Does the owner or seller of a vessel ever try to mislead
the buyer?
With over thirty years of marine surveyor experience logged, I can say
with certainty that most sellers and owners make very little effort to
divulge all the of the pertinent information about their vessel,
especially any possible defects. There are occasions when the owner,
usually because of lack of experience, is not aware of many subtle
faults with his vessel. There are also many occasions when the owner
tries to deceive the buyer. A couple of examples follow.
Not long ago I inspected, with the buyer and owner present, a five year
old runabout with a raw water cooled, four cylinder MerCruiser engine, which was newly
painted and looked like it had been used very little. The vessel was on a trailer in the owners
back yard and he was prepared to run the engine for us. It is my normal
practice to have a sea trial, but in this cast the buyer was happy just
to know the engine sounded OK. The owner had him convinced that the
vessel looked and ran like new. So the sea trial was out. The owner told
me the vessel, including the engine and running gear were in excellent condition and ready to go.
The owner hooked up the garden hose, started the engine, and let it run
for a few minutes. The engine sounded very good, and except for some
excess exhaust smoke appeared in good shape. To make a long story short
the boat checked out fine and the sale was consummated. The new owner used
the boat for a week or so and noticed the engine becoming more noisy
with each use. Finally the engine failed and was taken to a mechanic for
diagnosis and repair. The mechanic told the new owner the exhaust
manifold was shot and would need to be replaced.
The owner called me
complaining that I should have picked up this problem during the survey
and what would I like to do about the repair cost. I met the owner at the
vessel the next day and re-inspected the engine. I found a small hole in
the side of the exhaust manifold, between the manifold and the head, just
beneath a fresh coat of black
paint. After poking around the small opening I discovered a much larger
hole and evidence of a badly rusted manifold that had been repaired
with Bondo, sanded and then painted. The manifold looked like new and
except for the part along the inside edge, sounded fine when tapped with
a hammer.
The seller had removed the manifold and attempted to
repair it. He seemed like a pretty good fellow when I met him, so
I am not sure whether he thought he was making a good repair or just
hiding the hole. He was employed as a computer technician and appeared
to lack any type of mechanical background when we met. This fellow probably spent more effort, time, and money
making this faulty repair than he would have if he purchased an after
market manifold and installed it himself. He did mention to us during
the survey that the vessel was original. His quote was, "Just like it
came from the factory". He did a pretty good job of concealing the
default.
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