Hi all, i'm new to this forum and in dire need of some help and information. It all started when i sold a 1998 Peterbilt semi truck to an individual in March of 2012. I had the truck listed on ebay as a 1998 Peterbilt with 1,000,000 miles on it and 220,000 miles on the engine since it had been rebuilt from the previous owner(but with no paperwork from previous owner). A guy calls me and says he interested in buying it, two days later he commits and wires me $24,000 to buy the truck. The following day he flys one of his employees to my nearest airport, I pick him up and we headed to my place for him to inspect the truck. Once we got to my place he looked over the truck, inspected it, crawled underneath it and took it for a test drive. The truck had no flaws, no waring signs of any issues, ran top notch, etc...
The guy drives the truck 600 miles home, the next day the owners call me and tell me how much they love the truck. Fast forward 4 days to Saturday morning and I get a phone call from the owner of the truck saying it may have blew a head gasket. I spoke with the owner and apologized for any inconvinience and told him if all it was, was a blown head gasket I would pay for half of it which would be roughly $1,500 on my end. Fast forward another 2 days. He takes the truck to his buddy at a Peterbilt dealership and they say the truck had 2 inch to short air filters in it and it ****** in a bunch of dirt, Peterbilt says they wont even touch the engine with any repairs. The guy now wants me to buy him a new engine for $10,000 and pay for $6,000 of labor to put it in or have Peterbilt rebuild it for $18,000. I told him I'm sorry I can't do that, this was an "As-Is" sale, I felt like I was going above and beyond offering to pay for half the head gasket job.
Basically where I am at right now is the guy hired an attorney, they are trying to sue me for damages / lost wages, the tow off the road, new engine, labor of putting the new engine in, a total of $30,000 and I don't even get the option of giving him his money back and getting my truck back? They want to take this to a Jurry Trial which will cost me $15,000+ in attorney fees not to mention if I somehow lost??
What is your guys' take on this and do I have any way to defend myself without an attorney?? Thanks in advance for the help.
The guy drives the truck 600 miles home, the next day the owners call me and tell me how much they love the truck. Fast forward 4 days to Saturday morning and I get a phone call from the owner of the truck saying it may have blew a head gasket. I spoke with the owner and apologized for any inconvinience and told him if all it was, was a blown head gasket I would pay for half of it which would be roughly $1,500 on my end. Fast forward another 2 days. He takes the truck to his buddy at a Peterbilt dealership and they say the truck had 2 inch to short air filters in it and it ****** in a bunch of dirt, Peterbilt says they wont even touch the engine with any repairs. The guy now wants me to buy him a new engine for $10,000 and pay for $6,000 of labor to put it in or have Peterbilt rebuild it for $18,000. I told him I'm sorry I can't do that, this was an "As-Is" sale, I felt like I was going above and beyond offering to pay for half the head gasket job.
Basically where I am at right now is the guy hired an attorney, they are trying to sue me for damages / lost wages, the tow off the road, new engine, labor of putting the new engine in, a total of $30,000 and I don't even get the option of giving him his money back and getting my truck back? They want to take this to a Jurry Trial which will cost me $15,000+ in attorney fees not to mention if I somehow lost??
What is your guys' take on this and do I have any way to defend myself without an attorney?? Thanks in advance for the help.