No Luck Truck

About a month ago the little blue Metro finally gave up the ghost and lost it's engine. Scott and Benjamin weren't having much luck finding a replacement so Scott asked if he could buy back the Prism that he sold to us aout a year ago. It sounded like a fine idea to me when he offered $900 which was exactly what we owed the mean tax collector. The boys (Pete and Dan) had been bantering about the idea of getting a small pickup anyway and Bekah is still too scared to drive much anyway. It seems at least once a month a pickup would be rather handy to have around. So I made a call to our credit union in Utah and refinanced the Lexus again (I did that last year to buy the Prism and pay our taxes). 2,000 smackeroonies were soon deposited into our account and we began the search. Craig's List is a wonderful thing so in no time at all we had a number of prospects to check out. Dan had a job interview at the CSC computer warehouse where Aaron and Josh worked out by the Raytheon plant, so we checked out a truck after the interview. He got the job but the pickup was not so good. A couple of days later on April 1st (April Fools?) I had Dan and $2000 cash with me to go check out a 1994 Nissan extended-cab semi-beauty. The guy who had it on Craig's List had lowered the price from $2750 to $2700, to $2350 and now had it at $2150 so I thought I could get it for 18 or 1900 dollars.
The guy had a small garage where he fixes up cars and resells them. Pete met us there and both he and Dan drove the truck. It ran like a little champ so I offered him $1800 he said he had someone coming with $2050 the next day and wouldn't budge so I had Dan go get $50 from the ATM so I could pay the little man. Pete said the idle was a bit low so while Dan was gone, the little Asian Man (he said his name was Man) adjusted the idle. Man got the title and I traded him $2060 for it (the ATM only spit out twenties). Mr Man only had $7 so I wound up paying $2053 for the pickup. It still had the plates from the previous owner on it and the title had been signed and notarized May 21, 2008 with the buyers section still blank. It is a fairly common practice for dealers to wait to sign the buyers section in case they sell the vehicle in a few days. Woo hoo! I am now the proud owner of a TRUCK!
I didn't like the idea of driving with someone else's plates so that night I paid a dollar to get a three-day permit from servicearizona.com to use until I got the new title and plates the next day which was Thursday. We drove the truck around a bit and took it out to our place on Saturday to plink at bunch of water-filled medicine bottles (they explode so coolly!). The road to the place is all narrow, dirt, and bumpy so it was nice to see how the pickup handled it.
The next Monday Dan took it to Ben's property to bring him some plywood and move some sand. No problem. At around 8:30 that night I get a call from Dan. Big problem. The truck had quit just as he turned onto Kolb Road from I-10. I grabbed some tools, flashlights, and such and went to rescue him and the pickup. The battery was pretty much so I had to face Babs' car in the wrong direction to try a jump-start. It didn't. Just then some nice policemen came and offered to push the truck down to the U of A Technology Park access road and off of Kolb. One blocked the lane we were in while the other used his car to push Dan to safety. Nice guys.
The battery was old and decrepit like me so we took it out and off to the overnight Autozone to see if it was salvageable. It was not. With a new battery and two gallons of gas in tow (just in case the gas gage was wrong) we went back to the ailing truck and gave it a drink and a new source of electricity. It started but made a horrendous noise when it did so I had Dan immediately shut it down and called Babs to get the number for a tow truck. It was 12:30 AM at this time. In a fit of complete stupidity, I told Dan to go home and I would wait for the tow truck and call him when I got the pickup to Aaron's father-in-law's gas station.
I had brain-farted the fact that I had worked a twelve-hour day BEFORE Dan called about the pickup. How long could it take for a tow truck to show up anyway? Half-an-hour? Forty-five minutes? Maybe and hour at the most? It came at 2:45. Eighty dollars and an hour later Dan picked me up at the station and took me home.
Pete was the first to contact Mr. Man and explain to him the Arizona Lemon Law which is that if a dealer sells you a vehicle and said vehicle has a major mechanical problem within 15 days or 500 miles, said dealer must repair said vehicle with a maximum charge to you of $50, or return the purchase price in exchange for said vehicle (we had had said vehicle for 5 days and 147 miles). Mr. Man would have none of that saying he was a private party and NOT a dealer and would not give Pete his last name nor return any more calls.
I called him the next day and instead of leaving a message, I paged him to the home phone. When he called back, I rationally explained to him that the law is on my side and, even though I don't want to do it, I would contact the Attorney General of Arizona and or whomever else I need to to get satisfaction. "You broke truck! You no wanna pay! You overload truck! I call Attorney General too!" was all he kept yelling. I kept telling him to calm down, that there was nothing to yell about but I would need his last name so I could get paperwork to him...silence. "I need your last name so I can get documents to you."...click.
To make a long story less long, we got his name and address and have had a lawyer sign a letter requesting him to contact us about repairing the truck or returning the purchase price or we will contact the Attorney General, Motor Vehicle Dept, 9 on Your Side, Vinnie & Guido, or all of the above. We sent the letter by certified mail and are waiting for his response. My ball is now in his court...