Do people think they are owed the world?

[Sean]

I've noticed over the past couple of years an increasing trend of car adverts of various Facebook pages and forums with the words:

 

£x#% no offers, going scrap if not sold.

 

Now what anyone wants for their car and what they want to do with it is entirely up to them but I can't fathom the logic.

 

The most recent two were a rotten hillman minx that had a seized engine - £500 or very near, going scrap Saturday. I said I would offer well above scrap money (£200) and collect within 2 hours. The guy said he would rather scrap it than sell it for that - what is he smoking?!

 

The other example is a mk5 escort shape Orion with a clutch gone. Tidy enough with alloys etc and exactly the same situation - 'Id rather scrap it than take just above scrap money'

 

I just don't get it!!!

[Station]

They see it as you're going to make money out of his loss. If he can make 120 quid and you make nothing, rather than he makes 200 - 300 quid and you make 500 - 1000 if you do the repairs if you sell it or whatever. Bit daft, but some people expect that's what the buyer is going to do.

I sold my kitcar for 250, which is about a quarter of it is worth. I said i only wanted it to go to someone who was going to finish it, not sell it in bits. The buyer on Retro Rides said he was going to complete the work and get it on the road. It was sold for bits a week later, over 1k worth of parts, not including the actual car chassis!

What can you do though, once it's sold it's sold.

[Sean]

Daft is definitely the right word!!

 

Especially when you consider a scrapyard will usually make double what they pay out anyway!!

 

(It is kind of a sweet feeling when my very friendly local scrapman phones and offers me the exact same car in exchange for a ton of heavy or two shells )

[Cavcraft]

The ones who advertise something rare/interesting and want really silly money or say they will scrap it are just daft. I always ignore these people and would happily see something weighed off rather then pander to their silly 'demands'.

 

The trouble is they often get inflated ideas about values, usually comparing their rotten old hulk to that of a 1,200 mile showroom stored model and they automatically assume it's worth the same. In cases like that I occasionally mail the seller and ask for pictures of it going into the crusher.

[Station]

There was a Corolla Gti on eBay recently that sold for 950. It was a little bit battered but looked OK. They are for sale for 3k as people think they're worth that much.

Someone bought it and listed it next day no reserve and it made 650. "Lol" I wanted it though.

[Richard]

I've noticed something similar in property sales, properties with "potential" always seem to be priced as if the work has already been done.

[Sean]

To trade stories on that one, the best one I ever had was a mk1 triumph 2000 advertised in the local rag for £1000. I phones him up as I have a soft spot for them and he sends me loads of pictures (I'm not allowed to view it just yet for some weird reason) Its a rot box but manual so I can make use of it as a breaker then a banger so I offer £400 an will pick it up that night (being honest as to my intentions). He literally kicks off at me saying its worth so much more, who do I think I am etc etc, says he's fucked off with messers and is going to scrap it.

 

By pure chance I'm coming out of the scrappy a few days later and low and behold this Trummy comes in on the back of a 4x4 and trailer. I stop him in the car park and ask what's happening with it. Turns out the bloke towing it isn't the owner he's just doing the owner a favour and running it in. A quick chat and a blag later. I've got the car for £250, the neighbour has made a £70 drink and the owner gets £180 for his £1000 car. . . Another phone call that afternoon, hi it's Sean, sorry about the other day, you are right. £400 was a very unfair offer, I bought another one at the scrapyard the other day near identical to yours for £180 . . .

 

"Click"

[Tetleysmooth]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

That was twisting the knife, but well done

[Sean]

Some people deserve to have the knife twisted!

[Micrashed]

They see it as you're going to make money out of his loss. If he can make 120 quid and you make nothing, rather than he makes 200 - 300 quid and you make 500 - 1000 if you do the repairs if you sell it or whatever. What can you do though, once it's sold it's sold.

Similar thing with property called the "uplift clause"

 

You sell me a field for Ã‚£5000 the field has no planning permission and I keep sheep on it - some years later I gain planning for 100 houses, sell the field for half a million to a rich developer who will buld these and make several million quid out of the deal.

 

Only you come back to me and cite the "uplift clause" and demand x% of the increase in value of the land for doing fuck all work.

 

This pisses me off something cruel and stopped me buying a house once where I had planned to build a "granny annexe" for my (disabled) son due to the uplift clause wanting 50% of the increase in value of the land plot due to any development or building work.

 

FUCK OFF YOU CUNT - why should you benefit from my hard graft? You sold the land thats it its fuck all else to do with you now, same with a car Im afraid.

 

And breathe.

[Partridge]

I wonder if a lot of it is “RIGHT! That’s it! I’ve had enough you, you’re BEING SCRAPPED!†strop throwing running around hitting the car with a stick, Basil Fawlty style because the car didn’t deliver what you wanted.

Or what’s wrong with re-listing a car a little later?

Cavette has suggested in the past that most of the time it's a load of rubbish, and they’re just “blackmailing†people to buy their old shod. He may be correct in a lot of cases...

[Junkman]

Why, it's already 17 years old, has sat in the lock up with the leaking roof for ten of them, the engine is seized and it's rotten 'as you would expect from a car this age', the interior is rodent infested, so I'm sitting on a fortune, no?

 

A similar thing seems to be going on with restored cars. Purchase price, plus the cost of the restoration, plus haggle margin, plus WLTH, equals asking price, no? I mean, they got 20m for that shabby chic Benz at Bonhams and mine has four seats, no?

 

Also, I'd rather scrap it, because I'm a miserable sod having no fun or joy in life, so why should you?

[Sean]

The idea of blackmailing people into buying their car kind of makes sense. Seeing as far too many people will cry blue murder if something half decent (like the minx) gets scrapped (regardless of condition) maybe the seller is just giving a heads up as to what will happen and chancing his luck with the price? Either way it pisses me the fuck off and when I get one over on these people I gotta admit - I get half a semi-lob on

[Sigmund Fraud]

People's thinking patterns never cease to amaze me...

 

I bought my daily Megane off a 'Bay auction. The seller -who actually was a very nice chap- had put a reserve price of £450 and clearly stated in the ad that he would not accept anything below the reserve price, as this is what his neighbour had already offered him, and he would much rather sell to him.

 

Unsurprisingly, only two people bothered to bid, my £300 bid being the highest. The same evening, a 'second offer' appeared in my mailbox.

 

I didn't want to be rude and ask what had happened with the neighbour, but I suspect that what the seller had considered a means of attracting higher bids ended up actually driving bidders away (though, admittedly, that may have just been the car !).

[Junkman]

Yeah, as if someone would list a car on Ebay his neighbor wants to buy.

Those people must thing everyone else is pulling up his pants with a pair of nippers.

[Partridge]

 

 pulling up his pants with a pair of nippers.

...said the BBC DJ to the schoolgirl.

[Sean]

I'm glad it's not just me on this one then!

 

Another one that makes my piss itch is

 

"This car is worth £1000 in parts - I've already done the research"

 

So how much do you want?

 

"£1200, £1000 in parts and £200 scrap"

 

I've got an idea how about you nibble on my nutsack and I donkey punch your lights out?

[Junkman]

Selling as part of the estate of my deceased brother.

The car will need a total restoration. 

Engine and gearbox are seized, but a good donor engine is included in the sale and a gearbox can be sourced from the owners club for 75 quid.

The sills and rear wheelarches are rotten, there are new repair panels for the sills included in the sale.

All the interior and trim bits are present, in good order, and were clearly labelled when taken off. This includes the rare emblems specific to this version.

 

This is a private sale and I don't know anything about cars...

[HillmanImp]

To trade stories on that one, the best one I ever had was a mk1 triumph 2000 advertised in the local rag for £1000. [.....] so I offer £400 an will pick it up that night

 

To be honest with you, if I had something up for sale for £1k and some joker rang up and offered me £400 I would probably tell them to jog on too, overpriced or not. 

 

I have it up for a price that I want, not half of that, not 2/3rd of that. If someone has the car up for far too much it won't sell. They will then have drop the price to see if it sells for that and if not they might have to drop it again, maybe to the price that was offered by the goon who rang up in the first place but until that point they are not going to want to take £400.

 

The point is, if someone has the car up for that much they think its worth that. Ringing up the day it goes on sale offering half of that in only going to piss them off as they don't know that its over priced. For all they know you are some cheeky cunt who will buy the car for £400 and then sell it for the original £1,000 the next day. Its just plain stupid ringing someone up and offering 40% of the asking price and then being surprised when they tell you to fuck off.

 

Its like being pissed off because a tiger bit you after you stuck your dick up his bum. He is not going to like it. 

[Partridge]

And another thing...If I spend 3k on a car that’s worth only half that, then find no-one wants to pay 3k or more for it and throw a hissy fit...doesn’t that make me a bit of a berk?

[Partridge]

"Its like being pissed off because a tiger bit you after you stuck your dick up his bum. He is not going to like it.†

 

Quote of the year.

[Sigmund Fraud]

The point is, if someone has the car up for that much they think its worth that. Ringing up the day it goes on sale offering half of that in only going to piss them off as they don't know that its over priced. For all they know you are some cheeky cunt who will buy the car for £400 and then sell it for the original £1,000 the next day. Its just plain stupid ringing someone up and offering 40% of the asking price and then being surprised when they tell you to fuck off.

 

 

I can see your point, and nobody expects some hoarding 80-year-old hermit in rural Dorset to be up-to-date with the prices of stuff.

 

But for anyone with internet access, it should take less than ten minutes to find what price cars similar to yours go for. And if you're unconvinced, there's bound to be an internet forum where armchair experts can give you a realistic* valuation.

 

On the other hand, I agree that plainly offering 1/3 of the asking price for a car is bound to lead to failure, especially if made in 'TXT SPK M8', which appears to the favourite language of many prospective* buyers*. However, if a sensible discussion precedes the offer, the seller may be more likely to accept. Failing that, he would at least have been educated as to the real value of his shiteheap, and his refusal is more likely to be polite.

[Albert Ross]

People want the moon on a stick when buying, but when selling, they want a gold pig with a Picasso up its arse. It's all gone tits up on eBay for this reason. Bargains are rare, and its hard to capitalise now. Last year I chanced upon a really poor ad for Land Rover wheels, and spotted that two of the set might be a rare offset/width. I chanced it, and I was right. When I arrived at the seller's house, he was great. He was glad to be rid of them.... those two wheels are worth £500..... I paid £20. I now have three more coming to complete the set from various sources and I swapped an engine for one of them ... all parties are happy. I see the same wheels on eBay for £700 a set..... just plain old steel rims.

[maxpower]

Wouldn't it be easier to call them and say " hi, this is XXXXX metals, we hear you have a car to scrap"

[Sean]

The discussion that led up to my £400 offer was very drawn out, probably 3 weeks of calls and emails.

 

If something is massively over priced then I will offer a realistic figure and more than half the time my 'cheeky cunt' tactics work in my favour. If I'm buying I offer the maximum ill pay and that's it, I don't have time to haggle with morons who want the world.

[Sean]

Also the point of the thread is people who put a daft figure on a car and then when they don't get it (even with offers of more than scrap value) - they then scrap it.

 

I will agree that sticking to your guns on a price does sometimes pay off

[Sean]

People can take the piss all they want if they're trying to chip me down.

 

I know the worth of what I'm selling.

Good for you?!

[Junkman]

Why is there such a huge discrepancy in value when I'm selling vs. when I intend to buy?

[Sean]

Why is there such a huge discrepancy in value when I'm selling vs. when I intend to buy?

More to the point, why is it no matter how much I sell I never have enough to buy everything I want ?!

[Pillock]

One of the few things I agree with the blue place about is Offers.

 

If you're selling, name a price. By naming a price you then waive all rights to have a hissy fit when it turns out to be worth more.

 

If you can't name a price, it goes on eBay and you deal with mongs.