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I bought a used car from a small dealer (not dealership). the guy has a dealer number but sells cars from his home, i believe, since thats where i bought mine from. I bought a used 1999 mitsubishi eclipse spyder gs. i had test driven it twice before purchace. the sale price was at $3,320.00. i bought it on a saturday and my auto insurance company wasnt open, so i couldnt get insurance for it yet. i had my dad drive it to his house and from there i had my fiance drive it back to our place. that totaled about 40 miles. i was able to get insurance that following tuesday, since monday was a holiday. on tuesday i had to go to the dmv. well on my way there, i noticed some smoke/steam coming out of the enigine compartment. the tempeture seemed fine, so i continued to the dmv and see what was going on. when i got there i checked under the hood and discovered that the coolant return hose was a little loose and had sprayed coolant forward onto the radiator. i thought thats why i had seen the smoke/steam coming out and after the dmv i decided to drive it to my parents house where my dad could help me with it.
btw the dmv is 9 miles from my house. my parents house is 5 miles from the dmv.
well on my way to my parents house, the car just died. all the electrical was on but the engine stopped cranking. luckily i was near my auto shop and was able to get it there safely. the auto shop wasnt able to get to it until the next day, wednesday, at which time i was told that the head gasket is blown and the repairs would be at least $1,000 to $2,000.
i personally had only driven the car about 15 miles.
after the purchase, it had been driven a total of 41 miles total to get to my house. so 15 + 41 = 56 miles and which time the car is now at the shop.
well i have been negotiating with the guy and he either wants to split the cost of the repairs or i can get my money back minus $500 ($2850). either way i will loose $500 and am not willing to loose that.
at the time of purchase, i asked if i could take it to my mechanic, but was rejected due to the fact that the car wasnt insured and it was farther than he would allow it to go without having insurance. he then said that he had it inspected recently and he did show me a reciept from his mechanic. the reciept did not indicate that there was anything majorly wrong with the car. so i took his word for it and bought it.
also, there wasnt any Buyer's Guide that said anything about a warrenty, nor did he specify the car was being sold as is.

my question is, can i get all of my money back? do i have to pay for repairs? technically it was 1 business day from point of purchase that this happened and with such low milage too, is there some sort of buyers remorse or lemon law or something?
the car was only driven by insured motorits at all times if that helps.
also if he doesnt want to give all the money back, do i have a convincing story to take him to samll claims court? or how about his "mechanic", can i take him to court?
is it possible that the seller knew about the head gasket but didnt report it? maybe showed an older inspection reciept?
the carfax comes clean with the vehicle being serviced on 11/2008 at a mitsubishi dealership.  

just bumping to the top  

In short he is being VERY fair and doesn't have to give you anything in return at all. The fact he is buying it back is very generous.

Buyer Beware is the law on used cars.

Also you probably blew the head gasket by driving it with it overheating. They don't just blow out very often on their own. Your temp gauge won't read high if you already lost most of the coolant due to a leaky hose. If you would have just stopped at the first sign of trouble and had the hose fixed you probably wouldn't need a head gasket.

ASE Certified technician 15 years.  

I believe it depends on the state you live in. Most have lemon laws, and it certainly sounds like a lemon. Sorry I can't be much help, but I do believe the other poster is completely wrong.

In massachusetts for example, any car that costs over $700, and has less than 125,000 miles on it is covered for at least 30 days or 1250 miles, from any defect that affects use or safety. Let me know the state and I will try to be of more help.

Generally the dealer is required to pay for the repairs or offer to buy the car back for the paid price, minus 15 cents for every mile driven. Be careful though, in some states once the dealer has offered to buy the car back, and you refuse, the dealer is no longer responsible for making any repairs. Stupid I know, but at least you are mostly protected other than time and some taxi money while you look for a new car.