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No oil!!?? blown motor!!?? HELP!!

11K views 43 replies 25 participants last post by  wrx0131 
#1 · (Edited)
This is a pretty long story.....so i was selling my 02 wrx to some guy he lives like 2 hours away from me and he came down to buy the car....so i take him for a test drive and then he drives the car....everything is perfect the car is running fine, no problems.....i sell him the car and about an hour later he calls me and tells me that the check engine light came on and that the car is making a rattling sound so he pulls over to a gas station or something and revs the car to show me the sound through the phone and it sounds like a rattle....he then calls me like 30 min later and tells me th car died on him and it wont start, that he was going to call a tow truck and tow it back to my house......i couldnt understand what happened cause the car was fine it never gave me problems like that....i drove the car every single day to school and work and never had a check engine light come up......so he tows the car back to my house and he tells me that the tow truck guy thinks that it was the timing belt.....so i said ok ill get it fixed, but he wanted his money back so i agreed to give him his money back.......the next day my mechanic looks at the car and checks the oil and tells me there is absolutely no oil in the car.....now this is impossible considering that i had 1700 miles since the last oil change, there is no way that i had no oil and i know that my oil was never leaking because i would always check under my car and i never had any smoke coming from my hood.......so today im in school and the guy text's me and tells me if i had any word on the car and so i tell him not yet because the mechanic just towed the car to his shop a day before.....he tells me (without me saying anything about no oil or possible blown motor) "if the motor is blown how much do you want for just the car because i have an 03 engine with an sti block".......now my question is wouldnt my oil light have come up if i had little oil left? i had a slight problem that i had told him about which was my car taking a little longer to crank up when its cold that i believed were my spark plugs......but how is it possible that as soon as i sell him the car, there is no oil in it and the motor is possibly blown or is blown......also he is dying to buy the car without the engine for $4000......my car has an 05 sti tranny, 05 sti axles, 05 sti brembos both front and back, brand new rims.....what do you guys think....is it fishy or what????.......thanks for all those who took the time to read this
 
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#5 ·
I don't mean to be harsh....

but honestly, yerr um special. You got took by a crook. I would have said "well chief you bought it, its yours" *click*. Who knows what kind of shenanigans he pulled after he left your house. Doughnuts, ebrake slides, clutch drops, 160 mph, etc. If you are in good confidence that you sold the car in tip top shape, then I would not have touched that thing with a 10 foot poll. Effectively someone just did $5000 damage to your car and got away scott free. Worse part is you let him.

I feel for you but :rolleyes::screwy:.
wow just wow.
 
#7 ·
i had this fear halfway through your story as well. i really don't think he blew the engine on purpose to get the car parts for less, because theres no way he could have known you would take it back. But i think he may just be an idiot, drove it like an idiot for a few hours, then returned it when something went wrong.
 
#8 ·
i dont think he drove it hard or anything and even if he did why would my motor just blow....you would have to redline it for like a minute to blow the motor....but the thing i cant comprehend is why i dont have oil in the car.....i think he drained out the oil and then drove it until my motor was done.....and yes i am stupid for taking it back i shouldnt have but i felt bad cuz i thought something just went wrong.....i didnt find out bout the oil til the next day
 
#10 ·
So since he screwed you over, if he messages you about it mention that he screwed you over and you will be having it investigated. Now that he will never message you again, fix the car and get rid of it, who knows what else the kid did to it...
 
#12 ·
i don't think you should sell your car for $4,000 either. maybe $8000-$9000?

i mean it has full sti drivetrain swapped into it which is like $5000 itself.

(i was guess-timating all those numbers :tongue: )
 
#14 ·
I'm like Micah. When I sell a car, I note on the bill of sale: AS IS - NO WARRANTY IMPLIED OR AVAILABLE.

As for the engine just going kaput - have no fear my friend - it can AND WILL. I'm living proof. 2002 WRX, 61k miles, seriously religious about servicing the car.. cruising lightly along, DONE. Oil pump took a chit, no IDIOT/OIL light ever came on. 6 months and many thousands later, I'm finally back on the road. FWIU, several EJ205s have done this. As for where your oil went - I've got no idea. Mine was the same way, but had a miniscule amount of oil in it.. weird.
 
#15 ·
Did you already give him his money back? Is so, you've been taken. If not, then keep it and tell him that it's his car now and his problem.
 
#16 ·
#17 ·
Agreeing to give it back and actually giving it back are two different things Rogan..... ;)
 
#18 ·
Jeez. The guy probably drained the oil. It doesn't just run out on its own. Too late to not give the money back, but I sure wouldn't sell it to him. I'd just tell him I found a good motor cheap and it's not for sale until that engine goes in.

Bet he never calls you back.
 
#21 ·
Never mind not applying for private party sales, it doesn't apply at all to used car sales. It's for new cars only within the first year you own them.
 
#24 ·
Update

so yea i just got my car back today.....my rod bearings were done.......i got a new block though and it cost me about 1200 bucks for everything.......car runs perfect though.....and i realized how much i missed it lol.......now im going to try and sell it once again but this time i learned my lesson
 
#25 ·
super-duper clean it, and bump the price up, try to recoop, or, call it a 1200$ lesson.
 
#29 ·
ibet you that he bought the car left ur house got insurance on the car, made sure it covered the engine and drivetrain, then drained the oil and burnt the **** out of the engine, im sorry this happened to you ****n crooks, i would sell it to him, then put bleach in his gas tank, to fry his engine.:)
 
#39 ·
... sounds like a rattle....he then calls me like 30 min later and tells me th car died on him and it wont start, that he was going to call a tow truck and tow it back to my house.....
This is exactly what happened to me. loud rattle, tried to drive to the dealer, died on the freeway, towed. I took good care of my car with Mobil 1 every 3 month regardless of mileage (less than 3000, this is my weekend car) and other routine maintenence.

That guy sounds kinda shady, but it could very well be a coincidence.
 
#40 ·
I'm late to the thread, and is sounds like you've at least got a new engine happening now, but for future reference, the ECU keeps a history of not only CEL related issues, but pretty much a full data history of various parameters. I would have had a dealer do a full download to a spreadsheet and look for anomalies. Using this, you could backtrack time-wise to when things started to go wrong. If it was while the buyer had the car....I would have said "sorry...no money back". If not, I would have given the money back, just to be fair and avoid bad karma.
 
#41 ·
Same thing just happened to me!!!!

So,

This thread struck my attention. I have an 03 WRX and (please don't yell at me) got an oil change at Pep Boys while grocery shopping last week. Well, about 50 miles later, my car made a horrible rattle and basically died on the street. I had it towed to a Subaru dealer and they called me a few hours later and asked me "Where is the oil?"

There is no oil to be found in the car, none on the dipstick, no leak, none ANYWHERE! Methinks that the losers at Pep Boys did not put oil back in my car.

I am trying to get a lawsuit going, but is there any other cause of this? The car has 127,000 miles. Just changed out the head gaskets, new timing belt. . .never had a problem with oil or oil pressure or anything. never hit the red. ..help. please.
 
#42 ·
So,

This thread struck my attention. I have an 03 WRX and (please don't yell at me) got an oil change at Pep Boys while grocery shopping last week. Well, about 50 miles later, my car made a horrible rattle and basically died on the street. I had it towed to a Subaru dealer and they called me a few hours later and asked me "Where is the oil?"

There is no oil to be found in the car, none on the dipstick, no leak, none ANYWHERE! Methinks that the losers at Pep Boys did not put oil back in my car.

I am trying to get a lawsuit going, but is there any other cause of this? The car has 127,000 miles. Just changed out the head gaskets, new timing belt. . .never had a problem with oil or oil pressure or anything. never hit the red. ..help. please.
You would have noticed if it burnt off due to the massive amount of smoke you would have seen behind you, and if it leaked out it's again on pep boys. This is definitely a case of them not putting oil in the car after draining. Law suit time.
 
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