I just spoke to him and he's trying to get me to pay another $39 for the alignment.

I told him I didn't have time to argue about this, didn't even mention the tranny service, told him I'd do the $300 and tried to clarify what he would do- at which point I discovered he didn't intend to do an alignment as part of the Ucontrol arm replacement.

Does this ever end?

You can replace the UCA arms yourself. It is quite simple. The hardest part is separating the upper ball joint and removing the UCA bolts and the sway bar bushings and bolts.

When that is all done the arms just slide out. Being where you are in the Rust Belt, I would soak all the nuts and bolts with PB Blast or Kroil.

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RRGrassi


70's Southern Pacific #5608 Fairmont A-4 MOW car

13 VW JSW 2.0 TDI 193K, Tuned with DPF and EGR Delete.

91 W124 300D Turbo replaced, Pressure W/G actuator installed. 210K

90 Dodge D250 5.9 Cummins/5 speed. 400K

If it was misrepresented, it was misrepresented and the sale/contract is voidable.

Many states have a "right of recission" law, where you can return a purchased item within a set period of time (ex: 72hours) and the seller is required to refund your money (even if it says "all sales final"). If you changed the value of the car substantially during that period, you will need to pay for that reduction however.

You need to contact the Department of Licensing and Regulation in the state where you purchased the car (usually under the Secretary of State) and find out what the law allows there.

Last, if the car is still a good deal, it might be better to keep it than to get your money back, be careful what you wish for.

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Gone to the dark side

- Jeff

What are you doing!? Get that car out of his shop. You will NEVER be satisfied with what he does, and it will be an uphill battle all the way to get any money or additional service out of him, plus now you have to question whether he will do a good job, or actually perform the service he quoted.

Never mind if the law is or isn't on your side. Whatever you do will waste your time and cost you money. Maybe its worth it to you to chase this SOB down, but I would remove the car from his care just the same.

Just had a friend go through this with a dealership. After losing the car for over a month and getting into a large pissing contest with them, he had to have the thing checked over afterwords, and the car needed about 600 dollars of work repairing the dealership's work.

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This post brought to you by Carl's Jr.

It seems that your relationship has gone down hill. I agree with dropnosky. Take your car & leave. Either fix it yourself, take it to another shop or sell it. Those are your best options. If you go elsewhere, get a written agreement. $39 for an alignment is cheap. They are $69 around here. Regardless, it is obvious that you 2 don't communicate well and will consequently have disagreements. Bail before you go another round.

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85SD 240K & stopped counting painted, putting bac together. 84SD 180,000. sold to a neighbor and member here but I forget his handle. The 84 is much improved from when I had it. 85TD beginning to repair to DD status. Lots of stuff to do.

$39 is cheap for the alignment, but I was more angry that he intended to do the control arms WITHOUT it.

Bailing is the best option, everything he's doing I know I can do myself. However, the control arms will cost me upwards of $100, and if you add in the filters and oil we've already negotiated into the deal, I won't be saving much money doing it myself or elsewhere. I might as well go with this for now, and just never deal with him again. That is, if he actually does it!

Sounds like you're trying to negotiate a deal that isn't fair. Most places would price front end work and an alignment separately. At least have him sketch out a task & price list.

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85SD 240K & stopped counting painted, putting bac together. 84SD 180,000. sold to a neighbor and member here but I forget his handle. The 84 is much improved from when I had it. 85TD beginning to repair to DD status. Lots of stuff to do.

Saw the pics of the car. Looks nice. Clean interior, no visible stretch marks on the door panels and it looks like the dash is not cracked. $39 USD for alignment is great!

I'd say you made out like a bandit. Remind me never to horse trade with you.

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Codifex
1981 240D ChinaBlue (Got her running with a donor engine.)
1983 300DTurbo w/sunroof.
1984 300TD manual sunroof. (Electrical Gremlins)

Here is my $500.00 83 300D Runs pretty good. All I had to do was clean the fuel system out. I guess there is no way I could get upset if I had to spend a few hundred bucks on it. The 300CD is a great looking car and if the interior is good to go, I would just give him the 300 bucks for the repairs and let it go.

It seems he is giving you some good deals there - a 300CD for $2500, bushings for $300, alignment for $40.

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http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7271/7...144c3fc1dc.jpg

Plot out your options and then pick one, no point in getting bent out of shape about it. As I see it you either:

1. Ask for you money back and return the car.
2. Take his offer on the repairs, get them done and be finished with it.
3. Take it somewhere else for an inspection and see if it passes. If so, you take care of the bushing on your own time.

In the end, you've learned a lesson and it won't be the last one you learn with your "new" car. Next time you buy you negotiate the inspection into the deal. I live in Missouri and here the seller must have the car pass inspection prior to sale - it's a state law.

When I bought my '95, we verbally agreed on the sale and then I reminded the guy that he needed to have it inspected. He drove it to the shop where it passed, but they told him the brakes were close to not passing (and he was honest enough to tell me this). He knocked a little off the price and it was a done deal.

When I bought my '83 the car had been sitting for a year and I knew it needed lots of work - all the rubber was falling to pieces. In this case you don't expect to have an inspection done - I bought this one "as is" with the intention of restoring it.

I really don't think this guy was trying to pull a fast one on you. Just work something out with him or take it somewhere else to get it inspected.

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'95 E300D ("Tank") - 231,000 miles
'79 240D ("Biscuit") - 197,250 miles (Sold)
'83 240D ("Ding-Ding") - 217,000 miles (Death by deer)
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"Back off, man. I’m a scientist” ~ Peter Venkman

Good deals all around, I feel like I made out too. The core issue was that he was misleading, intentionally or not, about his handle on the condition of the car. I should have treated him like everyone else who is trying to sell something: with complete skepticism. I thought maybe he checked the car out, and didn't think the UCA's were in bad enough shape to fail me. He told me he'd get in and drive to california, AND HE HADN'T LOOKED AT THE CAR IN OVER 8 MONTHS. Maybe I was being too much of a jerk, but if you don't stand up for yourself no one else will. I think a lot of people in my position would have been much more irate.

If I had brought the car in, and he had offered to replace the UCAs if I paid for the parts, or made some sort of concession considering he had insisted "the car needed nothing", it would have been different. He started off by offering me the parts at cost and quoting me for three hours of labor- shop rate. That wasn't much of a deal.

I've got a few friends who work in shops around here, and they seemed to think he should be fixing it for free.

I feel kind of bad about the whole thing. I'm picking the car up tomorrow, hopefully he did a good job. I'll bring him a nice bottle of booze as a peace offering.

Rather than not to trade horses, maybe it would be more appropriate to say don't f-around with a man's horse.

Or, maybe I should learn not to look a gift horse in the mouth!

Or look at it's UCA bushings before I ride it away or something.

I would feel just as betrayed. You got the short end of the stick, keep the booze for yourself.

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83 SD

84 CD