Big weekend collection (a cautionary tale p2)

[drum]

I guess series Land Rover

[billyboy406v6]

As long as its not a Volvo, he can bring anything back ?

[skattrd]

Hopefully the lack of updates mean he is making good and uninterrupted progress homeward.

[captain_70s]

I went to college in Kirkcaldy. It were shit.

[Squire_Dawson]

Ominous silence... have they been eaten by a serpent or savaged by Picts?

[trigger]

Having been sworn to secrecy about what he's bought it can't tell you but what i can say is that reliability shouldn't be a issue...

[scruff]

Deffo not a Land Rover then.

 

Volvo Amazon?

[Felly Magic]

He's exporting a Volvo from Scotlandshire, has to be, it would explain the silence as the SVM would be out with lit torches and pitchforks, baying for blood

[Angrydicky]

Ok.

 

Very long story short but it was a 1983 Mitsubishi L300 Pioneer coach built motorhome.

 

Unfortunately, upon arrival the van was completely misdescribed and would barely run, it kept cutting out as well as a whole myriad of other faults, none of which were mentioned in the ad.

 

I got my money back and walked away. Pretty fuming really, but I blame myself as well as the seller - should have asked someone local to check it over first before making the journey.

 

On the M6 now, heading south near Preston. Home ETA - 12:50 am.

[skattrd]

Bugger.

 

That's the third none collection, Ratdat and the misdescribed Prairie, PShome and the 505 and now this.

[For Fiats Sake]

Really disappointing, ask me how I know.

[billyboy406v6]

What a knob head, sellers like this should be forced to own a Vauxhall !

[danthecapriman]

You must be pissed right off! That's a long way to go to have your time and travelling money wasted.

[RobT]

Gutted for you Richard. So the bloke let you drive a huge distance knowing it wasn't up to a long trip, what a total arse wipe.

[trigger]

What a cunt. I noticed it had finished twice before without any bids, maybe that's why, and to think i felt pissed off when i went to Burnley to look at a Granada that was misdescribed.

[scruff]

What a fucker

[Skizzer]

Jeez.  Full marks for not having stabbed him (er, I'm assuming you didn't).

 

Pioneer were classy, and you don't see many about.  I remember going to look at new ones at their showroom on Windmill Lane in Gunnersbury in about 1981 - they were mostly on Bedford CF chassis cabs.  Better luck next time.

[pshome]

We should declare the third Saturday in April the official shite non collection day, celebrate it every year and instantly ban anybody starting a collection that day from the forum because it causes the server to crash.

[panhard65]

That really is a shit. I had something similar with the Cavalier asked all the usual questions and when I got there he says oh it won't run but my mate is coming tomorrow. I should of walked but as it was an incorrectly fitted coil lead I had it running in no time. After it decided to ring it's bottom end on the way home I wish I had left it. A pain in the arse to travel so far but if it wasn't right you did the right thing walking away.

[pshome]

Ok.

 

Very long story short but it was a 1983 Mitsubishi L300 Pioneer coach built motorhome.

 

Unfortunately, upon arrival the van was completely misdescribed and would barely run, it kept cutting out as well as a whole myriad of other faults, none of which were mentioned in the ad.

 

I got my money back and walked away. Pretty fuming really, but I blame myself as well as the seller - should have asked someone local to check it over first before making the journey.

 

On the M6 now, heading south near Preston. Home ETA - 12:50 am.

 

Sorry to hear mate, that sucks big time!

[djimbob]

Total bummer, even had the Missus intrigued in this epic adventure, better luck next time and so on!

[Craig the Princess]

Rubbish form from the seller. Some people are really really low.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

You are a much better man than me, chances are I'd be locked up in Caledonia waiting for my porridge ( or porage ) if the fuckwit hadn't at least reimbursed my travel costs.

[Alexg]

FFS, cretins!

[rantingYoof]

Christ on a bike, I won't complain about a 40 or 50 mile round-trip wasted in the future!

[17-Coffees]

Not cool. 

I had this a few years ago when I went to look at a Cappuccino somewhere near Birmingham, only to find that even after asking if it's as described and such that it was as rotten as a pair and leaking water in. No effort made to hide any of this. 

 

Thankfully, we were down in the area for the Classic Motor show so was't a wasted trip, but put a dampener on it for me. 

[Timewaster]

That is the stuff of nightmares.

 

The only good you can take from it is that buying a wrong Un would cost you multiple wasted weekends whereas this only wasted one.

[Angrydicky]

So, having recovered sufficiently from the ordeal, now the story of the Mitsubishi campervan.

 

We arrived at the seller's house at 2:30, as arranged. The camper was parked outside, and first impressions were that it was ok, it was a bit tatty and the cab was a bit rusty but nothing I hadn't anticipated. 

 

As far as I could gather there were two sellers. A lady and her uncle, the uncle assured me it was his niece's van, though the driveway was full of his old cars and it had his name on the V5. The lady came out and opened up the back. It absolutely honked of fags inside, but was ok in there, if a bit dirty and tired. The uncle then came out and started the engine. It sounded good and he revved it up, well it looks ok, filled out the V5 while it was ticking over, said goodbye, got in the cab and tried to drive off. It was then the engine cut out for the first time.

 

Knocked on the door, out came the seller's husband who proclaimed the van had a "fuelling issue" that had caused problems before. He somehow managed to get it started again and moved out of its space in the road before it conked out again, in the middle of the road. After pushing it back, he went under the van and after sucking on the fuel pipe, pronounced that it was out of petrol, despite showing 1/4 on the gauge. The seller came out and went off to the petrol station for a can while we stood around waiting. I thought I'd give them a chance to sort it out, as I'd come all this way.

 

Fuel went in, the van started up and triumphantly the seller drove the van for a lap of the square where the house was. I should have taken the crunching gears and the wipers that kept coming on as a warning. I then asked to drive it around the square a few times, to make sure it was up to the journey as alarm bells were starting to ring.

 

Ok, so the steering was incredibly vague and the tracking was way out. The column change gears were worn and it was difficult to engage any gear except first. The worst thing was, the indicator switch had broken and the seller had bodged a household toggle switch onto the end of the wiper stalk using what looked like a whole roll of insulating tape, including a load holding the broken column cowling together. I don't know if it was theft damage, or idiot damage. The issue was that if you tried to engage second gear (pull the lever back and down) it fouled the wiper stalk. The third time I changed into second, the bodged stalk came off in my hand, leaving the wipers and the washer motor stuck on. I fiddled with the remains of the stalk and managed to make the wipers turn off, though was forced to pull the plug for the washer motor.

 

I SHOULD have walked away at this point, but it seemed to be running ok, so we set off for the petrol station.

 

I got to the end of their road and took a wrong turn, right instead of left, up a bit of an incline. Not ridiculously steep you understand. The van didn't make it to the top, it had no power whatsoever and I was in first gear with my foot to the floor before it cut out again. The only electrical item that did seem to work reliably was the hazard lights, which was ironic really! I was stuck out in the road with nowhere to go. Eventually managed to get it started again and tried to get back to the seller's house but only made it another 50 yards into a cul-de-sac before it went again. This time, the starter motor turned over really slowly. Battery, starter? Who knows. We abandoned the camper and headed back to the seller's house.

 

Knocked on the door, a teenage girl answered. No, she didn't know who the man was who sold the camper, she didn't have his number and he didn't live there. And he wasn't in. She had her mum's number, but no phone to call her with. At this point I thought I'd been completely stitched up and thought I wouldn't get my money back and would be forced to have this complete wreck recovered all the way home. I called all the numbers I'd been given and got through to the lady seller, who agreed to give me my money back if we could tow it back to the house! Being a small price to pay, we did just that (it was only around the corner fortunately) then waited for the seller to get back. I honestly didn't know if she would, but eventually she turned up. 

 

She started bleating on about her wasted eBay fees, and the fact that I'd already filled out the V5. I assured her she could just write a covering letter to the DVLA with the new details and cross mine out, and that we could come to some mutual agreement via ebay. At the time, I just wanted my money back and to get out of there. She didn't seem to care about the fact that I'd come all this way on the strength of both her and her uncle assuring me on the phone, twice, that this van was roadworthy, drove well and had no mechanical problems. She didn't care about my £100+ in wasted fuel. Eventually, I got my money back and passed her the two sets of keys and my part of the V5 back, and made a hasty retreat, forgetting about the (crumpled, one month's) MoT in my pocket. At that point I was so stressed from the short drive and thinking I'd been conned and lost my money, all I wanted to do was get out of there.

 

I didn't discover the MoT in my pocket for another hour. By this point the relief had turned into anger at the way I'd been completely lied to and misled by the sellers. I tore it up and deposited the remains in a bin at some services on the M8. Ten minutes later, two missed calls and a text "Hi where is the mot for the camper". I blocked the number.

 

We got back at 2am last night, having been awake for 23 hours. My dad somehow did all the driving himself with the aid of plenty of coffee, and the Rover 600 was absolutely fantastic, over the best part of 1000 miles.

 

Although I told her I would mutually end the agreement to buy on ebay, I'm now thinking that I want them to pay the fees and I'll give them a big fat neg. Stupidly on my part, it's not the first time its happened as they've already got two negs, one for a caravan "not as described" and another for a Vauxhall Victor that "Wouldn't even get out of the end of their road". The man told me he still had it, and the clutch had gone, though I wonder what else had been wrong with it.

 

I know a lot of eBay sellers are economical with the truth, but in all my years of car buying (and I've bought some old nails before) I have never met a pair of sellers who were so dishonest. Pretty much everything they told me was a lie, including:

 

"We've had it for a year" turned into October, but the V5 said they bought it on the 10th March this year. They'd clearly bought it cheap to sell on, and I don't think it had moved any further than between the drive and road since they bought it. They certainly hadn't got up to second gear since bodging the broken stalk.

 

"We've been on holiday in it but my husband doesn't get the time anymore because he works on the oil rigs" Well he certainly wasn't working on the rigs at that moment, he was there in the flesh and the condition of it suggests you hadn't driven it anywhere.

 

"Good brakes" pulled to the right.

 

"Good engine" no power and kept cutting out. It had so little power I initially thought the clutch was slipping. The fanbelt was squealing constantly and sounded awful.

 

"Good gearbox " Sloppy, difficult to engage gears, worn synchro on third and it made my Somerset (30 years older) feel incredibly positive in comparison.

 

The clutch was high, the electrics were all broken as mentioned and the steering was probably the vaguest I've ever driven. It was a complete deathtrap.

 

No idea what mileage it had done at the odometer was stuck at 15k, but it felt like something that had done mega miles and was just completely worn out. Under the (very old) front seat covers the drivers seat was totally worn out, with all the vinyl gone.

 

Definitely an experience I won't forget.

[Rocket88]

Brings back memories of the Bitter I bought in Birmingham................between there and Portsmouth it shat it's oil cooler, shredded a fan belt, had total electrical failure, the exhaust fell off, and one of the front callipers partially seized..................23 hours to travel 120 miles..............

[dollywobbler]

Jeepers. What a bunch of arseholes. Nowhere near the same scale, but a pal headed up to North Wales earlier this year to check out a 'mint' 205 van. Even took his trailer to bring it home. Turned out to be pretty much what you'd expect of a 205 van ie knackered. "I just thought it'd be better if you came to see it" was the response when my pal questioned why on Earth he'd described it as mint. There are some utter twats out there. I consider myself very fortunate that I'm yet to fall prey to a complete horror story.