eBay

north6342 · ‎08-04-2017

I recently bought a scooter through ebay. when i bought it it started 1st time and was what i needed. i used it that day only did a few miles and parked it up. the next day it wouldnt start. i took it to a garage who have told me the altinator is faulty thats why i only got a few miles out of the battery. how do i find out if i have any kind of insurance with ebay. i paid cash for it but i do have all the details and messages from the seller. i dont know where i stand with this. does anybody have any ideawhat i can do. Thanks

marinermikes · ‎08-04-2017

Scooter is pretty vaque. If it has a title it may qualify for the Vehicle protection program but the program has so many exclusions that I wouldn't count on it.

Did you contact the seller? If you paid cash for it means you checked it over before you paid for it. A bad altenator is not some thing that you may spot in a inspection. The seller may or may not have known this.

A few ways to go on this but I would say you will ended up putting a new altenator in it.

legitimate_bidder · ‎08-04-2017

Scooters have alternators?

Yeah, like the seller is psychic and knew that the "alternator" would carp-out the next time went to start it. (Maybe the stator is not working, and the seller wouldn't have a clue until the battery died...which it didn't do until you had it)

Sorry dude, but no warranty on Ebay for anything like that, even on a car. I'm assuming this was a used scooter? Things go wrong...you never know when they're gonna go wrong, which is why used vehicles are sold as is.

If a garage is saying "alternator", I'd find another garage (Unless we're talking one of those huge scooters, like a Bergman or something)- Run-of-the-mill scooter have stators....if that truly is the problem, you can buy one here on Ebay quite inexpensively and install it yourself. Plenty of videos on Youtube to show you how.

atikovi · ‎08-04-2017

Let me guess, made in China? Good luck getting parts.

corndog2 · ‎08-04-2017

Anything that is mechanical can break down at any time. When you received the scooter it was working and you drove it that day. The next day not. That's how things happen sometimes.

Two weeks ago we drove my husband's truck to an auction. It started right up like always in the garage. We drove it to the auction just fine. When we went to leave the auction a few hours later, it was deader than a door nail. We had someone jump start the battery to get us home. It restarted at the gas station on the way home, but did not start in the driveway a little while later. We had it tested at the local parts store and it needed a new battery. There was nothing ahead of time to indicate it was going to fail that day. A new battery fixed it right up.

Just how the cookie crumbles now and then.

legitimate_bidder · ‎08-04-2017

@atikovi wrote:
Let me guess, made in China? Good luck getting parts.

Actually, Chinese scooter parts are ubiquitous, even right here on Ebay. Cheap, too. They've really improved the quality of them over the last few years- I used to a Chinese scooter, and I loved it. Never gave me a day's trouble, and it'd run circles around the expensive Japanese ones ....all for $700 brand new. You could even get parts to mod it...over-bore it, etc. They've come a long way, as long as you can turn a wrench so that you aren't dependent on a non-existent dealer for everything.

ripsmc · ‎08-06-2017

"In good working order' is also word play used by someone selling a vehicle in which they know there's a problem. It's definition is far different than "runs good with no issues".

Many years ago I went to work for a large car dealer. The second day I rode my Harley to work. Seeing this, they asked (ha..) if I wanted to handle the Puch moped service work. When I hired on I had no idea they were a Puch dealer also.

Thankfully the Puchs were history after another month.

Everybody that bought one brought it in complaining of "no power". Five horsepower? Seriously? And they wonder why it won't keep up on the expressway or while riding 2 up? Or in one case, a 275 pound man complaining of no get up and go.

Even worse was the labor times for flat rate pay. A complete engine overhaul paid .7 hours which included the R & R of the engine from the frame. A measly 45 minutes.

Everything else paid .2 hours.

Good thing they unloaded the Puch franchise because I was about to go because there wasn't a dime to be made on those heaps.

legitimate_bidder · ‎08-06-2017

Thing is, there's no way to know who's telling the truth with used vehicles. It could be in good shape and then one or two things could just happen to go bad....or the seller could be lying. If it's got one issue, like the battery not charging, I'd be pretty happy. When you buy from a stranger without sweeing and inspecting it first, you're just rolling the dice. No way to tell, much less prove that it was bad when the guy sold it, or that he knew it was. Be happy- it's not like it's a total piece of junk and unusable or anything.

Maybe your expectatuions are too high- like the guy expecting the Puch to go at highway speeds. You took a chance; you bought something sight unseen- you don't even know if it was like that when it was sold or if it just happened. At least the engine isn't blown or something like that. And you don't even know if the guy at the garage is competent or honest- it could just be a bad connection or voltage regulator or something.

Welcome to the world of used vehicles. Play at your own risk if you want to roll the dice, otherwise go see it before you buy, or pay more and buy new.

I sold a Jeep Cherokee last year that I had bought from a friend, just because it was too small for me, and the mileage it got didn't justify keeping it. A month later, the guy who bought it called ,e for a paper that he needed to be signed, and mentioned that the front differential had no ring gear in it! I didn't have a clue! Had I known, I would have told him or fixed it before selling it- but I'll bet you the guy thinks that I knew, and that I put one over on him.

This is why used vehicles are sold "as is". I'm pretty knowledgeable about vehicles, but I don't have X-ray vision, and I never had the Jeep in a situation where the traction was so poor that it made me realize that the 4x4c wasn't working, so I had no way of knowing.

Could be the same with the scooter seller. Even if the stator quit while he had it, as long as the battery didn't die yet, he wouldn't even know. Or he could've known, and just not mentioned it. No way to tell which.

"No means no", and as-is means as-is. When I buy a used vehicle, I ALWAYS assume that the seller is trying to hide multiple issues, and that it is my job to try and discover them. I'd never buy sight unseen, except from a trusted friend; and even buying in-person, a lot of times you'll still miss things.

That's why used vehicles cost less and don't have warranties.

legitimate_bidder · ‎08-06-2017

Oooppps! Rip, I thought you were the OP! My bad!

omgitlightsup · ‎08-10-2017

Most people know what an "alternator" is. Few people know what a "stator" is, and the stator windings are probably not what's wrong.. it's more likely the rectifier that's burned out. If any reasonable garage tech put a meter across the battery and noted that it was running at 8V full-throttle, he would probably tell the customer that there was an alternator problem to clearly get the point across. Doing further troubleshooting would take more time and money.

I would bet money the seller knew that there was something wrong with the charging system. He probably sold it because he had to charge the battery to get it running every single time, and he probably tried changing the battery already. That's a drama that plays out all over the world on a daily basis.