Alright, well to make a long story as short as possible without leaving any needed info out, I will begin.
Me and Joey (K20Powerz) traded cars last Thursday. He traded me his 1998 Honda Accord for my 1996 Civic. My reason for trading was that I was having surgery on Nov. 25th and couldn’t drive a manual transmission car for some time. He wanted to trade because he said he just liked civics. He gave me the info on the accord, tell me about the obvious paint damage due to sunlight peeling the clearcoat off 60% of the car. I said I didn’t care about the paint, I just need a dependable daily driver with no hassles. He also told me about the transmission “slipping” which I didn’t have a problem with, seeing as how that was the only thing mechanical wrong with it as far as I knew. As far as my civic the only thing wrong was the paint. I replaced the engine, full ignition, all brakes, and fixed every little issue with it (even spent 2 hours repairing the center vents)
The day the swap happened we were meeting at vlads mobil, and he was about 15-20 minutes late, I thought nothing of it, and we proceeded to the Clifton Park DMV. We did the trade, and while he was waiting for his mother to fax his insurance cards over (I had already completed my transaction) we took our stuff out of each car and swapped it. Just randomly I noticed he had a snap-on electronics case in the passenger foot well. At the time I thought nothing of it. That’s when he informed me that :
1.)There was no key fob to the alarm system/keyless entry (keyless entry with no remote, great selling point)
2.) The temp gauge is defective, or in Joey’s words “works whenever it feels like it”
3.) The Driver side rear door doesn’t lock/unlock in any way except for manually (I planned on having toddlers in the car, kind of hard now)
4.) the center console was trashed
Those things didn’t sit too well with me, so I was automatically skeptical. Joey just downplayed it and went back inside to finish his paperwork. We had to drive back to his house in order to swap the plates because my front plate was bolted on and I didn’t feel like removing the bumper in the parking lot, and within 3 miles the Check Engine light came on. At that same drive, I noticed that the cruise control didn’t work. Something that I specifically told him I needed. I called him on the way and told him about the issues, and he said “we would check it out at his house”
We get back to his house, and along the way notice that the car has a wicked shake above 60mph. I told him about that and his response to all of this was “I didn’t notice that at all” He also admitted to me, at that point, that he knew the cruise control didn’t work, and that all that needed to be done was “the cable hooked up to the throttle body.” He then went and got his code scanner to clear the code, WHICH WAS THE SAME FUCKING CASE ON THE PASSENGER FLOOR. So clearly he knew about the engine light going off, and tried to cover that shit up. When he scanned it he claimed he didn’t know what the code meant, when it was catalytic converter low threshold. Gee, I think that means the Catalytic Converter is clogged and needs a new one. While he was swapping the plates off the civic I attempted to solve the cruise control issue like he said and found that the piece on the throttle body was broken, and that it needed to be replaced. I brought it to his attention and he said he would pay for the replacement and have his dad put it on. No biggie I thought. I had an important pre operative doctors appt in 20 minutes, so off I went. I found out that the throttle body piece didn’t come separately and that a new throttle body was needed, but I found one for ~50 dollars shipped on ebay, he said go ahead and get it and he will pay me for it. I didn’t drive much the next day as my shoulder was massively swollen from the doctor messing with it, so the next day I took it to my house and to run to the bank. CEL came on after about 15 miles, and the car started running like crap, AGAIN. I started txting Joey about the issues and told him flat out : I WANT MY CAR BACK. He started backpedaling and I pointed out how he lied to me about all of the issues and then tried to cover up the fact that the CEL was on by clearing the light right before we drove to the dmv, then he finally came clean and said this “my dad replaced the 2 oxygen sensors in the car and the light went away, then it came back for no reason” BULLSHIT. You dad replaced the o2 sensors, then you realized how much more work was needed and how many things were wrong with it, so you pawned it off on me and ripped me off. Then he said he didn’t have another 75 dollars that was needed by the DMV to transfer everything back over, and I replied “neither do I, but that doesn’t mean its justified that we don’t switch back” then I finally told him that I would pay the DMV fee’s to switch the cars over, and that I still wanted my car back. I also said that I would give him the throttle body that I bought and didn’t want money back, I just wanted a dependable car. He rebutted with saying that he told me about all the issues, which was a lie, he also said I told him I just wanted a daily to drive, which I did not. I said I wanted a dependable daily driver that was automatic and was bigger than the civic. I could have swapped cars with a friend for 45 days until I could drive standard again. He then stopped all contact with me, blocked me from AOL IM, and pretty much pretended like it never happened. All the while he’s not communicated with me he’s still posted on shift regularly, adding such useful contributions as NSFW pics of scantily clad Japanese girls.
To make matters worse, I will have to seek legal action from his mother, which is who the car actually belonged to. Nothing was in Joey’s name. Overall I would say he’s a childish prick who thinks he can get away with anything and has no problem in scamming somebody.
As of tonight, Dec 5th, 2008, the Honda Accord that he traded me is now stationary. I was driving it to and from Sam’s Club when the transmission started to downshift whenever it wanted, and on the way back it would not upshift, resulting in the engine being at 6k rpm’s while doing ~65 mph. I parked it in my parking lot, and the car would not go into reverse. I have not even put a full tank of gas through the damned car, because I had the operation on Nov 25, and cannot drive while on pain medication. I have not beat the car, being very careful not to let the car over-rev while the transmission “slipped” as joey put it.
So tell me joey, how does this make sense to you?
Hopefully, something positive will come out of this completely crappy situation.
Ooooh let the fun begin… :headbang :headbang :headbang
