My son, an auto mechanic and an BMW enthusiast. just purchased a used BMW for 300 dollars from a customer who was frustrated with the car and not willing to pay any more to repair it. He regarded the purchase as great deal, but it was even a better deal than he thought. While he was checking out the car last night, be discovered that a spark plug had been misinstalled by the owner. When it was replaced, the engine sang like Beverley Sills.
My son said that he had suggested to the owner that he change the spark plugs, but had been told that this had recently been done. “He was nasty about it, too,” he said. “Would he have sold you the car for such a low price if the car was running the way it is now?” I asked.
“Never,” my son replied.
Your Ethics Quiz of the Day:
Is there an ethical duty to offer the car back to the original owner when it is discovered after the purchase that the vehicle was better and more valuable than the owner thought?
Secondary question: My son says that he might feel badly about the deal if the owner hadn’t been such a jackass throughout the transaction, and not only rejected his advice that would have revealed the car’s problem, but did so abusively.
Is that a valid and relevant ethical consideration?
Ethics Alarms 
No, I do not see an ethical duty to offer the car back. The seller has made his choice, and can live with the consequences.
The fact the previous owner was abusive is irrelevant. But I hope that your son got an iron-clad bill of sale from that previous owner, who sounds like the type to sue once he finds out about the sparkplug fix.
I’d probably offer it back, but then I’m a wimp. I’d worry about how I’d feel driving it around after my first anger about the original owner faded.
If they were two strangers, and your son found out about this, I would not offer the car back.
But your son was the mechanic who was working on the car. That complicates things enormously. It’s not exactly a clean hands transaction, and if word got around about the situation, that does not exactly engender trust in the mechanic. I would offer it back.
His son is “A” mechanic, not the sellers, mechanic… I think. Unless my reading is off, he didn’t /know/ about the spark plugs until he popped the hood after the sale, he only suspected as much, and actually told the seller so.
He used the word “customer “, which led me to believe the son worked on the car. If he didn’t, then it is more of a hands off transaction.
Indeed, he worked on the car, and offered to check the plugs while doing so.
Right, it’s going to come down to prior relationship balanced with what the car is actually worth now that it’s “fixed”. Of course, I hear the running tale of how BMW’s are money pits after the first couple of years, so perhaps the previous owner is just happy to be done with it.
How long ago was the transaction? Did your son already title and plate the car?
Very quick—transaction yesterday, discovery of bad plug last night, registration, tags and title this morning…
And the prior relationship? Was your son ever in the position of authority as the customer’s mechanic on this specific vehicle?
No. In fact, he just moved to that particular shop, and it had been working on the car before he was assigned there as a tech.
Ooooo, it thickens with more “new information”!
If this was a continuing problem as a result of previous work at that shop, why wasn’t the owner of the shop directly involved with the service to this car?
Might be time for your son to consider getting out of that shop and open his own shop!
Wait, did I misunderstand; was it the owner or the shop put the spark plugs in that caused the problem?
A BMW has the potential of becoming a money pit, especially if the owner doesn’t want to learn how to work on it himself. There are so many car clubs, DIY videos, software programs, and good manuals that there’s almost no reason why someone with at least average intelligence and motivation wouldn’t. Some models are better than others, too, in terms of reliability and longevity, and often can be purchased fairly cheaply. I own a 2001 540i, and couldn’t be happier. This car has a known issue with the timing chain guides, but I’m in the process of replacing these and doing a partial rebuild. The other major components of the engine are very robust, and it’s not unheard of to go well over 300,000 miles if the guides are replaced and care is taken with routine maintenance.
https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/
If it’s not exactly a clean hands transaction, then there is something unethical about it or there is a distinct appearance of unethical conduct.
But whether or not the action engenders trust is immaterial…that’s ends justifies the means. If the action is trustworthy or not IS material.
I think your son is under no ethical obligation to give the car back to the owner. It was moral luck that it wasn’t in worse shape. He didn’t know for sure what was wrong with it and (based on the article) the seller had made an effort to fix it.
You could argue the golden rule applies. My understanding of the golden rule is it doesn’t matter what the other person does, you act how you would want to be treated.
I think we are ethically bound to disclose information we do know, that the seller does not. For example:
I play a card game with some friends called Magic. Some of these cards can get quite valuable. Though I don’t play like I used to, I used to go to flea markets and garage sales hoping to get great deals on these cards. About 8 years ago, I came across a lady selling a binder of these cards. When I looked, there were several early editions of these cards, including one I knew was several thousand dollars (I just looked it up, currently worth $16,000). I asked the lady how much she wanted for the cards and she said something like $5 dollars for the binder.
I thought about it for a minute, told her what I knew, and told her to take them to a collector and have them appraised. She thanked, let me choose one of the cards, and put them away.
When I repeat that story to friends, I am often criticized, but I know I made the right decision. However, I can not say with certainty, if the lady was a jerk, I would have kept my mouth shut and given her the $5.
Ooooh… You got within eyeball distance of an Alpha Black Lotus? Jelly.
Haha, yes. I’ve seen a few, but that was my only chance to ever buy one. The only time I regret it is when I look at my student loan bill.
As a side note: Proverbs 25:21-22.
So when we bought Long Island for a set of trinkets knowing the set of trinkets to us were of low value, and knowing the acreage of Long Island was of immense value, we should’ve informed the Indians who sold us Long Island.
(Beside the point is that the native Americans thought the trinkets were invaluable and considered Long Island to be of no property value because those particular Indians didn’t actually “own” Long Island)
What do you do when someone doesn’t believe in the value of an object you value immensely?
Of course the magic card lady and the Long Island non-owning Indians aren’t analogous, but do they remotely operate on the same principle?
Well, I learned in China, the bartering system changes depending on how much you know the other person wants what you’re selling. If you are drastically interested and hold something in great value, the price will go up. I doubt the Natives or the settlers knew Long Island would become the place and value it is today. The cards themselves had a set value (pretty much), while the land was subjectively viewed by both parties. If the Indians didn’t believe they owned the land, I’m surprised we gave them anything for it (and from what I understand of most of the country, we didn’t).
So to answer your question, maybe. I don’t know enough about that particular deal other than my history teacher regarded as the greatest land buy in the USA.
The Louisiana Purchase was better. Also Alaska.
Makes me wonder: can we give Long Island back?
Remove all improvements and non ‘native population, repopulate with animals, and move the Indians of of the reservations? Or just remove the population and give the land, improvements and all, back to the Indians.
In the brilliant Stan Freberg’s classic musical comedy album, “Stan Freberg Presents The United States Of America, Part I,”—and anyone who hasn’t heard it has my sympathies—after the sale, the Indian Chef shouts, “Strike the forest set!” And chortles, “Whole Island concrete! Nothing grow!”
Here it is on YouTube.
I agree with you and said so. He said something about the value of the island today. I’m willing to bet the LP is still worth more.
Every time I think of land deals like Manhattan, et al, I recall the story of how one of the earlier nations in present-day Colorado (I should remember more details) sold the land that became the Air Force Academy (18,000 acres) to the U.S. Government – for $1.00. Those earlier owners were happy to dispense with the land, because they believed that evil spirits lived there. I laugh every time I think of that. The sellers might have been right, believing what is true – and even if they weren’t right, they were verifiably prescient. I mean…Harry Chapin, come on! I could name many more…but I’ll stop, because someday soon, my remains are probably going to be buried there – I would NEVER miss the Zombie Apocalypse!
I would also add, in the case of the son, I’m willing to bet he would have paid more money if the man was less emotional about the situation. I think this situation is more like the Long Island situation. Both believe the car’s value is different than the other and neither knows for sure.
In this case, my son knew it was a good deal anyway. He was shocked at how good. Kind of like the US finding gold in Alaska. Also, unlike with Manhattan, the seller actually owned the car.
If your son did nothing wrong, there is no actual conflict. If he wants to proactively advertise himself as the “most honest mechanic” around, then he should offer it back.
So keeping the car is less than ‘most honest’?
That’s not what I mean. It’s perfectly honest for him to keep the car, BUT imagine the PR he can create for himself if he returns it? Mechanics have a bad rep (deserved or not) of being crooks, so returning a car that you don’t have to shatters that negative image.
I guess I am just turning lemons into lemonade if he decides to give it back.
Oooh, this is a GOOD ONE.
I don’t think there’s a legal OR ethical duty per se, but if it was me I’d probably offer anyway, despite the owner being a jackass. With any luck, such a lesson might encourage said jerk to be a bit more reasonable.
And from an ethical perspective I do NOT think the behavior of the seller, however obnoxious, should be a consideration. Though it sure does offer a measure of smug satisfaction.
I’m puzzled by something, though, about your description of the situation. Bought from a customer…? Was the shop in which your son works the one that mis-installed the spark plug in the first place? If that’s the case, then there is IMO absolutely an ethical duty to return the car to the owner AND absorb the labor costs related to the correction. And it would be nice if the owner gave your son the $300 back.
The car was being worked on in the shop where my son works.
The (cheap) spark plugs had been installed by the owner personally.
My son, who also worked on the car at the shop, suggested that bad plugs might be the source of the car’s performance issues, and was told by the owner that he was just trying to rack up more hours, that the plugs were fine.
Below I wrote below, “The previous owner was an idiot for not taking it to a professional shop…”
Jack just wrote, “The car was being worked on in the shop where my son works.”
I wasn’t aware of that when I wrote my comment below.
Based on this “new information” my comment below was correct but it needs an additional statement. It would be an ethical customer service gesture to offer the car back to the previous owner at a price equivalent to that $300 PLUS additional dollars roughly equivalent to the additional time and effort to fix the car and any other expenses incurred as a result of the transfer of ownership. This makes both the ethical nature of the mechanic (your son) and that of the shop he works for stand out above the rest – efforts like this could make your son and the company he works for an ethics hero and spread like wildfire via word-of-mouth.
Again there is absolutely no ethical requirement to do this, but it would give a good warm ethical feeling to all those involved if he chose to do this, even if the original owner chose not to purchase the car back.
My guess is the previous owner was really ready to wash his hands of the car and would likely say thanks but no thanks.
Very possible.
I am not a collector so when I see baseball items I generally ignore them. At a recent yard sale looking for yard toys for my five-year-old granddaughter the person running the sale had a significant number of autographed baseball that her husband had collected. Two were I cases – one was a team baseball from 1957 by the Yankees and the other a team baseball from the 1955 Dodgers. There were others. I asked how much she wanted. She told me $20. I quickly showed her the real value and told her to (1) Put them away and (2) get them insured.
Regarding the car I see a similar situation where the value is unknown – with baseball, it was a husband who never informed his spouse of the true value and the car from someone with no mechanical skills. The car was bought from someone who was frustrated, angry and a pinhead, but does that allow you to take advantage of a situation? I would have offered back the car.
I guess the difference here is you knew the value of the cards and she didn’t. With the car, neither knows the value. One suspects it’s worthless and the other suspects its worth quite a bit more.
Therefore, I see nothing ethically wrong with the situation.
I would return it simply because that happens to be the person I am. I have gotten something for nothing and my personal ethics would not allow me to take advantage of a situation despite the person being rather unpleasant. I would certainly not make it in politics and several other professions.
I actually have recent experience here, although not on a BMW scale- In prepping for a move I sold some comics for an acquaintance for ~$20 that I almost immediately realized are in high enough demand to sell for 10 times that. It never occurred to me that she should give them back or change the price, it was MY responsibility to know what I was selling. I did let her know, though, so she could decide whether to keep them or re-sell while the market was hot.
I’ll have more later, but my gut is there is an ethical impulse to offer the car back, and maybe even an ethical duty to a degree to offer it back…but perhaps it isn’t UNETHICAL to not do so.
Can there be a category of such in ethics? Where it is ethical to do something but NOT unethical to NOT do it?
Like I said…more to come.
I think so- an extreme case would be something like rushing into traffic to push a stranger out of the way of a car. Certainly admirable and ethical to do, but I don’t think you could be held unethical not to risk your own life (assuming no affirmative duty to do so).
I am prepared to see this as choice between an exemplary ethical act vs a not Unethical act. (As in your pedestrian scenario)
But right now my gut says there is an ethical duty to return, but my gut also says not returning it isn’t unethical. And I’m not sure if such a situation can actually exist.
I use “compassion” as a technical term for that, as opposed to “honor”, which describes obligatory acts. Compassion is ethical possibility (chaos) and honor is ethical certainty (order). Does that make sense?
“Is there an ethical duty to offer the car back to the original owner when it is discovered after the purchase that the vehicle was better and more valuable than the owner thought?”
Absolutely no ethical duty; the car was a gamble and could have just as easily be a complete piece of crap that wasn’t worth it’s weight in scrap metal.
The previous owner was an idiot for not taking it to a professional shop and investing a couple of hundred dollars to find out what was wrong with it. He screwed himself with his own instant gratification based on his own frustration.
You son gambled and he won, the owner took his $300 and walked – his loss. It’s none of the previous owners business what it took to fix the car.
Well, it is not a wholesale gamble. Jack’s son had worked on the car, so he had some inside information about the state of the car and based on that a hunch about a possible solution.
Well… wait guys. I think that we’re still operating with incomplete information. Beemers are expensive, you could have taken the battery and the water pump out from under the hood, sold them on Ebay and gotten more than $300, The owner was always making a bad deal. My take on this is that the owner probably knew that… But was beyond caring.
Personally, I’d keep it. I wouldn’t tell the guy, because that kind of smacks like rubbing his face in it, but I wouldn’t feel bad.
I watch Judge Judy in the summer. I know. I think if a similar situation arose in her court and the original owner wanted his stuff back she’d laugh him out of court. Far from settled law, but for what it’s worth.
This is very timely as I’ve read several articles about related subjects:
The overarching topic is this:
http://jalopnik.com/when-is-it-morally-wrong-to-flip-cars-for-a-profit-1796857203
“When is it morally wrong to flip cars for a profit?”
The example given in this article is if you are a buyer, and you are buying a car on the cheap that you KNOW is worth a hell of a lot more (or is potentially worth a lot more), is it dishonest to pay so little for the car.
It ties into several other articles that they have written about in the past few weeks.
One, this man who found a pristine Jeep Grand Cherokee from 2000 with 4,000 miles on ODO and purchased it, and is now trying to sell it for $15k
(the story is more complicated):
http://truckyeah.jalopnik.com/someone-just-snagged-the-jeep-cherokee-barn-find-of-the-1796801689#_ga=2.91437658.1155892258.1499968155-162688327.1493443886
Another, one of the senior editors of Jalopnik went to pick up a free jeep that a reader wanted to give him. The reader was giving it away because it sounded like the engine was ready to explode, but it turned out to be a simple fix. The editor in this case gave the vehicle back after repairing it.
http://thegarage.jalopnik.com/heres-what-happened-when-i-drove-500-miles-to-pick-up-a-1796429002#_ga=2.59480813.1155892258.1499968155-162688327.1493443886
Finally, we have the news that during the VW diesel buyback program (looooong story about VW cheating diesel emissions), some people were trying to buy up used VWs from owners that just wanted to get rid of them (values of the cars tanked once it was revealed VW was cheating emissions), and then selling them to the dealer under the buyback program to make a profit.
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/vw-owners-get-facts
My take is that this is a rich guy, and the removal of frustration was worth the loss in his estimation. This is the same as when someone in my economic circle throws an appliance away and buys new, instead of seeing if a breaker needs a reset on the device. The amount of time and frustration is viewed as worse than replacement cost. Thus I don’t think the owner was hurt by the loss.
I make this ‘rich’ assessment from the following: BMWs are not cheap cars; the guy had to know the parts were worth more than $300, he worked on it himself but used cheap parts (save a penny but spend a pound,) he was obviously frustrated with having to deal with it, and the attitude given to your son when suggesting a relatively inexpensive fix.
Missing knowledge is the age of the car. New cars come with full protection warranties, and this would have been trivial for the dealership to diagnose and correct. We also do not know how he came to own the car: did her inherit? Did he find someone else ‘frustrated’ and get a deal? Did he buy as-is and regretted it later?
Of course, the previous owner’s ethics do not play into your son’s treatment of this situation. The Golden Rule applies, but (in my experience) telling the owner is not likely (as some here suggest) to obtain gratitude from such a person: they would take it as being corrected, or ridiculed, or such, and the ego carried by such a personality would demand your son be blamed.
This makes it unethical to return the car, IMHO.
I nominate this as COTD.
Has your son checked the trunk of the car yet???
I feel this is an important fact. Who would pay $300 for the privilege of disposing of a dead body?
Or am I just being negative? Here’s a positive situation: There’s probably a mint condition Mickey Mantle baseball card under the trunk mat.
Now that’s a good twist.
I’m still undecided on there being or not benign an ethical obligation to offer the car back as an exchange. But I’m more that certain there IS an ethical obligation to offer back any found property that is materially different from the car that the original seller would reasonably not considered part of the transaction….
I agree with most of what’s been written already. Offering the car back would be going above and beyond, but there is no ethical duty to do so.
My first impulse is the Golden Rule, so I’d consider offering it back if it was me. However, several non-ethical considerations obtain:
1. The guy was obviously fed up with the car and wanted to be rid of it. My experience with German cars of this ilk is that they are costly to maintain.
2. The guy was incompetent, and allowed his anger to render him even more incompetent when your son offered to do what was ultimately the solution to the car and he was disinterested.
3. There was offer and acceptance, a valid contract.
No, I don’t think your son has an ethical duty to offer the car back. They guy quite clearly wanted to be rid of it, and your son was happy to take it. The emotional factor of the moment might cause me to default to the Golden Rule, but I don’t think this is an ethical imperative in this case.
I don’t believe there is an ethical duty to offer the car back to it’s owner in this instance, but I may be misusing these tests. Kant’s universal imperative doesn’t seem to compel offering it back, if everyone acted like your son, the world would not be a bad place to live, things wouldn’t fall apart, it wouldn’t lead to bad outcomes. However, if everyone in that situation did offer the car back, the world would certainly be a better place. Does Kant’s imperative compel us to do something that makes the world better, or prohibit us from actions that make it worse? I would offer the car back, because I want to live in a world where that’s the normal way people behave.
The golden rule is trickier here. I honestly don’t know if I was in the sellers situation, ignoring his attitude, how I would want to be treated. I actually sold a V.W. that I believed had major engine damage to someone for cheap, I fully disclosed all known problems and indicated there were likely undisclosed ones as well. If it had turned out to be a fouled plug, I would have liked the buyer to give me a heads up so I could take my mechanic to the wood shed, but I would not have taken the care back from the buyer even if he offered. We made a deal, in good faith, with as much information as was available, the deal stands.
On a related note, I am an active collector and consider myself a specialist in the area I collect. I often come across material that is massively under priced compared to what other specialists would pay, largely because the person selling it has no idea what they have. When the person selling it is a dealer, I don’t inform them of their mistake. I believe dealers have a responsibility to be informed, it’s implicit in their profession, so when they don’t take the time to inform themselves and sell it for less than it’s worth that’s on them. If the seller is not a dealer, I generally inform them of what they have, let them know it’s worth a lot more than they are asking, and make an offer more in line with the item’s actual value. They are not representing themselves as experts so I feel it would be unfair to take advantage of them, even more so because the specialties I am involved in are quite esoteric and not easily ‘googled’…
Your last paragraph, brian, is fair and balanced, IMHO.
It sounds like your son did his due diligence in suggesting repairs, the customer refused them, and that was that. One question would be if during the bargaining your son ever pointed out that $300 was low for the car, and asked why the owner was selling for so low? I think that would be an ethical question to ask. After that, if the guy still wants to sell, oh well.
The customer being a dick shouldn’t affect your son’s obligation to be ethical with him, but it is a valid reason to avoid business with them in the future.
Here’s a question for you: I once sold a car that had a ton of problems; an old Subaru. It had obvious accident damage and a lot of engine problems. The dealer offered me nothing for it in trade, so I put it on craigslist. I was open and up front about all the problems I knew about, I even provided documentation for the repair work I had done on it.
In the end I had one 22-year old guy plead and plead with me to sell the car to him. He offered to meet my price and said he could pay cash immediately. When he showed up to inspect the car he brought his girlfriend, his mom, his best friend, and even his boss. Apparently he had just gotten a job in construction and needed a car ASAP. He was totally broke so he had gotten all these people to lend him the cash so he could buy my crappy car that night. The thing is, I knew my car needed tons of work and would cost him thousands of dollars to repair, even if he did the work himself. It was close to winter and it could easily break down in the snow and leave him stranded and freezing on the side of the road. I also felt like I was selling him a white elephant that was going to leave him broke and unable to pay back all these people. I seriously considered not selling him the car, and warned him repeatedly it was going to need work, but he insisted on buying it. Should I have done that? Should I have refused to sell something to someone who really should have been taking the bus or something? I felt like I was ripping him off.
I never heard back from him, so maybe it all worked out okay. Who knows.
“The dealer offered me nothing for it in trade, so I put it on craigslist. I was open and up front about all the problems I knew about, I even provided documentation for the repair work I had done on it.”
Not an ethics topic:
But I’ll never trade in another car again. Last car we sold to get our newest car: the dealer offered a pittance $4,000 while it was bluebooking from $10-12,000.
Craiglisted it for $10k and ended up selling at $8,500
Grampy_Bone,
You are not ethically required to stop someone from entering into a contract, to my knowledge. You disclosed everything and he then shouldered the risk.
Did your son check if there is a lien on the car?
No lien.