What now????

So, remember how excited we were to have scored a car two days ago?? well, Char went to the DMV and the change of title can't be processed without a smog cert. The dude who sold it to us had apparently smogged it like 6 months ago which leaves us SOL because it needs to be within 3 months to be valid. We took it in today to get a smog check and it FAILED!!!!!! It passes the nox check for the 25 mph but not for the 15 mph. WTF?!? In my sister's words "so, we're polluting if we drive slow but okay if we drive fast?"

Yeah, we're both not happy campers right now. But we called the guy and I spoke to him and he agreed to pay for the smog failure diagnostics and depending on how much it costs to fix the problem, he might pay the full amount or we work something out. At least he didn't run away and not pick up and all. But this still sucks. Also, the odometer says 103, 000 miles but the title says 141,000. So, in the 8 months the dude had the car, it changed. The mechanic at the smog place told us that's a huge thing we could nail him with because it's fraud. So, if he doesn't work with us to get everything sorted out, we're gonna report him. Also, no smog cert = no change of title = the car is still in his name (well, his girlfriend's name) so he knows he can't run cos if he does and we're vindictive, we can rack up the traffic fines on the car (like parking fines or camera-caught red light violations, etc) and he'll have to pay or lose his license. We're not like that and totally want to sort everything out but I hope he realizes how much damage we could do if we were so inclined. I wish we could just get our money back in exchange for the car but we can't. apparently he's used the money already.....it's probably a lie but that just means we can't do a 90 day return like at the stores. Boo.

Regardless, we can't check or do anything until we get the diagnostics done on Monday. The dude offered to fix the car himself but we really don't trust him to do a good job. See? we're learning. The learning curve is a steep one but that's life. It's just one more thing checked off on my check list of things I've been screwed over for in America. I have one for each country; it's easier to keep track of that way and makes for interesting comparisons. 

So yeah, despite my near constant googling of any and all resources on buying a used car, there are many perils that google did not warn me about. FML.

Also, the creepy black dude who tried to sell us the Mazda called Char twice yesterday to see if we want the car and then when we called back today to say no, he was like, "so now that we've got business out of the way, when are you free to hang out?" She tells him she's too busy. "Oh, what about your friend?" My sis looks at me and lies about me leaving this weekend. "Oh, alright. Can I keep your number and call you to chat?" WTF? Seriously?!?!? Char has got his number saved under "Creeper. Do NOT Answer" Apparently, he called about an hour later but we were receiving the bad news about the smog test and didn't hear the phone. ......ooops....too bad.....NOT! Jeeze, why us???