Hi, I’m a girl who knows nothing about cars and I recently bought a Mitsubishi eclipse from a private seller I live in California which requires you to sell a car in working conditions with a previous smog check no later than 3 months prior to selling or have bought the car I wasn’t aware of this law or rule. I had bought the car for 2k and didn’t notice the check engine light was on till a few days later I took it to the shop and they quoted me 1,200 for repairs on the catalytic converter but I’m a broke college student the mechanic recommended me going to the dmv and making the previous owner pay for repairs or give me money back for it?! He also mentioned there are programs for stuff like this I’m not sure if any of you can recommend advice or programs or give me insight of what I should do? (Btw I only have 10 days to register the car and do a title transfer and I’m day 7 into this period)
Yeah they require a smog certificate before sale but not everyone follows this law, especially for dirt cheap vehicles. I look at classifieds for cheap cars all the time and often the seller will say stuff like “as is”, “buyer is responsible for smog test”. Lol, lmao.
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You can contact the seller and try to work something out. If that fails you will repair the car and decide if taking them to court over the repair costs and fight a battle you might not win is worth the hassle. In the meantime you will have to see if you qualify for any assistance whatsoever because typically the car must be registered in your name and it’s for failing a biennial test for the BAR’s assistance programs.
If you miss the 10 day window the registration gets suspended, you can’t drive the car, and you gotta pay another $14 to get it reinstated after passing smog and registering, which means legally you can only trailer it to the shop. So either you should get rid of the car or get it repaired immediately.