Long story, short.

My son is a looking to buy a car. He finds a low mileage Mini Cooper S. We go to look at it and the story is that the car had a bad throw-out bearing, he takes it to a shop and finds out that the valve seals are leaking, as well. The repairs cost more than the car. In addition to that, the car was now significantly lacking power. He said the loss of power was the final straw that led him to lose the interest in the car and sell it.

I am a mechanic by hobby, but I have a full tool set including a $2000 scanner. During COVID, I fixed cars in order to pay bills and the seller knew this as I told him as such

I plugged in the scanner and see a few major issues including one related to the issue with the power loss. I troubleshoot and resolve the problem as I wanted to properly test drive the car. After fixing the car, the seller now says he going to keep the car. During COVID, this diagnosis and repair would have costs him a few hundred dollars. It really feels like he was just pretending to sell the car to see if he could trick someone into fixing it for free.

Would that be fraud by deception? Could I take him to court to force the sell of the car or at least get the cost of repairs? Can a person place a lien against a car that repair a car that went unpaid?

I figured the answer is no to all of the above, but curiosity has gotten the better of me.