On saturdayI travelled 150 Miles to look at a tidy 1990 Range Rover I ended up buying, drove it back but 3 Miles from home, it decided to throw a con rod out the side of the block.
Do i have any come back against the bloke i bought it from
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No.
Caveat emptor - buyer beware i'm afraid.
You could contact him to see if he'd consider a goodwill arrangement, but he don't have to.
Happened to me once with a defender i'd bought from a Vicar! I reckon he'd had a message from his boss to get rid of it! This might have been hard to prove though.
Just another example of the devil vomiting in your kettle, as Blackadder put it.
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Your only comeback would be if you could prove he had lied in the description.
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Sadly, 'no' is right assuming that the 'bloke' is a private seller. If you can show that he's a dealer (did he have other cars for sale?) then the Sale of Goods Act implies that:
- he had title to the goods
- the goods fitted any description he gave (to you personally or in an advert)
- the goods were of satisfactory quality (sound condition given their age)
- the goods were fit for any purpose that you, the buyer, had indicated to the seller.
All 4 apply to sales by a business (however small the business) but only the first two apply to private sales.
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It's worth a Google search on the sellers phone number to see if he advertises cars for sale regularly on the net.
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Whether private or trade seller he can't have known, or suspected, that a con-rod would let go after 147 miles.
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No unfortunatly, but then if you sold a car and it blew up on the buyer, you wouldnt want it bounced back to you either, so it works both ways really.
On the plus side, if its a V8, those engines are around in large numbers so cant be that expensive to slot another into the car. Just an idea.
Ive had this happen to me recently and still the car is costing after only 4 wks, but it wasnt predictable, so you either cut your losses or stick it out.
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Con rods are not known for escaping without prior provocation. What happened? Were there any signs of trouble; did it overheat; what revs was it doing etc.?
Are there any signs that the engine has recently been apart? Were any of the main bearing caps in the sump?
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He was not a trader, had owned it for 3 years.
Yes work had been done to engine new shell bearings & brand new cyl heads fitted about 5 K ago
I know engines & know rover v8's quite well, there was no tappet rattle no somke & no rumble or knocking, sounded sweet when i first saw it & on test.
On drive home Mrs mm was following she noted more smoke the nearer we got home. All can remember was i floored it to overtake a truck, it kicked down revs went up to about 5k .... Bang.... smoke.....& lots of oil......! Manged to get home. flash light on.... hole size of my fist in block, spent all day removing engine! will keep you all posted if your interested.
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If i had bought it off a private geezer with a recent engine rebuild i would be bending his lug, but would leave the clogging bit out where wife disappeared in pure 8 cylinder music
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I would be bending the lug (as BB so charmingly put it) of the guy who did the engine rebuild. He obviously cocked it up.
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< Ulla>
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I would be bending the lug (as BB so charmingly put it) of the guy who did the engine rebuild. He obviously cocked it up.
Not necessarily!
Customer: "Do me an engine rebuild, but I only want to spend £500 so just stop it from knocking so badly"
Mechanic: "What about any other stuff I find while I've got it apart?"
Customer: "As long as it doesn't go over £500 and take longer than a week, do it. Otherwise don't worry, I'll be selling it soon"
Mechanic: "Ok"
Curtain, applause for the actors etc
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Very sorry to hear that mm, although I'm sure you have had enough of that sort of thing to make you not exactly used to it, but not over-surprised.
Do you think that if the car had had proper calibrated oil pressure, oil and water temperature gauges you would have caught on earlier and backed off a bit, thus at least saving the cylinder block? There's been a lot of stuff lately about cars getting more complicated, but they have also got simpler in this area of proper gauges, and it's a step in the wrong direction I can't help thinking.
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GOK Lud! Its the only big time engine failure i've had in 30 years of motoring and some 40+ cars i've owned
the engine is proving to be a sod to remove. what with all the attached off roading acoutrememtes... winch etc. Plus i've come down with a bad tummy bug...oh joy
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I'm inclined to think that you have just been unlucky. If the vehicle has done 5k since then engine rebuild then it wasn't bodged back together and sold straight on knowing that it wasn't going to last.
Also if you know your engines and it was okay when you road tested it, surely it must have been in pretty good health as such - ie he had fiddled with it to pass it on to an unsuspecting punter who didn't know what he was looking at?
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Scenario for you simon,ive had a car for over a year now and 11 months ago put an mot on it,its done maybe 6 miles since the mot,now heres the question before i put it in for another mot should l leave the mileage as is or should i put 5000 miles on the thing,relate this to an engine rebuild done 5000 miles ago ,who says it was 5000 miles ago? why the man who sold it of course,a blunt instrument can be a powerfull tool some times
last car that threw a leg on me i had bought literally 15 minutes earlier and sounded lovely at time of purchase, so where there is a buck to be made someone somewhere may well bend the truth
(this post no way blames OP''s seller as being dodgy, its just a case scenario expectation that does happen when faulty motors money and the public at large meet)
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A very valid point bell boy, and for all I know the clock could well have been wound on 5000 miles. We can only go on the facts as stated by the OP, presumably he has some documentation to verify that 5000 miles have actually been travelled???
Regarding my previous post, reading it back it comes across a little misleading. I was trying to say that if the vehicle had seemed okay on road test and the OP knew his stuff about the mechanics of the thing, then it was unlikely that the guy had done a quick bodge on it to sell it on to an unsuspecting punter. Any bodge ought to have been obvious to someone with a decent bit of relevant knowledge.
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This is why I stress (and I mean really stress) any potential purchase.
I once broke a diff on a car I fancied buying. The seller glibbly said "it's done that a few times, my dad knows what to do".
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>>bad tummy bug...oh joy
Nothing too exotic I hope. If you have to come down to King's Cross though give me some sort of indication and we will have a drink.
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having bought a 'new' car I was so pleased to sell the old one I changed the insurance over asap and went for a drive. Not 2 miles from the house there was my old car at the side of the road with the bonnet up. It transpired that the big ends had gone! No, I had no idea there was a problem it was simply luck (for me).
Good luck MM - I suspect you've just been unlucky.
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Managed to finaly remove the engine today. Removed the sump to find a a broken con rod.... Snapped below the small end... Strange me thinks....Then in the debris in the sump i found a broken 7/16 1/2 inch drive socket!
I will be persuing the previous owner for some dosh, for his incompetence,
I will keep you all informed
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Sadly, though, he can put his hands up and say "nothing to do with me". While we can be pretty certain it got in there in the re-build, there's no proof, and if he paid for the re-build, then the culprit is the firm who did the work, not the owner. My guess is it's too tenuous to get any come-back from anyone in that chain.
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not even a snap on to add to the collection :-(
make sure you go back in person after making an appointment without divulging the reason and take photos and the socket as evident`a
you might want to take a 32mm i/2" drive socket with you as well..........
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And a big rubber mallet in case he gets nasty :o}
Is there any obvious damage on the socket indicating it has been hit hard by whirling engine parts?
You seem to have been extremely unlucky here mm. Perhaps the guy is decent and has access to another engine or two and will lend a hand on some level.
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Oh yes Lud! socket is in 2 pieces, could'nt quite work out what it was 'till i saw writing on side
Turns out previous owner is away on 2 weeks hols in Spain... No doubt on the money i passed over for said vehicle. I'm back to work in Sudan next week so looks like there will be no quick solution to this one.
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IF he is a decent guy, he'll take the car back to the guy who did the engine with the offending part and try to get it done for you.
he could even try "I found a socket under the bonnet, is it yours?" then when the engine repair person says "yes I've been looking for that", you play the trump card.
...But many ifs and buts...
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