Being sued by dealership, any input
 

One of my good friends from the local gym here is being sued by Womack Chevrolet in New Braunfels Texas.

Long story short he had the same set up as me with no cats. He traded his Z in on a new Camaro ZR1

He received several phone calls about the set up and they wanted to pay almost 2k to set it back to orginal.

He received a letter last week and showed it to me today and he is being sued for trading in modded car with no cats.

Anyone else heard of this or....

read the fine print about the trade in on used vehicles. I know for us in California we have to disclose if the emissions equipment has been tampered, used the car for commercial use (taxi police etc etc) or has been salvaged. granted the dealership who took the trade in should have done their inspection, but i don't know how different the laws are in Texas.

I did this. Alright ask your friend if he FULLY disclosed all the parts that weren't on the car during the trade.


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I traded my car haha basically had NOTHING on it. (: but I disclosed it fully and the trade was accepted.


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it is the job of the dealership to certify and check all parts of the vehicle before trading it in. if paperwork shows that it was agreed on as in condition and you purchaed the new vehicle, it is not your fault but theirs for not doing a full trade in appraisal. I've worked at the dealership for years as a manager and I've gotten under the car in my suit especially checking the subaru's and other Infiniti's that would come in traded in. Let them eat it and put on a new cat and call it a day

Truth! :bowrofl:

:iagree::iagree::iagree::iagree:
That would require someone to actually do their job.

I truly believe they're just trying to screw this guy

Man that sucks!

As long as you have good credit, when they check the car they basically don't even car. They just want to make a deal. Here's the trick though, they will always give you a lower trade value even if you have everything in perfect condition. Love buying cars. Hahaha.


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I also noticed when I trade in my cars they always ask me about the CATS and make me sign.

Of Course they do. When I traded in my 2013 speed 3, it didnt even have a stone chip or a ding in it. The interior was brand new as I used seat covers as well as as steerign wheel cover, they still only appraised it as Good condition, it will never be Excellent!

They can't resell a used car that has no cats.

dealerships have hoists and mechanics and should usually have basic access to schematics of vehicles they look to trade etc.

they ****** up plain and simple....case of shoe on the other foot.

But here down under - ...'she'll be right mate!'... O_o

This isn't necessarily true. They can't, as a practical matter, open the motor and see if you've changed internals or something like that. It really depends on the terms of the sales contract that one signs and applicable State laws. They probably SHOULD have looked for cats, but if part of the sales contract terms require disclosure of exhaust modifications or cats, and you sign on the line then you are bound by the terms. Remember, their intent is to sell it to a member of the public and it needs to pass State inspection. Sounds to me like the terms of sale are actually good for consumers on the whole, though it seems to have had an unfortunate turn here.

Texas law prohibits any person from selling, offering for sale, leasing, or offering to lease any vehicle not equipped with all emission control systems or devices in good operable condition. Violators are subject to penalties under the Texas Clean Air Act of up to $25,000 per violation. Buyers are advised to have the vehicle checked for all required emission control devices prior to purchasing a new or used vehicle.

A vehicle may not be legally sold if its original engine has been replaced with another certified engine but without the related emission control components. Tampering includes the failure to install the emission controls associated with an engine configuration.

http://www.tceq.state.tx.us/airquali...tampering.html

the above is directly from the Texas Commision on Environmental Quality website, so it looks like the OP's friend is in a bit of a bind as technically when he traded his Z in it qualifies as him selling the car to the dealer. the dealer themselves might not win the case, but the state of texas WILL go after the OP once the dealer notifies them of the sale, of which im sure they already have. Also, it sounds to me like the dealer gave him a couple of oppurtunities to correct the issue before they took legal action, im not sure why the OP's friend just didnt put the stock catalytic converter back on before he made the decision to trade in the car or if he didnt have them anymore, but to me at least....OP's friend sounds like he is screwed

Duno if we can still do it, but if you sell a car in California "AS IS" then there is nothing needed at all. No smog, no windshield, nothing. It's a hunk of steel. A good idea to sell this way to avoid liabilities for the tiniest thing.

This isn't a private sale. This was a trade in with the dealer.


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One would assume the dealer would be the smarter one here and know the car better than anyone. I say they shoulda checked it. But I'm not on the jury.

Again, in the dealers eyes they "just want to make a deal".


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same principles still apply, the dealer is still technically buying the car from you

shouldnt it be obvious that the car has Test pipes? it's noticeably louder than stock...

Just return the oem cats! Problem solved!

If you don't have it check the for sale section of the forum you will be lucky,one might sell it for just 50 bucks+ can of beers!

I don't see this having a happy ending for your friend. Even if he wins the dealership case*, whoever is in charge of enforcing the law that Z_ealot quoted is likely to take him back to court.

* Personally, I think it's the dealer's fault for not checking before delivery, but I'm not a judge.

I'm guessing, but I bet they rushed the deal through. I've trade cars at dealerships on a weeknight after scheduled closing and wondered if dealership even checked to see if the car had wheels.

Fine print can really bite you in the ***.

:iagree: on the other hand though, seeing as it's not even legal to buy a car without the emissions controls in place, the dealer themselves can get in big trouble, which is probably why they are going after his friend since they may have already incurred a fine for buying the car in the first place

I don't think it is illegal to buy, but rather to sell. It may be that the law is asymmetric with respect to sellers and buyers.

true, i guess we shall see how it plays out though...haven't heard from the OP in a while that's for sure

I've been reading all the post and asked James a couple questions about it this morning at the gym.

-He said the car had custom rims and they didn't even notice - he received a call a couple days later and they asked if he had the stock wheels :confused:

-he bought the Vet and had to pay $2500 over sticker, he didn't even have the Z there with him when he signed the papers and drove the car home. He had to turn it in the next morning, they were in his wife's car and they stopped to look at it.

- dealer called him about the cats about a month later and he went there with his wife and offered to 1. Return the vet. 2. Buy the Z back 3. Take the car back to shop and return it to stock and have it back same day.

THEY CHOSE OPTION 4: TOld him only Chevy mechanic could
Do it now and it would cost $$$$ and he needed to pay half. :stirthepot:

He is retired military like me and the military attorney told him they are just trying to screw him. They are submitting a response now.

According to Texas law all he has to verify was the mileage, which he did.

Some dealers are cool and some are POS

If he signed a contract that stated the emissions were not modified on the Z then he voided the contract and liable. Sure the dealership should have checked. One should never sign a contract unless you read it. My last two cars I told them up front that I had high flow cats. If at trade he told them that he had text pipes they would not have taken it in as trade. A place in Va got busted a few years ago for violating the federal emissions act by selling cars with no cats. When it was time for a two year Va inspection people that bought catless cars ratted them out. Emissions are federal not a state issue.

Violating a contract does not void it, it puts you in breach of it.

The reasonable solution is the dealer should accept an estimate from the shop of the sellers choice and only charge that amount to fix the issue. I can understand, now that the dealer owns the car, that they can't allow the original seller to take the car anywhere for repair.

If the original owner has the factory cats, why isn't the dealer willing to accept them and call it a day?

After all he paid over MSRP for the vette, which in and of itself is a ripoff!

I'm guessing that the Dealer does not trust the original cats are still good. Remember that they must last 10 years under law. So if the dealership uses the original cats and they fail, the dealership is on the hook to replace them at their cost. This happened to a guy that bought a modded V at the same place I got my V. A guy traded it in with test pipes, a new guy bought in out of state...Texas I think....and when he went to get the inspection it failed of course. Not sure how they resolved it.

the 3rd option should have been what was done before he even signed paperwork and the texas state law on selling a vehicle (which is technically what he did when the dealership effectively bought it from him) is in the link i already provided in a previous post which as said before, states that you can not sell a vehicle without emissions equipment in place. i'm not a lawyer or an attorney, but that part of that website seemed pretty cut and clear to me at least, but then again there could be other loopholes that your friends attorney could exploit that i'm not aware of. all i know is that bad choices were made on both the dealers and your friends part and we will see how it turns out i guess.

Sucks for OP's friend, dealer should just eat the cost and leave the buyer out of it...

Plus he overpayed for the zr1 by 2500, leave the guy be.

OT: Of all the things that suck about FL, having no emissions regulation is a big plus.

Cats are a federal regulation, all states must follow it.
Some states look the other way with modding and changes, but once a transaction occurs it can cause issues.

Or the attorney is just ****. me and my parent have had 3 attorneys. there are shitty ones out there that know jackshit.
second one.
a case that had been going on for 5 years.

we get the third one

a month later we won :roflpuke2:

ofcourse he is a brussels one who knows aalll the big shots of judges and **** so he can get stuff done. plus he is a customer of ours

friend was 60 kilometers over the speed limit. he used our attorney. 160 euro fine and 3 classes of "driving safety"

normally he should of lost his driving license for atleast half a year with a fine up to 4000 euro.

a good attorney can make a huge difference.

Seems like the dealershit is out for blood. A lawsuit for $2k is flat out dumb and no way to treat a new customer who just spent tens of thousands on a new car. The dealership needs to find a middle ground and compromise. The wheels don't have to be OEM, but the cats def need to be returned to working order. The old oem cats should be sufficient. They are taking in a trade for a used car after all.