OT;Ohhh the pain..

[Jehu]

Well it looks like I got ripped off. We finally contacted the person who's name appears on the bill of sale for that '94 525 5 sp i bought my Son last year for $2,500.00usd. He stated the seller fraudulently imposed his name on the bill of sale after he bought the car for $500 as a PARTS CAR! The seller told us the PO was from Rhodes Island and we could get the old registration from him to register the car in Connecticut but it turns out the guy on the bill of sale isn't the PO the car was not registered in RI,hmmm This guy then says for $200 he knows a guy at a RI dealership who he will have issue an inspection sticker and then register the car to this guy in RI who will then "sell" the car to us for no more money.. maybe like $1.00 if it has to be for some nominal figure. Son's mother knows a guy at the DMV , she's his Union Rep and is going to talk to him about this situation . I found a local guy in CT I contacted on Bimmerforums who will take a look-see at this heap and give us the accurate 411 on what it needs to be minimally useful and safe. If that is within reason I'll OK this shady back door deal AFTER I hear from the RI State Police that this car is not stolen.. I knew this was going to be an expensive lesson,one I knew I didn't need.. This guy listed as the PO was apparently livid when he learned what this seller did. Not so much that he ripped us off but that he put his name and address on the bill of sale and something about "Mob Friends" and "beatings" were mentioned ... wish me luck.

[filip00]

oh sh*t......i really wish you good luck in solving that monkey business.... :(

[Jehu]

oh sh*t......i really wish you good luck in solving that monkey business.... :(


Thanks,I appreciate the thought..Ideally we'll find the sale was illegal in that the seller lied about the PO and I will go to his home with two large ,mean Connecticut State Police Troupers and he will hand me $2,500 as I hand him the key to the car.... ThenI will watch as the Troupers handcuff him and drag his sniveling a$$ to the Cruiser and off to Jail. .. The more I think about what I was told tonight about this guy listed as the PO who isn't but for $200 will get the car a RI Inspection Sticker and a RI Registration thru a friend at a dealership I don't think that will be necvcesary. I will drive to the Office in Pawtucket ,RI with the VIN and they will be able to retrieve the last regsitration if there ever even was one there and give me a duplicate copy for $11.50 which will allow us to register it... This Non Previous Owner Previous Owner said the car had electrical problems .. maybe from having the Stereo Torn from the dash?????

Parents. Did you ever think you were letting certain negative consequences befall your child only to later regret it when they actually fell on you?

[Ross]

The guy skipped registering the car, so what. Can't you title it?
You apparently thought it was worth what you spent until discovering the previous purchase price.

[Jehu]

The guy skipped registering the car, so what. Can't you title it?
You apparently thought it was worth what you spent until discovering the previous purchase price.

Heh... when did I say that? you seem to consistently make unflattering assumptions about me..lol.. I said in the past ,maybe you didn't catch it , that I had been told my my 22 yo son he had it inspected as per my instructions. We live several hours away from each other. Trusting his report that it only need some minor items like a windshield and after he and his Mother had been communicating with the seller for a Month I headed down to finance the purchase. I spoke with the seller on the way to coordinate the meeting and he expressed his pleasure at finally selling it saying he had " held onto it for us" and that he had" refused other offers for us". Now when he drove up in it I saw the truth. It was a heap. Busted windshield rust hole in a door panel, busted tail lens, nose dove into the ground driving up the inclined driveway revealed wasted shocks, dash read out brake lining message, NO RADIO????? long tear in the vinyl driver's seat,under the hood the radiator was not fastened down and could be lifted by hand and the hood was popped. He drove it with the hood popped because the latch handle was missing and he didn't want to hassle opening the hood.

Now I should have just said NO F'ING WAY,take this POS and screw! but for some reason i handed my son $2,500 cash to give to the schiester . I guess i wasn't prepared for what I anticipated would become a heated exchange with this guy assuming he;d be pissed off . I told myself this will be an expensive lesson for my son but While I am glad they are finally focusing on getting to the bottom of this I still bought a $500 parts car for $2,500.00. I;m disappointed my son let me down and somehow believed having some mope from his neighborhood take a look at this car was the same thing as GETTING A PRE-PURCHASE INSPECTION!!!!!!!! I was emphatically clear about what I meant and when I asked if he had had that done he replied in the affirmative.... nothing could have been further from the truth ... I can't be angry with my son so I;m blowing off steam in other ways.. The car I suppose if we can get it legal should be ok. His mother said the car does shift into fifth in contrast to what I posted a few days ago that my son said it didn't stay in fifth. She said it seemed to feel different going in but it went in and stayed in so maybe the ball on the selector rod is damaged or a linkage as was suggested.. anyway I got the VIN and I'll find out next week ..

[632 Regal]

your son inspected the vehicle, you gave the money. The vehicle is a heap according to you but not your son. Let your son deal with it. Why such an effort man? You didnt fuk up but those that you trusted did. Step back and let the dominoes educate those that need knowledge man... what a scene.

[Jehu]

your son inspected the vehicle, you gave the money. The vehicle is a heap according to you but not your son. Let your son deal with it. Why such an effort man? You didnt fuk up but those that you trusted did. Step back and let the dominoes educate those that need knowledge man... what a scene.


I do hope your optimism proves justified. I do tend to see the worst in things ,that way its harder to be hurt in the long run.Like if the end results are even slightly better than i fear it will all look like it worked out. I hated the thought of just wasting that money if they just let the thing sit and rot. They gave up after trying to contact the guy listed as the previous owner who refused to communicate then his Girlfriend stepped in and offered him the regular use of her car so this all fell off the radar till I lit a fire under them last week. Even though I was hosed on the expense I'll be pleased if he gets to use it for even a few years. Its a decent,safe reliable model and I hope i can report in the coming weeks it has succesfully been put into service.

[Paul in NZ]

you are a patient man.I dont now why you didnt tell the guy right at the start that the car was a POS and did not match the description you had been given...good luck.

[filip00]

i think Jeff has a point here. i honestly think you made a mistake (don't wanna give you lectures, i apologize), when you gave your son money to buy a worthless heap when you saw it's trash. after all, if you do solve the papers and register the car, let your son deal with it and he might pull out a good lesson out of it. i'm saying all this because i'm kinda his age, 23....and i think i can relate to him...it was certainly hard to say no to a car you wanted to buy, but still you had to say no for him there.
anyhow you guys bought that car now, not like you'll suffer those 25 hundred. this is a lesson to everyone, not something to really break your head for now...it happened, amen now.

[Jehu]

you are a patient man.I dont now why you didnt tell the guy right at the start that the car was a POS and did not match the description you had been given...good luck.


I had no good reason not to. All the reasons were things I should have been able to answer such as. Son and Mom were moving to their new home that day. I was lead to believe that in order for Son to keep his job to which he commuted with his next door neighbor till then, he'd need a car. His mother had contacted me about a month before asking for my financial help and they had taken all this time to finally arrive at this point. The car was one town over from them all that time. I asked him to take it to a reputable BMW shop where someone who knew their ass from their elbow would give a report of its true condition. That is what I clearly asked for and when I asked if that was what he'd done I received an affirmative response...
I should have pressed him but wanted to treat him as though he knew what he was doing. That was optimistic...
So combine that pressure of believing his job depended on having a car to commute to work and the sense that the seller was growing impatient and irritated I didn't want to be the focus of everyone's negative attention which I believed I'd become if i halted the deal even though i felt sick letting it happen. Maybe it will turn out somewhat less horrible than I think.. I still don't know for instance if their State tests for Emissions... maybe not for a1994 model but if they do and it fails that would pretty much probably push any repair costs even further into absurd land. I know I have no legal stance, its not illegal to successfully sell a parts car for five times it value..part of my frustration comes from this having taken a whole year to come to my attention. I contacted them a week or so after going down to them and they never replied. I figured they'd gotten what they wanted and had no further use for me so I forgot about it.
Then I decided to drive by their house in Connecticut at 1:30 am on my drive home from seeing King Crimson perform in New York City on August 16th at the Nokia Theater Time Square and saw the car in the driveway so I figured it was in use.. I called a few days later and talked to my son who gave me the gory details. His mother emailed me with excuses and I expressed my excruciation at feeling my investment had been allowed to go to waste so eventually she saw my point of view and maybe now things can begin being redeemed.

[Jehu]

i think Jeff has a point here. i honestly think you made a mistake (don't wanna give you lectures, i apologize), when you gave your son money to buy a worthless heap when you saw it's trash. after all, if you do solve the papers and register the car, let your son deal with it and he might pull out a good lesson out of it. i'm saying all this because i'm kinda his age, 23....and i think i can relate to him...it was certainly hard to say no to a car you wanted to buy, but still you had to say no for him there.
anyhow you guys bought that car now, not like you'll suffer those 25 hundred. this is a lesson to everyone, not something to really break your head for now...it happened, amen now.

I buckled under pressure.. I didn't see a viable option and hoped for the best.. we were mislead by the seller about the previous ownership status though too,it had no registration with it which is why it was unable to be registered there. Its not good for a car to sit outside for a year without being started. Why he doesn't realize these things is beyond me. His mother keeps telling me "he's smart" implying he is above average only lazy... that is crazy talk... he lives with her she allowed him to get away with being lazy.. I just see no motivation from him to learn what he should . I sent him links to all the BMW forums so he could get an understanding of what ownership of that car involves but the only time I heard about his having checked them out was his mother telling me he was "upset" when he read my post about this on another bimmer forum where I solicited the help of people who live near them to go and give him a hand seeing what the car needs and where the local shops are if he can manage to pay for any repairs it needs. I sent him a full set of new tail lights I bought on ebay and had them shipped to their new house but as simple of a job as swapping out ONE broken tail light lens is he hasn't even bothered to do that! I guess I resent them not listening to me. Weather they presumed I was ignorant like them and so just never bothered to listen to me or what I don't know but there was a break down of intelligent discipline and I am not pleased to be the one bearing the expense. For $2,500 I expected to be buying a 525i 5sd that ran and was immediately ready for driving both mechanically and legally.. the degree from which this car proves to deviate from that will determine the level of rage I unleash on my surroundings,lol...

[attack eagle]

he's 23?

wash your hands man.

If they want to be ****ups, let them. Just make it clear you won;t be bailing him out of any predicaments. That is the parent who he resides with, whose rules he follows and who is responsible for his disciplining and raising,'s issue.


harsh? yes, but safety netting people doesn't help them try to achieve.

[filip00]

^word up.


one other thing i'd like to add...i'm very sorry to hear your son is lazy or whatever is going on...but i think honestly...i mean i believe it's very difficult for you to let it go, but that's the only way you can do what you gotta do...let the boy figure out what owning a car means...for himself. if he'll pay for the registration, fuel, services, maybe..surely he'll understand what crap he bought and how silly it was of him to diss your advices for forum checks or other members to check the car for him.

that's how i see it. sadly, let it go, he has to start learning things for himself, and face the consequences naturally.

[Sam-Son]

really sorry to hear about this man I hope everything gets sorted out

[Paul in NZ]

I had no good reason not to.


Now when he drove up in it I saw the truth. It was a heap. Busted windshield rust hole in a door panel, busted tail lens, nose dove into the ground driving up the inclined driveway revealed wasted shocks, dash read out brake lining message, NO RADIO????? long tear in the vinyl driver's seat,under the hood the radiator was not fastened down and could be lifted by hand and the hood was popped. He drove it with the hood popped because the latch handle was missing and he didn't want to hassle opening the hood.

Now I should have just said NO F'ING WAY,take this POS and screw! but for some reason i handed my son $2,500 cash to give to the schiester .

This sounds like enough of a reason,as you yourself thought at the time.Any ways,lets hope lessons are learned and everything works out the best it can now.