Thursday, April 10, 2008

Needless to say, I turned down the $900 brake job in hopes of finding it much cheaper elsewhere. Well, I found some place willing to do it for $700, and that may be as cheap as it gets unfortunately.

On top of that, we've got a contractor coming out to the house to look at our water problems. We have a problem that causes water to end up in our duct work. Not just a little water either. Last time it was about 700 gallons. This is the third time that it's happened since I've lived there. It only occurs when there the ground is super saturated. For example, when it snows 18 inches and then rains for 5 days in a row.

The solution looks like it will be to pour additional concrete at the edge of our slab, then run drain tile out and around to the front of the house. Hopefully that will fix the problem.

On top of that, this wasn't disclosed when I bought the house, so we may have some litigation in the future. The first contractor we had out said that there was a 95% chance that it had happened to the previous owners. If it did in fact happen to them, they're legally required to disclose it... so, we'll see what happens.

11 comments:

boilerdowd said...

Oooooh, my Infinity is expensive to fix...Ooooooh.

Oooooh, oooooh, my mansion has a leak...I only have $1,000,000 in savings...oooooh!

Tim said...

It's Infiniti. With three i's.

Infinity = math symbol

Infiniti = cars that are expensive to fix

Anonymous said...

Get a manual and do the brake job yourself! It isn't that hard and any special tools you might need you can rent from Autozone for free. Come on, be a man!


So wouldn't that be under the home inspection part of home buying? I don't see how the previous owners would have to disclose something like that. You would have to be able to prove they knew. Buyer beware. I have ghosts in my house, but I'm not gonna reveal that to anyone!

Tim said...

Why would they have to disclose that? Um. Because it's the law. You're required, by law, to fill out the disclosure form correctly. There's a section there called "Water Intrusion" which was checked "none." 700 gallons of water is not none.

You can get sued when you don't disclose existing problems with the house. This is one of those times.

J Money said...

Not if you can't prove it, Timmy. They can deny it completely and there's little way to prove they knew... best way would be to ask various contractors in the area if they have records of fixing such problems in the past... if you could get your hands on a work order from before you bought it, they'd be toast. But that could be a LOT of legwork.

Also, E, I'm not sure I'd recommend changing brakes yourself... especially on a car with Brembo's, ABS, traction control, etc. Too many things can get effed up... in fact, he might even have a tire pressure sensor hooked up in there somewhere. Modern cars are a pain in the ass.

Also, I agree with Ryan: "Waiter, waiter! My cavier is too salty!"

Anonymous said...

Well, if it's a law, then you have a case. Only if you can prove they knew about it. If it was never worked on, then there will be no proof or work orders. That's what insurance is for, I guess. Won't your insurance cover it?

Well I didn't realize he needed to take apart the whole system on his car! Do you have to replace the rotors?? My car has 14 years and 170,000 miles on the original rotors. I have replaced the pads several times by myself, and I have abs. But I don't street race like Tim.

Tim said...

The contractors we've had out say there's a 95% chance that it happened to the previous owners (who lived there for 25 years). But yes, the burden of proof is on us. Can we 100% prove that they knew about it? I don't know.

Also, insurance will not cover it. We already checked.

My car just hit 50K miles. It needs (according to them) new rotors in the front and resurfacing in the back. I'd never attempt to replace my brakes myself. I wouldn't even be able to bleed the lines, let alone disconnect all the freaking sensors. My car has sensors that tell you when your brakes are low, when your tire pressure is low, if your wheels are not the proper size, etc.

Anonymous said...

Rick was pals with the guy who used to own your house. Maybe I can ask him if he ever remembers that happening.

Or maybe it wasn't a problem for the previous owners because the pony just drank all of the excess ground water.

Anonymous said...

Tim - Have you seen this website?

http://g35driver.com/forums/showthread.php?t=212060

Looks like they do their own brakes

J Money said...

E: 170K on original rotors? Are you sure your dealer didn't just replace them and tell you they were something else? You must have two slices of baloney in there now!

Also this line:

Or maybe it wasn't a problem for the previous owners because the pony just drank all of the excess ground water.

... made me laugh out loud.

Anonymous said...

I drive like a granny and have a commute with mostly country roads. Not a lot of stop and go. My car is pretty light, too.