Big weekend collection (a cautionary tale p2)

[Tickman]

At least you did the right thing and came home empty handed.

I think I would Neg the hell out of them on ebay too.

[Angrydicky]

Here's the photos I got. Was good to see some of the scenery between Newcastle and Edinburgh at least.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Cavcraft]

What an absolute bastard,  fwiw you and your dad have my sympathies. When we (my son and I) went to near Shrewsbury a couple of years ago for an eBay 'win' E36 that was absolutely shagged we were fuming, and that was only about 40-45 miles away.

In the end we were so pissed off the feedback I left was 'BMW P658 HJB: TOTAL SCRAP:nothing like pic's, damaged/bits missing/wrong wheels' I thought that way if he tried relisting it everyone could see the feedback with the reg number on and avoid it.

 

 

The idea of a fellow shiter going to view on someone's behalf makes a lot of sense, personally I'd always be happy to do so if wanted.

[wuvvum]

Well I have to say you're a braver man than me for even bidding on the thing in the first place.  A seller advertising a vehicle for £1500 who can't even be arsed to put a driver's wiper blade on for the photos would have set alarm bells ringing for me.  It's a shame though as it looks like it could have been a nice thing, and pretty much the epitome of an Autoshite camper (it's even the right colour). 

 

What you need now is a nice Bedford CF to take your mind off it...

[dome]

Maybe we should all bid on it when it goes back up...

 

I'm in Fife so let me know if you want me to set fire to a big bag of jobby on their door and run away...

[Squire_Dawson]

Sorry to hear about your ordeal. Arse wipes. Good write-up, though, if nothing else. It all counts towards experience.

[Angrydicky]

Well I have to say you're a braver man than me for even bidding on the thing in the first place.  A seller advertising a vehicle for £1500 who can't even be arsed to put a driver's wiper blade on for the photos would have set alarm bells ringing for me.  It's a shame though as it looks like it could have been a nice thing, and pretty much the epitome of an Autoshite camper (it's even the right colour). 

 

What you need now is a nice Bedford CF to take your mind off it...

To be honest, I fancied something with column change and without a slant four as I've been there and done that. But having driven this old wreck, the idea of a torquey slant four engined CF, which could actually pull a coachbuilt motorhome up a hill, really appeals. If I was to even look for another camper that is, I've been completely put off the idea for the moment.

 

N.B I'm sure if the Mitsubishi had been in roadworthy condition, running well it would have made a great camper. The Pioneer conversion was particularly neat.

 

Oh, and when I got there, the drivers wiper blade was held on with some more of that insulating tape they were so fond of, because the plastic clip had broken.

[wuvvum]

I have to say that (slipping clutch aside) my old 1974 Hiace camper was really nice to drive - that was only a 1.6 but would do 70 if needed, and the column change was probably the best I've ever used.  Would imagine a properly sorted L300 would be quite similar.

[Angrydicky]

My parents had a '77 Hiace Newlander when I was very young, which was another reason I was looking at Japanese vans of the era. My dad said the steering on that was always quite vague and the column change was sloppy until he replaced the selector rods (although neither were anywhere near as bad as this one). He also said 55 was about the limit, but then it did have a big heavy coachbuilt body and the engine was quite worn.

[Skizzer]

I'd take the hit and neg them to hell, to help save several other innocent parties the same fate as they are clearly serial fraudsters.  

[mouseflakes]

I had a couple of '72 Hiace campers (one poptop, one coachbuilt). The column change was lovely. And that old (3 bearing?) 1600 was a nice engine too.

[inconsistant]

That's really shit, I feel for you. People like that give Bastards a bad name.

[Alexg]

What a bunch of twats. Neg them, Neg them hard.

[RoadworkUK]

I can relate to this story.

 

Wind back to 2007, I had thrown the towel in as a BMW salesman during a "must be something better than this" moment, and was being consumed by a wanderlust that would eventually take me to Japan. Before that, though, I had a burning desire to spend a couple of months driving around the British Isles in a motorhome.

 

I had about 5 grand I could piss up the wall on a whim, which knowing the absurdly overpriced nature of old campers I reckoned would put me in a Holdsworth Talbot Express or something like that. I did a bit of looking around and picked up a copy of "motorhome trader" or some such rag from WH Smiths.

 

Towards the back of the volume was a small, grainy black and white image which caught my eye. "Dethleffs Talbot Express Motorhome, 6 berth, dinette, fridge, shower, needs some TLC, £2995".

 

DING DING DING. We all need a bit of TLC, don't we? This seemed ideal. Good size, sensible, simple mechanicals and a decent amount of space for not only my Giraffe-like frame but also any conquests who I might have attracted back to my wheeled château en route.

 

Feeling cautious, I phoned the gentleman to discuss the TLC side of things. He mentioned a plethora of vanishingly trivial tasks, including re-attaching the roof ladder. Sounded like the kind of thing I could cope with. So I arranged to head down in the Saab and check it out, with a view to a buy.

 

It was in Poole, which is a metric fuckmile from Colchester.

 

TomTom confirmed that the Talbot was in what seemed like a pretty salubrious area of Poole, which gave me a bit of a boost of confidence. I had a wedge of readies in my pocket, was enjoying the trip down and the sun was shining. I found my way onto the lane where the Talbot lived, passing many high-dollar residences on the way. Then the houses ran out and the end of the lane hove into view. The thing left was a recent-looking brick wall with a pair of black wrought-iron gates in it, and through them I could see the Dethleffs parked about two hundred feet away. Next to one of those park home things.

 

In fact, there were quite a few caravans there, more than you'd expect outside somebody's house.

 

The gates swung out, I swung in. I crunched the Saab over the gravel towards my quarry past a half-naked man sitting on a dining room chair, smoking a roll-up. I got out and the man stood, spat and walked towards me.

 

"I'm Chris"

 

"Uhum."

 

A silence.

 

"Er, can I look around it?"

 

A silence.

 

"She's open".

 

It was absolutely mint, I handed him the big wad of cash and drove merrily away.

[RoadworkUK]

Actually, you know what, it wasn't mint at all.

 

Like a cretin I began my inspection inside. It was a big coachbuilt affair so I hauled myself in through the side door which squeaked open, releasing a cumulonimbus of stale fag smoke. I parted it by flailing around and surveyed the promised land. It was acrid. Everything was there, but everything was worn, battered or loose and was coated with a toxic mixture of nicotine tar and dust. The floor flexed as you walked along and there was an all-pervading sensation of stickiness.

 

"Needs a clean" I suggested, intelligently.

 

"She's been sitting for a while"

 

Hmm. By this time the Man (still smoking his rolly) was accompanied by a Woman (who was smoking in the most determined fashion I have ever witnessed). I rotated, indicated to them both that they should do the same, and made my way out, nearly fainting through oxygen overdose on reaching fresh air.

 

Once outside I began my external inspection. I rolled painfully underneath, through damp gravel (there were loose dogs in the yard, but I totally neglected to consider semi-concealed dogshit as a hazard, something that only occurred to me later) and looked at the chassis rails. The rust was in the Bismark league, and went all the way to the back.

 

I prodded the wood above my head. It was springy and soft, the skirt panels were actually dripping. The majority of the floor would need replacing, as would the side panels. I understand this isn't a five-minute job.

 

I continued, silently, inspecting, gradually getting more and more alarmed, but strangely feeling more and more intrigued as I went on. How bad can this be? Surely it can't get any worse? Oh, yes, oh yes it could.

 

I got as far as the offside front. The wheelarch lips were rusty, which is not terrible news, but I looked up into the wheelarch and could see daylight. Eh? I craned my head around and found that I was actually looking through the front grill from inside the wheel well. Astonished I convinced the driver's door into opening and found the (broken) bonnet release, lifted the rusty, flaking, disintegrating bonnet and peered in, looking past the black, sludgy, messy engine, at the big holes in both of the suspension towers.

 

"I wasn't prepared for it to be this rusty"

 

Silence.

 

"You said it needs TLC. This is more than TLC. This is reincarnation".

 

Silence.

 

"How much will you give me for it?"

 

My turn to give silence, now.

 

"I wouldn't give you any money for it at all. In fact I emplore you to take it off the market. This is scrap. It used to be a motorhome. Now it's just the shape of one. This will never, ever drive again."
 

I didn't mention that I had invested one and a half tanks of petrol on this misadventure. He responded by telling me about all manner of other motorhomes he could sell me, including a Mercedes one which needs much less work.

 

Thanks, M9.

 

I held onto my wallet so tight I had white knuckles. I beat a rapid retreat, watching Smoky Joe and Josephine silently staring at me as I departed. I drove fast, as if trying to escape the gravity of the Talbot, as if it were to somehow pull me back in and take my money.

 

I never did buy a motorhome in the end.

[Richard]

What a massive pain in the arse.

 

Have you got a link to the auction?

[mercrocker]

What a pair of jobbies.   

 

How you found the muse to post such a calm and comprehensive write up is beyond me.   Pity you couldn't have managed a surreptitious unscrewing of the sump plug all over their drive.  If it was full, of course....

[Angrydicky]

Here you go Richard: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mitsubishi-pioneer-l300-motorhome-/272213165749?hash=item3f612b46b5%3Ag%3AuNwAAOSw~oFXESKP&nma=true&si=x7ES73ikSsvWVzhXd4EESx38BDU%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

[Richard]

It looks ok there, it just shows how misleading pictures can be.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Good story AD. I'm impressed you got your money back TBH. My experience is that once the folding gets into the hands of this type of grasping shitehawk they will stop at nothing, including bare-faced lying, threats of violence and whatever else to retain it. I would defo neg them, refuse to cancel the transaction, bin their MOT certificate, and put their details into all the PPI claim websites I can find.

[Richard]

I could be wrong but that has the look of the street where the tarmacing specialists live when they are between caravans.

[Cavcraft]

It's a real shame you didn't manage to keep the V5 or take a picture of it, you could have had a mega laugh at their expense.

[Cavcraft]

077481705329 (one too many numbers in that one)

 

07748 1705329

 

07789 489408

 

07789 489 408

[BorniteIdentity]

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.

 

I'm a very level headed man.  A pacifist. 

 

But I'd find someone local ish to make it go on fire. 

 

Genuinely.

[captain_70s]

Sorry to hear of the disaster, my cars are crap but both cropped up within 30 miles of my house...

 

This is why I don't buy cars outside Scotland, even though Scottish cars are shit. Too much time and money before even seeing the fucking thing.

[Parky]

I would have lost it at the moment the girl said that she didn't know who the man was and no, he didn't live there. Amazed at your restraint Dicky, absolutely amazed.

 

I would definitely neg them. And when the thing gets relisted we should bombard them with questions like "are the stalks in perfect condition" or "is the windscreen wiper correctly attached" just so future buyers can see what the sellers have to say.....

[Richard]

The L300 looked reasonable enough in its listing, this Volvo maybe not so much http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Volvo-240-estate-torslanda-/272215083182

 

[Timewaster]

Looking at the pictures, I think I would have gone for it at £1.5k

[Bren]

I admire your restraint. At the first sign of being fucked about over a refund I would have done this -

 

 

Job done.

[Tamworthbay]

Sadly eBay is the choice of the tosser at the moment but also the main place for most other cars as well. It's a shit that scumbags think they can palm off crap that and the reality is there is little you can do about the cost in time and petrol.