Tuesday, December 22

Opinion, please . . .

When my nephew turned driving age, my brother stupidly bought him a brand new Nissan truck and, within a week he had hit my brother's car. Within 45 days he had hit a couple of other things so the passenger side of the truck is just all scraped up. My brother has since taken the truck away from Crash (as I now call him) and he is having it fixed and then he is selling it.

When I got the MB from my aunt, my brother asked if I wanted to sell my other car to him for Crash since the car is 5 years old and he doesn't want to get Crash a new car. Made sense so I said okay.

I looked up the value of my car and, given the mileage (which is significant -- 140,000) and the condition, the low KBB is $8K. So, I told my bro I'd sell it to him for $4K. I decided that I would take it in and have it serviced -- oil change, etc. -- before selling it and the garage just called and said that it needs new catalytic converters. Without them, it won't pass smog for the sale but, it's $2,100 to fix them.

So, the question I have is do I:

1) Tell my bro that he can still have it at $4K but he's going to have to pay for the repair since he's getting a good price;

2) Offer to still give it to him for $4K and split the $2K repair with him; or

3) Sell it to him for the $4K and pay for the $2K repair myself.

When I mentioned to the repair guy that I was selling it to my bro for $4k (he knows my bro, our whole family take their cars there) the guy said that was such a great deal for the car that Bro should pay for the repair and be happy.

What do you think?

6 comments:

Beanns37 said...

I think that since you are selling it to him at half the KBB value he should pay for the repair if he still wants to buy the car. :)

Sonya said...

I would explain the situation and see what your brother suggests first. He'll probably do the right thing and offer to cover the repairs.

emma said...

Forget that ,, , the kid should not have a car period . . . new or used until he goes through a driver's training course.
Until then, he can walk . .

b.uuying a kid a brand new car . .. sheesh

Brenda said...

well i can't really condemn giving a new car to a kid cause i did the same thing. but then there weren't any crashes with one and a few with the other. so you really never know till you do it.

my best advice. your brother should get a car for the kid that he can pay for. they seem to be much more responsible when the money is coming out of their own pocket. if he can't pay for a car then....no car.

Jenny Robin said...

You already told your brother you'd sell him the car, so it wouldn't be right to go back on your word. Your nephew sounds undeserving, but that's your brother's issue, not yours, so I wouldn't worry about that part of things.

I think you should sell it for $4k and not pay for repairs.

If brother agrees, great. If not, you can get it repaired and sell it to CarMax and still make just as much or more money off the car.

UrbanStarGazer said...

Thanks, everyone.

Resp -- it was never a question of going back on my word or not selling him the car. The question was what to offer in regards to the repair.

I told him about the repair and waited to see what he said. He offered to pay for it so I told him I'd split it with him.