned
and sprayed with the wax to make it look shiny and when you look at the vehicle
it's black it's clean now i mean the interior's in rough shape
typical ripped seats i mean it wasn't taken care of all that well
but at least it hasn't been rear-ended big the interior's clean in the trunk
check this out this thing's burning so much oil the oil's even getting on the
back of the trunk it's unbelievable so of course i did a compression test on
the engine the piston rings are just all flat worn out
it's typical on these two liter turbos they get the small
four-cylinder engine which is 1.98 liters
throw a turbo so it goes fast but they wear out faster plus
a lot of people get suckered into this crap of changing the oil every 10 000
miles so they go 10 k or more which wears them
out even faster if you got one of these hey be like me be religious change the
oil every four or five thousand miles not 10 000 miles they
will last longer but this is a used car we don't know what the history is
i just know that the engine is flat wearing out and not only
does it burn oil it leaks it all over the place too luckily he came to me
right away take it to the guy he's got signs no
returns no guarantees it doesn't matter what
those stupid signs say there are laws for you car dealers they
can't be complete sleaze bags they have to cover pre-existing this guy paid
seven grand the engine's already worn out he should
never bought it in the first place but he has it now
and i'm gonna give him a big write-up and odds are he'll probably have to hire
a lawyer i doubt if the used car lot cares with signs like that they
obviously are pretty sleazy to begin with
but he has legal ramifications he can do here in the state of texas and like i
say all used car dealers in the state of texas
have to be bonded by the state so there's that bond
he paid seven grand so he could get a seven grand back
right the minimum bond is twenty five thousand dollars so
they gotta cover something like this now i know the engine's all worn out from
the oil all over in low compression but i'm gonna hook up my fancy scanner to
see what else is wrong with this thing we'll just go under the dash
plug the data system in there we go it's on it's working that's some serious
information out of this thing go through diagnosis auto scan and here
we go now it takes a long time to scan through
this volkswagen it's only 33 done because there's a lot of electronic
grip on these things but this will check them all but while we're waiting i mean
it's got a giant crack in the windshield check this out this is the sunroof it's
all cracked and faded away it kind of looks like something from a
modern art gallery really it's supposed to be solid black a jungle
when i say it takes a long time this thing's only 71 percent done it's
been going for 10 minutes but while i'm waiting i'm sitting inside the car with
it on recirculated with the windows rolled up
i still smell the burning oil coming out of the exhaust
this baby is a serious oil burner but now it's finally done 100
and we got three seven eight trouble codes so far
it's important out of the engine so we're gonna check them out and here's
the crazy volkswagen codes knock sensor low input lower limit not
reached camshaft position slow response bank one
implausible signal knock sensor high input upper limit
exceeded so one knock sensor says it won't reach
the low and the other one says it reaches the high
so i'll put that in layman's terms the engine's basically worn out the data's
make no sense to the computer because it's so far worn
that's beyond what the computer can adjust to check engine light comes on
and off and it's not surprising it's going to make it come on and off
now we're overhead and i'll check out the live data and look at the oxygen
sensor data it's bouncing all over the place because
it's trying to compensate for the oil burning that the stupid engine
is doing and we see the mass airflow sensor
as you can see that's also moving around we are just idling
that should be totally stable but it's bouncing all over the place
you can see it's bouncing all over the place and look at the timing
the timing is also bouncing around just idling it should be stable
this engine is just flat worn out here's the adaptation
it's subtracting 4.7 percent fuel because if your engine's worn out the
piston rings don't seal right you get too much
fuel that isn't burned correctly so what happens is it
tries to subtract it to put less fuel in so the inefficient engine
will run a little bit better it's always trying to compensate for wear but it can
only go so far you can see the data goes on and on and
on and on you get more information on these
volkswagens and make your head spin but basically i don't need any more
information the engine's worn out this thing is not
worth seven thousand dollars i'd probably give about 500 bucks for this
thing no my customer had to put two thousand
dollars down on it and the total price was seven grand
so that tells me the most they paid for it was two grand
a lot of times i pay a lot less wouldn't surprise me enough with some kind of
auction vehicle but at least he did not buy it from a private
individual there are still laws but you have to prove that the private
individual knows exactly what's wrong with a car
when he sells it to you most people aren't mechanics they know
nothing you would actually lose in a court of law how did a customer do that
years ago they went to sewagawa ripped them off on
a mercedes and they just said oh we didn't know we're not mechanics
but this guy bought it from a used car lot they're bonded by the state of texas
they are supposed to know what they're selling in this case they sold them a
car with a totally worn out engine at an outrageously high price so now you
know how not to buy a bad used car and if you
do what you can do about it and if you
learn one thing about this if you're looking at a used car
just get your finger stick it in the exhaust if it's all slimy with oil and
black walk away right then and don't go any
further unless you're paying like 500 bucks for
the car you don't mind adding oil all the time
so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos
remember to ring that bell