biggest pile of shite you have ever looked at?

[Split_Pin]

In 2009 MrsL and I hired a Nissan Note and travelled all the way from Scotland to Northampton, staying overnight in Chester to view supposedly the best Astra Coupe Turbo around.

 

It looked superb in the many pictures that the vendor texted to my in the week prior, was loaded with all the options Id ever wanted that my existing Coupe lacked it was finished in sapphire black with oxblood leather interior and was fitted with a top quality set of coilovers. It only had 40kiles and looked stunning.

 

What I actually viewed was a car with epic turbo failure, pishing oil into the exhaust, had no boost, major oil leaks, fucked coolant control module, worn leather and dash.

 

The owner insisted there was nothin wrong with it but said he wasn't an engines man and was a cheeky sod.

 

Vowed to just fit the same coilovers to my own car and never speak of selling it again. Still got it.

[garethj]

I had a very intense day at some dealerships, as written here

 

A couple of months ago I went to look at a Land Rover 110, it was advertised for a lot of money (£3k) considering it didn't have an MoT but it looked like an honest car in the pictures and it was local.

 

It didn't have the Tdi engine that it did on the phone, it was several hundred quid away from an MoT and while the seller was keen to point out the lack of rust in half the bulkhead (not the other half that was parked in the bushes) he wasn't impressed when I pointed out all the footwells had rusted through.

 

"It's up for £3000 and it says no offers in the advert" I say, switching on my winning smile, "Does that really mean no offers or just no offers of £500, ha ha" thinking that £600 was about where I'd value it.

 

"Cash today and it's yours for £2850" said the seller. It's still for sale on ebay at least 3 months later, but now he's obviously desperate to get shot as he's reduced the price to £2990

[RichardMoss]

It was a 1996 Jaguar XJ6 (X300) out here in the UAE. described in typical fashion as "perfect inside and out" it was advertised using a photo lifted from the internet. The car was dirty but that was the least of the issues. In short, the faults list contained:

Boot lock fallen out

Boot mis-aligned

Central locking not working

Cooling fan wired to run permanently

Steering pulled harder to the right than Adolf Hitler

Brakes pulled harder to the left than Josef Stalin

Mirrors did not adjust

Driver's seat repaired with randomly shaped, badly sewn, non- colour matched patches of leather

Front screen had THREE full width cracks across it

 

The seller was asking £2500 - I offered him £200 ( and that was generous). I was relieved when he said no!

 

Worst of all, he said he was an aircraft engineer working in Dubai!

[jonny69]

When I was in the throws of deciding how to modify my first car, a 100E, I went to look at one that had already been done with a Rover V8. It looked pretty good in the pictures but, after a 125 mile drive to Bristol, it was a proper lash up. The front end of the car had been gutted and badly bodged back in with bits of steel tube, there wasn't a decent bit of fabrication in sight and the gearbox tunnel was so enormous you could barely sit in it. I also remember the clutch pedal was so hard to push down you literally lifted yourself out the seat doing so. I was young and keen at the time, but my dad was sensible enough to drag me away from it. I've also got no idea where I thought the money was going to come from, since I was working* my apprenticeship at the time, I think.

[beko1987]

Not quite in the same league, but before buying the ZX, I saw a red 1.9d for sale locally by a 'dealer'. Called up, said we'd be there by quarter past 5 to view, told no problems.

 

We rock up at a backstreet garage, get out and try the door to the office. Locked. Look around, it's definatly the right place. Eventually someone shouts from an upstairs window 'You here to view mate?" Tell him I spoke to him on the phone not 10 minutes earlier. Someone else opens the doors and beckons me towards a gated compound. The chap is 'heavily ethnic', and doesn't understand a word I say. Going well so far.

 

The ZX was parked right at the back of about 10 other ropey cars. He hands me the keys and starts moving the other cars out of the way. The car's u[p for £350, so I shouldnt have been expecting miracles but:

 

Bald tyres (not in ad)

Samshed lights (not in ad)

Smashed windscreen (not in ad)

Sod all Tax

The bloke didn't know what an MOT was, let alone if it had any

Mileage was a good 50k more than the advert

Eventually it started up, and my car-luddite missus observed a massive blue plume of smoke coming out the end. (not in ad)

 

I got out, locked it, handed the keys to the bloke who was moving the 3rd car and walked away. He didn't seem to care tbh

 

A slightly better one, when we were looking to get rid of the corsa back in Feb, we went to a large car showroom in Aylesbury. Wandering around we spot an 09 plate Meriva for 4k. Intrigued, I get the keys. Missus already likes it, would have bought it on the spot if I wasn't there I think.

 

What I found was:

 

Almost bald rear tyres

90k on the clock

No spare tyre

No parcel shelf

Radio didn't work

Trim didn't fit

 

I opened the bonnet (saleswoman wasn't expecting this) and found AND NOTED TO THE SALESWOMAN:

 

Oil was right to the top of the dipstick, i mean RIGHT at the top (sounded great on tickover...)

No coolant

Battery had been leaking

Wood screws holding the lights in.

Oil cap glued into place by mayo (HG or not, it was pretty shit)

 

The saleswoman looked at me with disgust when I pointed these out to her, and tried to explain away the issues. I said either knock 2k off the price or forget it, she forgot it! I then had to explain to my missus why the shiny new car she liked was more salty than a bag of salt...

[beko1987]

Just remembered my first vehicle purchase actually - Series 3 109" pickup!

 

Me, a mate with a license (I didn't have one at this point) my mum and stepdad. Drove to Stoke at 6am to view a 'nice' landy pickup.

 

Met the bloke in a random street, who turned up in the landy. Looked at it, and it was pretty screwed, but me eager to get one bought it!

 

In hindsight, it needed a new chassis, engine, brakes, wheels and interior. A nice project now I would know what I'm doing, but so stupid back then.

 

I bought it! and my mate drove it back. We:

 

Flooded the engine with the choke, then killed the battery. Had to call my stepdad back 40 mins later for a jump

Seats were random and broken

About half an hour into the journey the coolant system pressurized and blew the rad cap. Was fine after though

Used £120 fuel doing stoke to Marlow at 55

Had a Harvey Frost winch on the back, which upset the handling somewhat

Enquired with the DVLA as to why it was showing as un-insured even with a valid tax disk in the window, it had been paid for by cheque which had then bounced. Had to post it back.

 

In the end, it spent a year sat on my parents drive whilst I half-arsedly stripped it back, then realised it was too much to deal with, so sold it spares to a landy forum person for £250, after it costing me the best part of a grand. It is the first think that comes into my mind when car buying now, so I never make the same mistake again.

[Formula Autos]

In the late '90s, before I ended up with a house, wife, responsibilities etc. I had a bit of spare cash and dabbled in a bit of 'flipping' of cars. Time spent sitting around in places such as tyre depots and dropping cars off at bodyshops while little things got sorted didn't bother me either. So I used to go around the local dealers and look at the unwanted trade-ins, and sometimes bought the odd one. Most were unwanted for good reason though, and were in shocking nick.

 

One in particular stands out though - an ex-taxi Sierra that I was offered. It was one of the slatted grille models and was probably about 14 years old at the time. It looked older. The body was typical of most Sierra taxis - flat paint and scabby rear arches, topped off with scuffed, wonky bumpers and rusty steelies (the wheel trims having long gone). There was one good bit of paint, that had sat beneath the CB aerial mount for a few years. Mechanically it wasn't too bad, though the shocks and tyres weren't the May West. Mileage was uncertain, though leafing through some of the scant paperwork suggested it may have gone around the clock twice (i.e. 200K+) The biggest horror though was the interior. The seat covers had been removed to reveal a back seat with so many fag burns that looked like a map of the galaxy, with a 'milky way' of vomit stains running across it. The driver's seat was saggier than a bingo-goer's arse, and the already cracked dashboard had been comprehensively butchered to get the meter in place. Fit only for scrap, I took serious offence at being offered it.

 

I still took it out for a test drive though, just to see how bad it was. You have to though, don't you?

[trigger]

That Mitsubishi Celeste from a few years back, after being told it was a totally immaculate car with only a small dent in one panel and having seen the photos where it looked mint, me and the wife drive up to Nottingham to take a look, unfortunately we only got as far as the M11 at Bishop Stortford before getting in a 4 car pile up that ended up with us making a hospital visit and having a bad back even to this day...

 

The following day Oldford from this parish was very kind enough to run me up there to take a look, on arrivel we found that the car was a total basket, the body was rotten, the floor bodged to hell, oil pissing out everywhere on the engine, the radio hanging out the dash, the interior covered in split paint, naff battery and a flat tyre.

 

I could have cried.

[jonny69]

Actually, there was another one. When I was looking for my hotrod I went to look at a fresh import Model A, completely stock, missing a couple of bits but not yet registered. I got down there (another long drive) and it all looked ok. It had that real vintage look to it - just what I was looking for, remarkably complete for an 80 year old barnfind even sporting quite a lot of interior, fair bit of plod in the doors, and looked like it needed a few brake components to get it rolling properly. No problem, I thought, rub magic credit card over back pages of Rod n Custom and they'd arrive in a few days. So I agreed a price and shook on it, but decided to have one last look. I don't know why, but I spotted a funny looking line in the back of one of the fender wells and decided to peel back an interior panel for a closer look on the other side. Well I nearly shit myself on the spot. The other side was a line of ancient pop rivets and self tappers running round the entire bottom half of the body. Basically, the bottom half of the body was a crumbly brown doily self-tappered to lengths of zinc plate and smoothed over with whatever pre-dated P38. I backed out of that one sharpish before being referred to as a "timewaster who shouldn't shake on a price and then back out of the deal YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE" ON THE INTERNET.

 

Unfortunately, someone I know ended up buying it and to the best of my knowledge ploughed quite a lot of money into it before selling it on as an unfinished project. The curious thing is I've got its 21" wires in my shed, so the car lives on in my mind.

[CortinaDave]

A capri 2.8 Injection that was up for sale for £750 in Falkirk ten years or so ago. Managed to lift the drivers seat clean out of the floor with the bolts and some of the floor still attached.

 

"It does need some work" the guy said. This was a car with 5 months MOT left