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Annoying shite during prospective vehicle viewing


Roobarb

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Foreigners......When coming to view a car, Some turn up with like x5 others, then all get out, look at the car & talk amongst themselves. Then expect £500 off the price of a £700 car, because of a small, minor chip in the paint etc.

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Guest Hooli

One I had years ago.

 

Bloke drives up from London to Burton to collect a Merc 260e he'd won on ebay - 'can I have some money off as it's a long way home? I can't afford the petrol otherwise'.

 

Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

 

'But I'm just collecting it for a mate'.

 

Oh right, so the trade plates in that carrier bag aren't because you're a trader? how does pay up & piss off or just piss off sound?

 

He still tried to short change me by £20 the wanker.

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I've had a car break down on me on the test drive before. The trouble was it was me who was selling it...

Amazingly he wasn't deterred! Wanted to check out the cost of parts!!

I looked at all sorts of new crap* last year. We had a new BMW 2 series flashing all manner of stop messages during a test drive. Walked the half mile or so back to the dealer and left Tarquin Shiny-Suit to wait at the roadside. He even rang to ask what we thought of the car.

 

Also had a new, unplated RAV Hybrid that was completely dead when the dealer took us out to it. Even the doors wouldn't open.

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This happened to me thirty years ago, when I had just moved to the area where I now live. I went to look at a Saab and when I pulled up at the vendors house, I noticed the curtains of the upstairs window of the house opposite move. I knocked on the door and the guy came out, turned out that he was proud of the fact that he had sprayed the car a bright lime Green. While I was looking over the car, his mum and dad came out, then his bother came, then his sister came out, then the neighbors either side came out. All standing there looking at me looking over a bright Lime Green Saab. I felt so uncomfortable and intimidated that I made my excuses and left.

 

Next car I spotted was a white CX saloon. I loved it, left a deposit with the guy and arranged to pick it up in three days time. Two days later the vendor calls me and says that he has had so much interest in the car, he has decide he priced it too low and wants a higher price. If I still want, it it will cost another £750 over what was agreed. I later discovered that he was a  local villain, well known for pulling lots of strokes. Got my money back and fixed my old car. Sod that!.

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Foreigners......When coming to view a car, Some turn up with like x5 others, then all get out, look at the car & talk amongst themselves. Then expect £500 off the price of a £700 car, because of a small, minor chip in the paint etc.

Sold an Almera on eBay once. It had that silver early 2000s Nissan cancer where the paint flakes off, more often seeen on Micras. I'd painted it over badly with rattle cans

 

Polish chap bid and won on eBay at £520

 

Looks under the bonnet

 

"Oh, corrosion, corrosion, I give you 300!"

 

"And the stevie wonder paint job is fine aye? It's £520 or you can GTF"

 

Funnily enough he paid up

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  • 8 months later...

What sort of things put you off when you go to view a car?

For me a big one is milk cartons full of water and oil in the boot.

Another is the enthusiastic DIYer, I'm sure there's some very capable people out there but there's a lot who are frighteningly clueless, once bought a Fiesta, everything the guy had touched was done up to 250nm including the sump plug, it was so tight it felt like I'd have pulled the car off the stands undoing it.

  

A hot engine

  

For me if it is dirty inside then i am put off immediately and locking wheel nuts but no key/socket to remove them....grrrrrr

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That scenario when they tell you: heater don't work, tailgate struts are done, driver window is stuck etc etc. Then they utter the immortal words: "never bothered me"  WTF has that to do with me or car condition?  :-D

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This happened to me thirty years ago, when I had just moved to the area where I now live. I went to look at a Saab and when I pulled up at the vendors house, I noticed the curtains of the upstairs window of the house opposite move. I knocked on the door and the guy came out, turned out that he was proud of the fact that he had sprayed the car a bright lime Green. While I was looking over the car, his mum and dad came out, then his bother came, then his sister came out, then the neighbors either side came out. All standing there looking at me looking over a bright Lime Green Saab. I felt so uncomfortable and intimidated that I made my excuses and left.....

That almost sounds like a scene out of Deliverance. Either those people didn't get out much, or they wanted to size you up to see if you looked like the kind of punter who could be taken for a higher sum than you were prepared to offer....

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Yep someone locally selling an Audi A4 Avant, no MOT selling for £600. I think for that price he could put one on it... gave it the usual... "cars mint, will fly through MOT wont need enything, exhorst is brand new."

I've bought no MoT cars on the basis its my risk. I've never taken up the "no reason why it should not get through its next MoT" stuff. But there are people who will come back with the long list of failures and berate a seller or look for money etc. I would never make a bald statement about MoT- ability for this reason.

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Any photos where one side of the car is completely obscured, especially when the ad mentions "some slight scratches on the passenger side". I often find slight scratches are in fact a totally mangled door and rear three quarter that Isopons entire annual output couldn't cover.

 

"Not actual car in photos". I mean come on, what other products are sold like this? If I wanted to turn up and be confronted by something completely different to that advertised, I'd join OK Cupid.

 

"Bought for the wife but she doesn't like it". I mean for fucks sake surely you would have asked your wife what sort of car she wanted first or at least involved her in the buying process?

 

"Unique opportunity" on a 2004 Fiesta Zetec. Because let's face it, Ford only made about a million of them. Sometimes people just try too hard

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Had one a few years back.

 

I started getting into cav gsi's and one popped up over on the blue for not much money, about £300 iirc.

 

In blue, looked pretty clean and I only really wanted it for the spare panels etc, my mate wanted the 2.0 16v out of it so a deal was struck and off to Swindon we went.

 

Car was advertised as standing for a while but ran perfectly etc.

 

Met the guy just off Jct 15 and he seemed pleasant enough.

 

Then he decided it was a race between us and him back to his house, we were in an escort diesel NON turbo!!!

 

I phoned him and asked him to slow down as we'd already lost him.

 

Got to his house in a nice part of town and saw the car.

 

It was rough, totally not as described but as it was effectively a spares car, all was not lost.

 

Then he tried the immortal line "tbh lads I've not tried starting it in months, I'm not sure it will even run and I haven't got any jump leads etc"

 

We reply that's ok, we've got a booster pack.

 

But that was not his game, he just wanted to prove how incredibly reliable it was by starting it after sitting for months and it magically kicking into life " wow I can't believe that, it's sat for ages and look, it's started first time".

 

Checked the coolant pipes and they were hot, the engine even smelt warm.

 

Looked at the side of the head, big GM casting on it, not the "coscast" head he'd claimed. Checked the oil cap, full on mayo, checked the coolant, much the same.

 

"Oh god lads I've no idea how this has happened, the gasket must have just blown".

 

I then asked how the car was warm and he claimed that maybe his brother had started it earlier without him knowing.

 

All trust lost at this point.

 

My mate was really clued up on these and said to walk away.

 

Looked back at the temp gauge and it was already climbing up towards the red simply from idling for ten mins.

 

Switched it off and it took an age to restart.

 

Walked away.

 

Later that day he re advertised it as basically a scrapper and in fairness did apologise for wasting our time but he didn't offer anything for it.

 

Also it was sitting on 14" cavalier alloys not the proper 15" ones it was advertised on as shown in the pictures.

 

Stupid thing was, he dropped the price to £150, if he'd put it up as a tow away for £200 me and my mate would have bought it anyway but after wasting a day messing about we court be arsed.

 

With second hand cars, I find honesty is the best policy, especially at a low price point.

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Sellers who sell up just as they let the Rego/MOT run out just because they are selling it.

 

Congrats, your car is now going to be much harder to sell and worth less!

I got caught a bit on this once.

 

I bought a fiesta flight (remember those, xr2i alloys on them in silver, WOW) off a work pal for £300, was to be fair a pretty mint car but just the cash was exchanged he mentioned that the MOT might be out on it, really? Checked through the paperwork and it had been out for 7 months!!! Yes, buyer beware and all that.

 

Great so I've just bought an old fiesta with no MOT for £300 when they were only worth £5/600 anyway!!!

 

Took it for an MOT expecting the worst, flew it using another sellers favourite line "the MOT tester commented on how clean it was". But to be fair, he was my mate and knew Ford's in and out and did say it was incredibly solid, no idea why!!!

 

Sold it on to another colleague for a nice drink, lucky really!!!

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Maybe this one is a little harsh, but I find 'will have 12 months MOT on it when sold' usually on trade adverts off-putting. Maybe because I have this unfair perception that a lot of dealers have a softer tester or get an 'MOT' rather than an MOT, and this can happen regardless of the price the car sells for. My experience with my 9-3 Aero certainly didn't help.

 

I know it's a double-edged sword for a dealer because a good car taken in P/X or one they've just got in from a main dealership with only 2 months of ticket left is unlikely to sell without 12 months being put on it, but then if you put 12 months on it before lobbing it online and it sits on the forecourt for months it's wasted money.

 

However, I'm more likely to buy a car that's HAD an MOT put on it by the dealer rather than one that WILL HAVE an MOT put on it by the dealer.

 

I think I'm possibly just strange.

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...However, I'm more likely to buy a car that's HAD an MOT put on it by the dealer rather than one that WILL HAVE an MOT put on it by the dealer.

 

I think I'm possibly just strange.

 

No, I think I'm with you on this, especially at our end of the market.

 

I'd be really hacked off if I put a deposit down and then the car failed its MoT on something really expensive...

 

I know there are MoT testers on here and I don't want to tar you all with the same brush but I know from previous experience that bent MoT's exist so it would worry me on a cheap car too.

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Being picky, but I find it frustrating if the owner is stood right by me the whole time. I appreciate there's an awful lot of trust required in someone you've never met before, who's suddenly poking around your car. But I end up feeling like my car knowledge is being tested and they're thinking: 'what a twat! Why's he checked the washer bottle?' Or, 'why has he spent more time stroking the original dealer brochure in the glove box than checking the sills?'

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Maybe this one is a little harsh, but I find 'will have 12 months MOT on it when sold' usually on trade adverts off-putting

 

 

Makes perfect sense to be offput by it, I always assume they have gentlemen's agreements with garages to just get it pushed through the MOT reagrdless of it's state.

 

 

I'd be really hacked off if I put a deposit down and then the car failed its MoT on something really expensive...

 

 

Aye, Im sure those repairs will be top notch quality, wont they?

 

Ah. If I'm selling a car with no MOT I have always said that I'll put 12 months on it once the sale is agreed. I'd figured that would be more appealing to a buyer! Plus given where we live, things might take a few weeks to find a buyer. Obviously I'm reasonably confident it will pass as it's generally something which I've recommissioned after being off the road, but if it did fail I would do whatever it needed to pass - legitimately!

 

Couple of nightmare buyers I remember - one for something I advertised with 13 months MOT and then got slagged off on a forum claiming that it didn't have that length of MOT. Obviously if the eBay advert runs for a week, and you wait a week for collection it will only have 12 months and 2 weeks MOT left...

That one was doubly annoying, as I took it for a last drive the day before collection, noticed a slightly noisy drop link (not even enough for an advisory) so I thought I'd change it as I'd advertised it as "no knocks or rattles". Figured I could do it without taking the wheel off, so put a spanner on the nut then turned the steering wheel to gain more clearance. Only for some stupid reason I turned the wheel the wrong way, and pieced the sidewall of the (brand new) tyre with the spanner, so it ended up costing me a drop link AND another new tyre :-(

Another one was for a Megane which I sold as needing a cambelt, not really having the time to change it before sale. Bloke says he'll collect that day and pay £100 if I can change the belt for him. So I cancel my plans, and change the belt only to find complete silence from him.

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I love it when you see average condition for year, on a thirty year old motor where the average condition is being part of a tin of kit e kat. I have long since learnt that you can’t trust pictures or an advert, usually you can get a good idea over the phone and I like looking at cars so will have a nose at most things. Even a complete nail will teach you something, just so long as you haven’t spent three hours on the road to get to it.

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Went to view a car the other day. Vendor wasn't there at the agreed time, insisted on starting it himself, it wouldn't run properly, or idle as the carb was obviously fooked. There were two large bottles of water in the boot, the paint was flaking off, the wheel trims were off a different model, I could go on and on, as there were so many warning signs. Even the bloke who owned it was well known for buying and selling old shite cars.

 

Still took the car though, as it was Ken, and he's a decent bloke...

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Ah. If I'm selling a car with no MOT I have always said that I'll put 12 months on it once the sale is agreed. I'd figured that would be more appealing to a buyer! Plus given where we live, things might take a few weeks to find a buyer. Obviously I'm reasonably confident it will pass as it's generally something which I've recommissioned after being off the road, but if it did fail I would do whatever it needed to pass - legitimately!

There's the difference between you and an unknown and potentially dodgy dealer though!

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