Law protecting rip-offs

[snoopdawg]

A friend of mine recently bought a '98 Cadilac Catera, pretty much as nice of condition as a '98 gets. Test drove it 2 or 3 times, checked some engine stuff (he knows enough to identify major problems), bought the car. He knows the people he bought it from (small town) a little and they said nothing wrong with it.

Gets it home, about a week later everything goes crazy, the engine is in danger of blowing, stuff is always overheated. the reason this never came up is cuz the testdrives didn't last as long as it took to notice these serious problems (1+ hours).

Question: is there a law (this is Ohio btw) protecting my bud from this (obvious) ripoff? a linky or 2? i googled with no luck.

[milliondollaz]

i wouldn't sell a car w/out an "as is" bill of sale. if your buddy signed one, he's f'ed.

however, if the original owner knew about a problem, and your buddy asked about it, the the original owner lied, then he is misrepresenting the car and can be taken to court somehow.

disclosure: a law student told me about the misrepresenting thing, and that it's illegal.