I just sold my lovely and reliable T4 to a buddy, a week later and it’s in limp mode, no power and needs re-starting to kick it back into life. Not a rant or even a request for help, just a warning not to sell a car to your mate as you may end up feeling like a knob.

Has anyone done similar and regretted it?

Once sold a mate an Alfa Romeo with 85k on the clock…..

Surprisingly we’re still friends.

Nearly did this with a near perfect 65k focus a few years back (3 years ownership, garaged, no issues, serviced regularly), in the end sold on eBay and the guy rang me up a week later saying alternator had failed, 6 months later MOT check said at it’s next MOT it needed all new brakes, wheel bearings, significant suspension work and it failed emissions!

Is this really a life lesson that needs to be learned through personal experience?

Onza, nope that’s why I’m passing on the woe to you.

Oliverracing- to be honest I wouldn’t buy anything from somebody called ‘racing’ , ‘slowandsteady’ sounds more desirable.

Not a friend, but a friend, of a friend of a friend sort of thing. Didn’t know it at the time.

Sold a Honda Accord Estate with a small list of non-critical faults and one massive pain the in arse electrical fault. Sold it to him as “This is a Accord Estate with this small list of non-critical faults and this massive pain in the arse fault, but it’s about a grand cheaper than all the others of this age / mileage / spec that are supposedly perfect.”.

“Great” he said “My brother is an auto-electrician” and off he went happy.

Suffice to say that 3 months later, he was the reason I learned how to block callers to your mobile, black-list e-mail addresses and thanked the Lord on high that he didn’t make a note of my address.

Just for balance…..Sold my T4 hightop camper to a mate from work. 120kmiles with a dodgy clutch. 5 years later he’s at 160k and the clutch is exactly the same. He bloody loves it.

I sold a pug to a guy from work with full disclosure that the clutch was screwed and he’d be luck to get it home.  4 years later and on the same clutch he was still razzing it around town!

Limp mode on a T4? Is that a thing? Not sure my 96 one is clever enough to have a limp mode … non turbo 2.4 though, probably the difference.

Feel for you though – I do think hard before selling for friends and family for exactly that reason.

ITS A 2001 caravelle 2.5 so a fairly fancy engine, he just described it as losing power intermittently and needing to re-start To get power back.

i cursed when someone sold us a zafira that soon went into limp mode…same symptoms as above and thought the worse…until realised it just had no oil in it and was shutting down to protect itself. No other warnings, no oil light etc – turns out oil light didn’t work.

We sold our 98 Ibiza/Cordoba Estate to pals, in 2004 with 80k on clock. Under us it had one issue with a CV joint failing early on, fixed under warranty.

Sure enough, 6 months after we sold it it became the most unreliable thing ever….

I felt awful, until a few years later discovered that a) they hadn’t serviced it, checked oil or anything (apparently that is what the garage do each year for the MOT…) and b) he has the mechanical sympathy of a rhino and could reduce brand new cars to rattling wrecks too…

Thankfully, I am  not his bike mechanic as his bikes are the same!

T4 2.5tdi limp mode… Mine was chafed accelerator wiring in the loom where it went through the bulkhead – common problem, only happened when it was wet/damp. VAGCOM will say ‘Accelerator pedal Implausible signal’!

No matter how good the vehicle has been for you it can decide to dump it’s guts as soon as you sell it to a friend…. it is the way of used cars except you feel obligated to fix it or help them out…

Sold my 1988 Volvo 740 GLE estate to a friend before I left Canada in 2003. It had 350000 kms on the clock, and the fuel relay needed re-soldering.

In 2007, he was still driving the car between his home in Northern Saskatchewan and his parents’ home in Southern Ontario more than once a year, for a round trip of about 6000 kms each time.

When he finally had it taken away, it was well on its way to a million kms.

For what its worth, my Seat (which is basically a VW) had the same issue after a jump start, you can fix it by removing/replacing one of the fuses. Maybe worth a go to make you feel like less of a numpty 😉

thanked the Lord on high that he didn’t make a note of my address

Oh but he did. Just wait til the rapture.

Bought a mates Dad’s Civic type R, full service history reasonable price and reliable source. I knew it’d cost mechanically in the end, but that’s part of the risk of a used car. Provided you sold it in good faith (services all done and no prior knowledge it was about to fail) then it’s just how things work out.

I sold our very old Subaru to a mate when we left NZ. About 2 months later she sent me a link to a news story about i being stolen and used to ram raid a souvenir shop.

VAGCOM will say ‘Accelerator pedal Implausible signal’!

Funnily, every car my wife has ever driven would probably report this. It’s no wonder that she gets less MPG from any given car than anyone I know!

 Once sold a mate an Alfa Romeo with 85k on the clock…..

I can’t remember the mileage but it was probably similar when I did this too.

It didn’t go well (the car).

He’d been after it for ages and said if I didn’t get what I wanted on eBay then he had an offer on the table.

It went for more on eBay, twice, but, well, eBay innit? Buyers started coming up with complications and delays and eventually dropped off the radar so I sold it to my mate (work colleague as well) for a bit less than I wanted, but a reasonable price.

It was understood that it was a private sale, sold as seen, no warranty given or implied.

It was running great when I handed over the keys. He was delighted.

Later that very day, the engine began grumbling and losing power.

After some investigations and attempted remediation, he eventually got a recon engine fitted.

That turned out to be even worse than the one it replaced.

He must have spent more on it than he paid me for it before eventually damn near giving it to webuyanycar.

He never once asked me for a penny, and we remained good friends.

Sold a car years ago. The head gasket went a week later. Guy who bought it threatened to kill me😳

Sold my old Golf GTI to a colleague (admittedly for not very much cash – £500 or so, 100k on the clock).

He did it up, looked pretty spruce, then it went on fire due to a leaking oil pipe spewing oil over the engine. He got it fixed up, and it was still going at around 120k at least, which I reckon is a minor miracle. I knew all but the original owner (I’d bought it off a mate, who’d done the same)…

I bought an immaculate E30 325i in Dolphin Grey for a bargain price of £825 in 2001.

Sold it to an ex-colleague for £1800.

Head gasket went after a week.

So he stuck a 2.7 Alpina engine in it.

Then wrapped it around a tree a month later.

We’re not in touch.