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Reasons that you didn't buy a car.


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Won a passat tdi estate on ebay. Put bid in despite number plate being concealed and seller not reolying to my request for the reg until I won the auction.

MOT history showed mileage had received a considerable haircut. Vendor was surprised and offered me a good chunk off price - I advised him to keep it and run it into the ground.

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Volvo 360 saloon. Twice walked away from these when they were about ten years old.

The first was a peach, I could find nothing wrong with the car at all, not even the price but the seller was such a prick, I just couldn't bring myself to give him my money.

The second belonged to a real friend, my one-time best man. But the car was a dog, everything felt loose and wobbly and worn out. I just didn't want a worn out one.

Oh well.

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Was in a well known Scottish dealer group with my mother and she was looking at a Nissan note, usual sunday afternoon, mum was trying the car for size and ease but the salesman was getting to be a bit annoying. Mum got fed up with his attitude and started walking away, he made a comment about elderly ladies and i slightly snapped, nexr thing i am holding him by the neck with left hand whilst saying apologize before she lands one on your balls. Dropped him on the floor and walked out... Mum bought a car from elsewhere

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Mother Fumbler test drove a Jazz CVT because she wanted a change. Drove the Jazz, felt like she was hanging off the steering wheel, like most of the Jazz drivers we see over here. Dealer also liked to be very close to her and always corrected her driving manouvers like cancelling the indicators before the steering wheel did.

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39 minutes ago, big_al_granvia said:

Was in a well known Scottish dealer group with my mother and she was looking at a Nissan note, usual sunday afternoon, mum was trying the car for size and ease but the salesman was getting to be a bit annoying. Mum got fed up with his attitude and started walking away, he made a comment about elderly ladies and i slightly snapped, nexr thing i am holding him by the neck with left hand whilst saying apologize before she lands one on your balls. Dropped him on the floor and walked out... Mum bought a car from elsewhere

Wow. How the fuck aren't you in prison?

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Daihatsu Charade Gtti. 

Was in my top 5 wants when I was a teenager (along with MK1 MR2s, 205Gti, 5Gt turbo etc ) and I hadn't seen one for ages.

One came up in the local free ads just down the road from me, so despite having little cash, no need for it and nowhere to park it I had to have it!

Looking around it, seemed okay if well used.

A bit scabby on the arches here and there.

Opened the boot, and there was the inside of the rear tyres staring back at me.

And under the carpet was a pretty good view of my own shoes.

I'm no welder so sadly I had to walk away and I don't think I have seen another one since.

So of course I should have bought it anyway.

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Mazda 323 with pop up lights.  Four bald tyres, pop ups didn’t and comically overpriced.  Plus the seller was convinced it was a minter and worth ££££ so I walked away to a torrent of abuse from her.  Maybe she thought that would convince me?

Mitsi Colt at auction in NZ.  Was worth about 4000 dollars, stopped bidding at 4100, let two Chinese fellas bid each other up to 5000 at which point I chucked in a cheeky 5250 as a shit or bust giggle gamble.  Only to see them bid each other to over 6000.  Idiots.

One I always regret?  Skoda Rapid coupe.  It was 1990, I had passed my test and Dad offered to get me a cheapie.  This thing was four years old, perfect nick, and was hilarious fun to drive.  Clean too although there seemed to be Vaseline inside the speedometer.  Funny what you remember. It was £600 and Dad was ready to pay but I couldn’t get past the Skoda jokes of the time (1990).  Very much my loss as that was a cracker.  Lovely black paint and spotless interior with an Alpine stereo!  What was I thinking?

Yes I did do this on the test drive.  What a fucking hoot!

 

 

8AD34A46-623C-4210-9847-BA138F03576C.jpeg

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In 1987 a young and enthusiastic bigstraight6 was after a Beetle and as luck would have it a friend of mines small time motor trader father had one for sale, it was a genuine GT model finished in a fetching shade of orange called clementine. Unfortunately the car had been given a tart up respray and the finish resembled the fruit in which colour it was in, it also stank of petrol and had a shot exhaust system. Needless to say I didn’t buy the car..

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Rover 75 Personal Line, BRG with matching cow. Utterly grim paintwork, 300,000+ Kilometres, no service history. Shame as the car was quite special and the seller was an honest chap.

85’ Corolla CSX Saloon, giffer owned and looked tasty. Ancient tyres, so much wax on the paint that it was cracking, so much brylcreem on the headrests that it was cracking and apparently regular serving was topping up the oil and fluids when they ran low/out.

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This thread reminds me of when I fancied an E46 Coupe about 6 years ago.   Saw this silver 2001 X reg 325ci Coupe on autotrader, with a dealer in Colchester, done about 125k but was well within budget, looked spot on with that red leather interior.   Dealer seemed ok, none of that "there are seventeen other people all wanting to view tomorrow type BS" so headed up to Colchester, he kindly arranged to pick me up from the station.   I get there and get a text to say "i'll be in a dark blue 406 estate"  ok I thought,  found this shagged 406 with equally rough looking driver in Colchester and we headed to this 'house' that didn't belong to him but the owner lets him keep cars there, nice gated house and gravel drive etc...  

We arrive and immediately I was 99% sure I wasn't buying it.  Front arches were fcked and more frilly than something very frilly.  The whole time this chap was standing about and peering through the house windows and saying that his mate (the house owner) must be out, but he did have the code to the gates so assumed all was fine.  Anyway then popped the bonnet up and removed the radiator expansion tank cap, it was bone dry.  Then the oil cap, it was very clean but with signs it has been wiped and cleaned up, hmmmmm.  The dealer said that's normal and all cars use fluids,  then passed me the keys and asked if I wanted to start it,   ermmmm no thanks mate, how do I get back to Colchester station from here??  Well to be fair he did run me back to the station, even tried to get an offer out of me whilst driving back to Colchester in the dirty shagged 406, obviously no offer made I just remained polite as we were driving through rural essex and I had over £2k in my pocket,  PHEW, escaped that one and jumped on the train back to Saaafend from Colchester.

I got the impression he was just someones dog body / agent / salesman who visits various sites and addresses selling dodgy cars and never from his address so there is no comeback.

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I’ve only walked away from one older car of interest. Got my dad to drive me from 3+ hours from London to Bristol to see a Rover V8 100E which turned out to be a complete lash up. Jumped back in the car and drove home. That was in the days of a tiny ad in the classifieds in the back of a mag. Everything else since I’ve intended to buy so come home with it. 

Actually, no, there was also a Ford Model A in Kent which looked ok at first. Agreed a price and shook on it, then I pulled back a bit of trim and spotted a proper Frankenstein repair around the whole body which was all self tappers and pop rivets with filler trowelled over the top. Didn’t tell me about that. Bloke had the cheek to badmouth me in the scene afterwards as well. The guy that did buy it ended up spending a fortune getting it put right if I recall. 

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In living memory, the only car I've not bought was a Mitsubishi FTO. I was looking for a cheap winter runner and this was a trade in locally. Garage owner showed me a huge file of bills that the lady owner had accumulated, and then we went out to the car which wouldn't start until it was jumped... and then for a few moments it sounded like the proverbial bag of spanners, but you know, hydraulic tappets, not been run for a while. It soon quietened down and off I was sent on my test drive...

I'd not driven an auto in years and all seemed ok, it was brisk and revvy, the manual overide gear shifter flicked up and down the ratios with much immediacy, but if you stopped and left it to its own devices, it would start in third and shift into fourth only.

And then I noticed the temperature gauge which was right up in the red bit, so I drove it gently back. Chap promised to sort out all the problems and would give me a ring when it was ready to collect.

Almost nine years on, I've still not heard from him. Must be a pig to get bits for.

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205CTi around 2003 in the outskirts of Strood. Was told it would need a new clutch soon hence £cheap (I think about £250). Yep I can do clutch.

Seller came out with all the paperwork for the car which consisted of an owner's handbook and the New Keeper's supplement from when. "Yeah that's the new style log book mate". Walked.

Car sales place in Gravesend, little backstreet banger flipping joint had a G-plate 309 1.3 GLX and a Y-reg Capri 2.8 injection, both rather cheap. Both had fuel gauges way below the minimum. Arranged to view them with enough petrol in them for a quick test drive the following day. Neither were fuelled up.

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A Lancia Delta  Integrale at a dealer in Bromsgrove who made Arthur Daley look like the tooth fairy. The service history consisted of a few receipts for oil and filters from Halfords as 'there aren't any Integrale specialists' When I pointed out that the country's leading specialist was less than 20 miles away he gave an excellent impression of a balloon gently deflating. Needless to say I left empty  handed and bought an Alfa 156 that ran out of fuel on the test drive ☺

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Volvo 850 GLT 2.5 20v estate. 

Advertised as being on 98k, super tidy, photos looked good etc. 

Interior looked like it'd been used as a builder's van, and the odometer had failed some considerable time prior to it being listed. Was an OBD equipped model too so it'd have been £££ to read the actual mileage off the ECU. 
Started it and it seemed to be burning oil. Also it had a lot of flat paint and lacquer peel, and was generally a bit shabby on the outside. 

I hadn't even got home from viewing it that Bramz had pointed me in the direction of the T5 I now own. It's that good a car that I know I'm never selling it. I just couldn't. Just spent £200 replacing all the ignition parts, now it needs new foam in the driver's seat, tracking, and a sill welding, and it'll be good for years to come. It's on 190k and counting.

 

1990 Honda Accord 2.0i EX.

Wanted a motorway car, and was looking at well specced Accords as an upgrade from my then Rover 400s. This one was on eBay with a £600 start, knowing they're £1-2k generally I thought this was a fair start price. 

Again, a glowing description and good pics on eBay. 

Seller is a mechanic - always a bad sign. Testament to this was the thick layer of congealed grease all over the steering wheel and gear lever, ew. Cigarette lighter was completely missing, and the centre console had a large burn/melt mark in it below, and a bodge repair with some sort of putty. Hmmm. 

Rear arches were rusting and full of filler, standard Honda rot, and MOT fail and expensive to have well sorted. 
Under the bonnet the rocker cover gasket was hanging out of the front of the engine block, two inches below the join. It was clear it'd had no mechanical sympathy at all and was being run into the ground. It was full of dents and scratches, some beginning to rust, and was generally a mess. You could see that it'd been a good, well cared for car once, but some idiot had gone RELIABLE HONDA ENGINE and just not maintained it at all. Seller seemed insulted that I thought it wasn't up to scratch. Some plonker bought it for £600, ran it for a few months then stuck it back on eBay for the same price - it turns out the cruise control was broken amongst other things. Bullet dodged, I think.

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Haven’t walked away from many but a notable exception was a Volvo 245 estate. Young Squirrel2 was looking for a Volvo to use as a tow car as a replacement for my terminally rusty R16. It was in the days before Land Rover Discoverys and the Volvo estate was still the ‘executive van’ of choice for the Labrador and green wellies set, so they held their values and not many were within my price range.

 

Finally found a 1975 registered 245 that I could afford but it started to go wrong as soon as I went to view with the faded lacquer-peeling paint, scratches and dents all over, dog-chewed interior and total lack of any evidence that it had seen even an oil change in its twelve year life. Started it up and there were moans and groans from front of the engine; power steering/water pump/alternator were all howling in protest. The final straw was the oil pressure light on when hot, at idle. The seller was utterly convinced as to the high value and desirability of this heap, as I recall.

 

Squirrel2

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I was just reminded that quite a few years ago I drove my brother to a house on Main Road in Rettendon to to buy the BMW 3 series (one with a clam bonnet) he saw advertised in "Loot". Upon arrival, no one in but seller had told my brother where the keys were, in case he wasnt back. Car was tatty but solid, and my brother was happy with the price. The rear tyre was half flat, and no spare, so we took the wheel off and took it to the garage at the bottom of the hill to pump it up.

Got back 5 minutes later-three cars were parked outside now, with a few blokes standing at the front door. Which was hanging off.

The blokes were coppers executing a search warrant on the property. My brother said we were there to pick up the car. He was told to leave the wheel and "eff off" if he didn't want to be nicked too.

Never did get the car, nor found out what it was all about

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Tons. 

One because it was a little old lady selling her dead husbands Merc SL in Hythe Kent. Told her she could get so much more and I couldn’t afford it  

A 964 porsche for $12k  again told the owner he should stuff it on eBay and if he couldn’t do better, I would buy it  He got $32k which was cheap even then (7ish years ago)  He took me to the pub when it sold and bought me a beer.

The most regretted - Porsche 356A when I first moved to the states about 15 years ago. 

Pretty rust free but a race car look and a tuned VW engine. For $20k or best offer, I thought I could do better than a car with a tuned bug engine...

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Took my ex wife to look at a Honda CR-V, turned up and it was nowhere near as nice as the pics made it, bits of interior trim inside the car where he had tried to "fix" the non-opening tailgate. That and the "I'm a mechanic M9" put us off enough to walk away.

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Hyundai Getz, travelled across to Glasgow to look at it. Nothing like as described by the one man banger flipper garage. He tried to drive it out the lock up once he’d jump started it. Despite the rattling engine’s best efforts it couldn’t over come the seized drums on both back wheels.

I said no so he showed me an equally knackered Punto that required two hands to change gear and had the wiring harness dangling from under the steering wheel. 

A C4 trade in that was being sold spares or repairs from a garage in Kirkcaldy. Luckily I brought my OH with me who correctly assessed it as being past the point of saving otherwise I would have bought it.  It had a mot fail two pages long, nothing too serious, the majority of the failure items were caused by neglect. By the time I’d sorted them you would have been better off buying a nicer one to start with. The sales man was also a total cock. 

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Do I tell the story of the Honda Accord coupe again?

Oh, go on.

 

It was the summer of 2016, and I'd won a Honda Accord coupe on ebay. It was silver, a 2.0 manual and had leather seats and panoramic sunroof. It was located in Manchester.

Rantingyoof and I concocted a plan. I had a job interview in Stirling (didn't get it) so I would then continue southwards. Mr Yoof would take my Xantia south to his house to try selling it from there, with us meeting in Manchester for the handover.

Things started to go wrong when I found out the car I'd won had been advertised in Dunblane a few weeks earlier, and that advert mentioned the clutch being on the way out.

 

I spoke to the seller a bit before picking it up, and asked how the clutch was "Oh yeah mate it's fine it runs really well". I also asked what sort of radio it had, i.e. should I take some CDs with me for the drive back "Yeah mate I'm putting a USB radio in it for you".

 

 

We turned up to a house in a dodgy looking housing estate to be greeted with the sight of a man hacking the wiring harness of said Honda Accord coupe...

G5R8yV1.jpg

 

I asked for a test drive and we were handed the keys and left to it. The clutch was utterly, utterly fucked. It slipped if you so much as applied half throttle at 20mph in 2nd gear. That would barely get me to the border, let alone Aberdeen. Also, the radio was never going to work again without the help of an automotive electrician. In a fit of blind optimism I even quickly whipped the radio out of the Xantia and tried it in the Accord. Nope, no life.

We decided to walk away. The seller got a bit arsey then agreed to refund me minus the listing fees. Fine, I thought. I wasn't in the mood for arguing.

 

 

 

The story doesn't end here. Mr Yoof needed to be home the next day. He stays in Northampton. This meant that my journey back north began by driving south. Somewhere outside Manchester I was so tired I started imagining that the Xantia wasn't running right. Yoof swapped into the driver's seat and it was discovered I was just so tired I wasn't holding the throttle down far enough on hills.

We got to his around midnight, and I started the journey home the next day, stopping overnight to visit a friend outside Durham.

 

In all, I did roughly 1,200 miles for absolutely zip.

 

I now don't bid on cars on ebay.

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