Biggest leap of faith?

[Taff]

Was browsing one of the other thread (can't remember which now) and noticed the comment that, when shopping for cars in the sub£1000-bracket, people expect miracles. I think the phrase was "don't get done, get Dom".

 

Now, I'm not saying we are perfect, but here at AS we are certainly a bit more pragmatic about the heaps we regularly inflict on ourselves & each other, often taking a relatives strangers word for it that the car is "a good 'un" before driving it home. To that end,I was wondering what was your biggest leap of faith with an unknown motor?

 

I once bought a '66 Viscount off a bloke on Canvey Island for £200. He was astonished that I didn't want a test drive before heading back to Bristol but as I pointed out, I had 175 miles to get to know the car, pootling around his driveway struck me as pointless.

 

As it happened, I made it home unscathed but a little bit deaf, due to the blowing exhaust and complete lack of insulation. Oh, and the dash lights didn't work, either.

[Skizzer]

I was wondering what was your biggest leap of faith with an unknown motor?

 

Two and a half bags on my SD1, sight unseen off eBay.  It was good (and still is).  Spent even more on the Renault without driving it, although I did go and have a look at it first.  

 

I once agreed to buy a Citroen BX after it broke down on test drive, on condition that they (Citroen dealer) fix it first.  Of course they didn't, not properly anyway: it was a right heap and they were robbers.  My lesson from this was, there's no point me test driving something because I can't tell shit from sugarplums.

[Negative Creep]

Probably say the 406. Was in a dodgy backstreet garage and when I got there they were jump starting it because it hadn't moved for ages. All the classic warning signs but I still went ahead, and it's taken nearly a full year for anything to actually break

[Largactil]

Both my Autoshite purchases probably qualify.

 

Wackywacerwill's old Peugeot 205 XE: Got the train to Woolwich, did the biz, and immediately set off driving it back to North West London without a sat nav or much of a clue where I was going.

 

Got it roughly right - But driving an unknown to me £250 banger with very little clutch left over Westminster Bridge / round Parliament Square and navigating Hyde Park Corner/ Marble Arch in rush hour traffic was an interesting* experience.

 

I was so chuffed it didn't expire on the busiest roads of London, that I drove it 400+ miles to Scotland a few days later. (And it made it without issue).

 

Wuvv's LNA: Bought unseen. I flew from Dublin to Stansted a month later to collect it, caught the train to Wuvv-land, had a 15 minute spin in it, before driving a 32 year old Citroen I'd just bought for a monkey, 452 miles back up to Central Scotland to my folks place. (And it made it without issue)

 

This is why I sneer a bit at "Interested in the motor M8, but yr 2 far away from me" comments on FS threads.

 

Radweld / tie wraps / litre bottle of water / leak repair tape and ADAC membership card, and you're good to go.  

[Junkman]

About 1994 (I was still living in Belgium at the time) I had to replace my Renault 4L, which was crumbling away, so I started looking for an older one.

I knew one that had been sitting outside a local garage for a while and went to have a sniff. There were about four inches of water in the car, so I knew the floors are good and bought it on these grounds alone, for what must have been the equivalent of 15 quid.

Got the engine running, fixed the front brakes and got it CTed. Gave faithful service for years, then I sold it to a collector for a healthy sum.

It was one of the ultra rare "in-betweeners" built for a few months in 1967, which already had the oval post-1st-facelift aluminium grille, but still the 3-speed gearbox and 6 Volt electrickery.

[Lacquer Peel]

I like the idea of flooding a car with water to test the floors.

[Jim Bell]

The Roffle 305 was probably my biggest leap of faith.

 

30 year old French car bought blind from the Internet, straight into a 400 mile run home.

 

2 day collection.

No dramas.

[Tamworthbay]

Two months ago I bought a 924 from the depths of Essex and drove it back to Tamworth. Sounds unremarkable until I add that it cost £150 and I hadn't seen it before buying it. It did have an MOT that runs until this August but that had been done by a blind guy with no hands apparently. Normally I wouldn't risk it but at £150 you can't go too wrong on a porker can you. My mate fell in love with it and has bought it off me. It's cost him a packet so far as he is a perfectionist. The only issue we had was when it spat a fan belt after half a mile.

[andy18s]

I bought a P38....

[stephen01]

Won a Fiat Marea 5 pot  off ebay 8 years ago, turned up at his house, Cash out and paid,(about 500 quids i think) the chap asked me 'dont you want to test drive it?' I said does it run to which his reply was 'yep' good enough for me then and off I went on my way, drove it home a 10 miles or so parked it up and didnt touch it for two weeks, then it was pressed into service on our trip to Scotland when we got married did nearly 1k in a week and it was great, especially round Scottish highlands! 

 

Part exd it against my c5- what a bloody mistake that was!

[Pillock]

Bought my Scirocco Storm from a guy up near Leeds. As I was on my way up on the train, he had a work emergency so collected me from the station, drove me back to his place, and was very apologetic but pretty much had to swap keys for cash and leave in a hurry. So I'm outside a locked house, 130 miles from home, in a car that hadn't run for two years outside of going for an mot .... Great. It cut out every half mile on the way to the M1, no breakdown cover so I just gave it an Italian tune-up and nailed it home.

 

 

Also, got a lift to Surrey to buy a Beetle. No way home without buying the car, my ex's dad was passing with work so left me outside a garage at 6am with £700 in my pocket.

[anonymous user]

Recently, probably when I drove the A35 back from Kent,I hadn't seen it for 12 years, the chap I bought it back from had only done local runs in it. I don't like long journeys, but decided it's a simple car and I have RAC recovery so WCPGW, in the event nothing did.

 

It never used to bother me, I drove a 1937 Morgan from Stoke down to Wales, I hadn't seen it, as it was bought over the phone, I just had a quick explanation of the back to front gearchange and then had to remember how to double de-clutch.

 

I've always found the trick with an unknown is to take it slow with plenty of stops on the journey to check water and oil, if the starting is dodgy stop on a hill, this assumes the brakes work.

[dollywobbler]

The Rover 400 last year was a panic buy just to get home (having sold the Maestro van) from Birmingham. It was absolutely fine. 

 

The XM was a gamble. I bought it from a specialist - that I'd never heard of - but it had sat in his yard for months and had only two months of MOT remaining. I did about 300 miles in the first week of ownership though, and it has turned out to be a good'un. 

 

I s'pose the biggest leap of faith probably goes to the CX, which I bought in a swap deal with some seriously shady fugger on Retro-Rides. I drove to the other side of Birmingham to do the swap (he was up north, I was in Cambs). The test drive was me driving from where we did the deal, to a petrol station. Upon which it appeared that the fuel tank leaked if you filled it. I cured* this by driving like a bastard. 2.5 with auto box - not full for long. I still had a long way to go home, and it later transpired that the cooling fans were not working either. It recorded 109 degrees at one point as I sat stressing in traffic, wondering what on earth I'd done. Oh, the heater fan didn't work either (only at non-critical times). 

 

Yet, apart from a couple of 'French Electrics' non-starting moments, that car was generally absolutely fine. In one weekend, I helped a friend move from Birmingham to Kent, and attended the Microcar meet in Malvern. I must have had more money in those days! I even froze the coolant one winter, and it still shrugged it off. It's now in Scotland and still needs saving.

[castros_bro]

We needed to get back to work in Germany with a load of stuff so bought a cheap unseen nonworking A35 van FMX468B from the garage of an inebriated recently divorced women and booked a ferry ticket.  We got there but rather slowly.  Van was still working years later when it got stolen (someone borrowed it then sold it).

[dave21478]

I buy a couple per year blind via ebay in UK, fly over and drive them straight back home. That`s usually a day and a half, occasionally two days of solid driving if I buy in Aberdeen. I have never phoned a seller and rarely make any further contact asking questions before buying, I just rely on their description and blind luck - never really failed me yet.

 

The closest to disaster was the LHD 306 HDi estate I bought for much cheapness. It had about 5 lines of text as a description and a few photographs obviously taken with a telephone. I bid, won and emailed the guy asking when he wanted it collected. We agreed a day and I easy-jetted to That London and fecked about with trains for a while, arriving in whatever Midlands town it was located in. Some random met me at the station in a different car, who turned out to be the apprentice at the garage I was unknowingly buying from, having assumed it was a private sale. We got there to find the car up on a trolley jack with the guy just snipping off the tails of the cable-ties he used to refix the wheel arch liner, having replaced a knocking crank pulley. It then wouldnt start due to the fuel level being so low and it was on a slope on the road, so it got push-started into life. I took it for a perfunctory test drive, but the city traffic was clogged and the roads around the industrial park where the garage was were so pot-holed I couldnt get above second gear. Bought it anyway, and it was on the way to the pez station that I found the third gear synchro was kippered.

What to do? I thought about going back to the garage and regulating those mofo`s. Im not the violent type but they were all skinny wee guys and I am a chunky skinhead with a thick scotch accent so reckoned a refund was likely, but then thought "meh" and drove it home anyway as a short notice return air fare would have hoovered up the cash I would get back. It ran like a champ for a year or so before being sold on for a tidy profit still with its crunchy synchro.

[Inspector Morose]

1956 Rover 60. Bought for a wee bit over two and a half bags of pics on eBay. Located in Whitehaven without a working petrol gauge and, as it turned out, non working charging. Picked up and driven back to brum in a day.

Hasn't moved much since but it goes out when I need cheering up. Not really sure why I bought it though it is quite fun bimbling along at sedate speeds.

[the judge]

When I lived in St Helens,I bought a Renault 19 16v from Oswestry. Been off the road for 4 years. Went down in the Cavalier Gsi I had at the time. When we got there it had 3/4 of a tank of stale fuel,but still ran well enough to confirm it wasnt knackered. Set off towing it back,and we heard tappet clatter from the Cavaliers engine and the oil light came on!! Fucksticks. Used said Renault with shit fuel to tow us 50 miles home. Neither car had tax or test. Had insurance though,i am not an animal!!!

 

Aaaah 1999,fantastic cheap old rag arse motors!! Thinking on,we had to put the Cavalier battery on the Renault halfway home as the Renault one was fucked

[loserone]

I bought a silly plastic car from Sheffield in snowy weather for my partner as her first car whilst she was away for work.

 

 

 

to be fair though, it was from here*  so it was unlikely to be a total disaster, and I made it home just fine.

 

She didn't learn to drive until we'd sold it again..

[dave21478]

The most blind faith was a multi-buy affair a few years back. In Aberdeen I needed something with a bit of grunt to pull a trailer so strolled into the car auction when it was still operating in the city and saw a nice green R-reg Vectra V6 SRi rolling up to the block. A quick glance inside showed no dash warning lights and the ticket said long MOT and some tax so I bid it up to £600 and won it, paid and drove it to where I was staying. Next morning I grabbed the ScotAds paper and picked out a trailer for sale. Called the guy and drove to Auchtermuchty or somewhere ridiculous like that, had a quick glance at the tyres, ignored the underside as it was knee-deep in nettles, paid the dude, hooked up and drove straight up to Inverness where I had arranged to buy a mini tractor. Strapped it on the trailer and drove straight down to Dover, then on down home. A stub axle sheared right off the trailer on the fucking Paris ring road causing chaos, but it was a hefty trailer so I shifted the tractor a bit to re-balance things and finished the journey on three wheels. It wasnt until I got home that I opened the bonnet of the Vectra for the first time....all was well. sold it for a profit too.
 The trailer was proper rotten though...used it until I felt too scared to put any weight on it then broke it up for its parts. Still got the tractor.

[HMC]

Trekking from Devon to Essex, to buy a 25 year old granada sight unseen, and on to shitefest. Shortly after becoming the new owner, sitting on the hard shoulder of the M25, steam pouring out of the bonnet, I was beginning to question my judgement/sanity. After a few worrying teething troubles ( said overheating, power loss) it turned out that these were easily corrected niggles and my faith in buying a car from a bloke off a bleak landfill site was well founded, it's a good 'un - so the leap of faith was justified.

[Vince70]

I've bought old cars blind to many times to mention without as much as a test drive off good old eBay from the other end of the country..

I can't say any have been any hassle to be honest.. But I find generally I go for gut feeling when talking to the seller rather than the car itself..

These are my last 4 I've travelled mileage for.

 

I bought an my old 53000 mile £281 Audi A4 with 3 months tax and test from Somerset and just got in and started it after it had been standing for about 9 months so the brakes were stuck on but soon freed out on the journey home and it gave me faithful hassle free motoring for 4 years and is still going strong..

 

I also bought another 56000 mile £223 A4 just for the stereo and toys to retro fit in the car above and was told it sort of runs but it's spares or repair and thought to myself what's the worst that could happen and the owner jump started the car for me and away I went and it kept making a beeping noise all the way home due to the engine management light being on and ran really lumpy so I pulled over after about 150 miles and pulled the connector off the MAF and it was as good as gold and even came with 6 months tax and test so I cleaned it up and kept it for my daily for about 6 months till the tax run out then sold it on with 13 months ticket

 

Then my father wanted another Audi after giving his lovely Golf away to my brother so it was back on the bay and I found a A3 which I won for £525 as I was the only bidder which was another low mileage car with about a weeks ticket on it and had been standing for 9 months again as the owner had emigrated so it was a trip down to the mot station the next day and it went straight through and I've now got the car as my father wanted my BMW so we just swapped keys and it's been given a hard life with 180 mile round trip drives to work and back on a regular basis but has lovely ice cold climate control and the most comfy suede seats so it soaks the miles up with ease.

And then I bought this one from a station car park in Lancaster for £700 and it was a real nice car and apart from the 9 hour drive straight home and no working temperature gauge it didn't miss a beat and just took the guys word it was a goodun and didn't test drive it beforehand again and it was sweet as a nut and kept it for about 3 years.

So my theory is now is buy An Audi unseen miles away from home for a bargain price and just get in and drive it and it seems to pay off for me every time.

 

But it also seems to be working with cheap BMWs as well for me..

The White 320 was bought for £50 by me and a mate about 6 years ago and had been standing and it started up no problem and after a good scrub up was put into service on a trip to Rome and back then my mate used it for another 3 years before selling it on so I guess that's the best buy out the lot.

[MarvinsMom]

a mark 1 golf GTi i bought unseen off of a mate of a mate.... some bloody mate as the car was shit.

 

total, total shit. only 3 working gears, galloping rust, and it smelt like something had died in it.

 

and all for £1000.

 

had it 6 weeks, long enough to find out that is was rotten to the core, sold it, it got stripped of anything useful (not that there was much that WAS of any use) and the remains were squashed.

 

lesson learned, i'll never ever buy a car like that again.

[Cavcraft]

I bought a 2004 Polo a year or so back. It was even worse than even I could have imagined.

[New POD]

Having smashed up my third astra on 21st April 2010, at 6:20am, by 10 am I was at work some 25 miles away, and a bloke I barely knew, introduced me to this woman in another building, whose sister had a Volvo S40 1.8 Sport, 51 reg with 6 months MOT and a week and a bit tax, that she hadn't used for 2 months since buying an MGTF. She wanted £350 for this birdshit covered 130K mile beast. At 3:30 pm I was given a lift to the car, and left to wait, until she got home from a shopping trip. I had a quick look around it, phoned my insurance, transferring the insurance. At 5:30 pm she arrived home. I asked her what was wrong with it. Nothing apparently. I drove once around the block, to find a rear caliper was sticking. I paid the £350, and drove it to a car wash, where £15 of jet wash showed that it was pink, and then to my digs, where I took the wheel off, and gave the caliper an Italian service. (I wacked it with a big hammer)

Over the next 6 months I found that the Variable valve timing shaft was noisy, and took the caliper apart 3 times. It passed the MOT, and then I put it up for sale on autotrader for £895 ono.  I had no taker, but 3 days after I advertised it the gearbox fell apart. Fucking ranalt shite. I sold it to a Volvo breaker for £350.

[The Moog]

Bought 405 off Station in Liverpool, drove straight back to Blackburn, loaded up missus and dogs and drove to Edinburgh.

 

Non AS was v40 bought out of a front garden in Kinross. I had delivered the scooters bx and needed a way to get home. Got £50 off as it was filled with rubbish. Drove straight back to London.

 

Normally get a feeling. Sometimes after a few days have a poke and find issues, but normally will get me where I need to go

[hairnet]

buy cheap audi 2.2 from ebay from 500 miles away

 

score a lucky train ticket for less than two pints

 

massive WTF at the owner telling me the rad had carked it on the way to the shops that morning

 

get to fife and hes fixing it as i arrive

 

check levels point at england and go

 

didnt miss a beat in the 3 years i had it

[hairnet]

anything bought from eddy 2 hours after he decides he hates it

[twosmoke300]

Bought unseen a 94 Aprila pegaso off eBay . I was the only bidder at 700 quid . I did ask the buyer before a got a train ticket if he thought it would make it . He said yes and he wasn't a liar .

My ass hurt from the seat for days afterwards . I got about 30 miles into my 300 mile ride back before numb bum set in !

[eddyramrod]

anything bought from eddy 2 hours after he decides he hates it

Cheeky bugger!  Some of my blind-buys have worked really well.  MR2 leaps to mind, that was and still is a damn good car.  It just wasn't quite the car for me long-term.  Some, it has to be said, have worked less well, such as my Plymouth Gran Fury with the Flintstone floor.

[michael1703]

I bought a P38....

So did I .... TWICE!

 

£2k for the first one with ticket and tax in 2012

 

Then last February I bought "scooters" p38 unseen and not working for £400, it was also 320 miles away, so I joined the RAC and then caught a train,rang them up and it went pair shaped as they would take the car but not me,so had to get a hotel as I missed the last train,it owes me about £650 all in so still bargainous

 

Bought a merc 190e cosworth on German plates with no logbook for £500 in London,drove it to pre booked mot 100 miles away, got it mot'd and made a £1500 profit on it