nothing_original

Two days ago my brother and I took an '88 Mustang LX for a test drive. We got no more than three blocks from the house when we reached a set of lights. My brother decided to accelerate hard to see how she performs. The Mustang took off nicely in first, but just moments after my brother shifted into second gear the driveshaft severed. The next day the owner called me to inform me that the drifeshaft had caused damage to the transmission housing when it broke, resulting in $1000 worth of repair costs. The owner claims we drove it too hard, and that it was running fine earlier that day when he drove it hard himself while "playing around" (his own words). He expects us to pay the full amount, though he will consider working something out. Now, I know we did accelerate hard, but no harder than I do every night merging onto the highway while going home from work in my '94 Firebird.

So what do you guys figure, both from a technical standpoint and a moral one, are we responsible?

It should be noted that my brother is 33 years old and has driven standard transmission for years, and has owned many hot rods, and has never had anything like this happen to any of his cars.

Atencio

I would tell the owner to go pound sand. In my old 69 Mustangs I broke u-joints, pinon snubbers, and leaf spring clips shifting a 4 speed hard so I wouldn't say that it is impossible. Still, the owner was an idiot for letting someone test drive his car without him in it.
Morally? How do you know the defective part was not ready to break before you test drove it? It is impossible to say for sure especially given his words of "playing around" with it. I would let this be a $1,000 lesson for the owner.