Reasons that you didn't buy a car.

[Supernaut]

45 minutes ago, Lanciaman said:

Black Alfa 75 twin spark. Nice car. Reg was H26 NOB.  Couldn't do it...

That would make me want to buy it more!

[stripped fred]

2 hours ago, Cavcraft said:

Quite a few because I didn't like the seller when I met him or her.

I would say this is a big factor for me too.

[Eyersey1234]

Not many mainly because I don't buy cars very often and generally look at stuff I want. Did walk away from an M reg Fiesta in 2008 though as I didn't trust the seller. 

[Cavcraft]

Oh, a quite recent one and not the first time it's happened: Went to see a Transit, jumped in driver's seat and the person in the passenger seat put the radio on and turned it up before I'd even driven the thing. The very moment anyone does that (or puts the heater on full or chats incessantly) is the very moment you realise they're trying to hide something and walk away.

[Jerzy Woking]

Needed a van, research made my mind up to get a Vivaro/Trafic. Travelled up to Birmingham and Northampton to look at a selection of  vans that all sounded perfect. Never even got out of the car as I could see all the dents and scrapes from 20 yards away on each that weren't shown on the photos or mentioned during phone conversations. Van dealers are so fucking shady.

[timolloyd]

A cheap Spitfire that the owner swore blind was on the road, running and I could drive away.

He rang 10 mins before our appointment to tell me a brake pipe had burst. OK I though, wasn’t intending on taking it away today, anyway.

I arrived to see one Spitfire with a split flexi...and  a missing driver’s door!

FFS. 

Footnote: found the exact same car in my local scrapyard 12 months later.

[sierraman]

Mk1 Sierra 3 door. Think it was £500 or thereabouts, again some old fella in Beeston was selling it. For some reason a lot of these old biddies can be right crafty bastards, arrived 10 minutes early to the son warming it up on the driveway. Sacked that one off. Bit of an error in judgement there, could have slung the crappy 1.6 EMAX in the skip and sold the rust free shell on for 10 trillion quid to someone reshelling a Cosworth. 

 

Vectra 2.2 dti at one of these ‘Trade Cars’. Bullshit places in Mansfield. Opened boot to about 4 inches of water in the spare wheel well. I think not.

Focus Mk2, plugs rusted in surrounded by loads of standing rusty water. Pissing oil out as well all over the shop. I think not.

Vectra 1.8, should have known with this one but I was looking at it on someone else’s behalf. For sale outside a convenience shop in Darnall. A proper dodge place in Sheffield. Cooked the engine on the test drive. Again...

Focus Mk1, basically solid but full of old giffer ‘repairs’. Chief amongst which was a filled wing where he’d blended the front bumper in then sprayed it metallic blue in a ground frost. It looked such a fucker even I wouldn’t be seen dead in it. 

[Tetleysmooth]

Reasons for not buying a car....but what about buying sight unseen?

I bought a Rover P6 2000 sc once - sight unseen.

On the drive home, it had so little compression, lorries were overtaking it uphill.

[Angrydicky]

Mk4 Fiesta and Mitsubishi L300 motorhome. Both described in glowing terms on the phone/on the eBay ads, both rotten as a pear, filthy dirty and heavily neglected.

[DaveDorson]

I once didn't buy a car because when looking around it, there as half a bloody finger nail and a massive clump of hair in the rear footwell.

I let the local plod know in a subtle manner that they may want to comb the car over, I didn't explain why.

I've walked away from loads because they've been shit, advertised badly, and/or I've not liked/trusted the owner.

[Jazoli]

I've walked from loads as I'm a fussy bugger and don't buy anything with:

Dog hairs, they stick and you can never get rid of them

Any evidence of smoking inside, it fucking stinks and you can never ever get rid of the fucking stench, dirty filthy habit

Rust or visible body repairs, dents and scratches are ok, just not badly repaired ones.

Low oil or coolant levels

mismatched tyres on either axle, smacks of skimping on maintenance

And lots more, the most memorable for the wrong reasons are driving to Suffolk from Windermere to view a 'mint' 200SX, it was obvious it was fucked from 20 feet away so I just turned around and drove home again, I also walked from buying an Audi quattro coupe from some dodgy place in Bradford, the car actually looked ok but the seller was a shady as Eminem, most recently was an R50 mini with no oil or coolant and a leaky radiator, the girls mother who was selling it said she hadn't noticed, yeah right, I now refuse to travel more than 30 miles to buy any car as its such a pain in the arse.

 

[DodgyBastard]

I recently drove 500 miles to buy a car, there were a bunch of things wrong with it that I wasn't made aware of before I set of including various suspension knocking noises, cv joints clicking, fuel gauge not working, heater blowers not working and missing headlight glass.
It also had an incredibly sloppy gear linkage and the front seats were destroyed.
I was aware of the gaping holes in the boot floor but not the hole in the drivers footwell.
I bought it anyway.
Am I doing this wrong?

Sent from my G3121 using Tapatalk

[loserone]

Not from our perspective!

[motorpunk]

28 minutes ago, DaveDorson said:

I've walked away from loads because they've been shit, advertised badly, and/or I've not liked/trusted the owner.

Rough cars and rough people usually go together. I'm a picky bleeder when buying. 

[MrSchwifty]

I have mostly bought my cars site unseen off the internet (because I'm a complete idiot), and generally have been lucky - a Montego estate with sills full of expanding foam being the exception. 

I do recall the following viewing disasters though: 

Citroen GSA

An itch I have always wanted to scratch, but they very rarely turn up. This one popped up on Car and Classic and was suitably beige and brown, so I headed to Maldon to see it.  The ad mentioned it had recently been to Chevronics for work to the exhaust manifold(s) so I took a punt and called them to see if one of the mechanics recalled the car and if it was a pile - they very kindly told me that it seemed a pretty decent car to them. This sounds good, I thought to myself!

The seller was a retired Irish businessman (alarm bells already!) who on first impressions seemed to know his Citroens and had had several in the past. The GSA in question had been lovingly "recommissioned" by him over the course of 3 years. Exterior was reasonably straight, interior was remarkably intact and all functioning. It started on the button and rose up smoothly - great , I thought, this could be a winner. The chap then wandered off whilst I was poking around the engine bay, when he returned he was holding a bag of pop rivets and some Aluminium sheet and said to me, with a swell of pride, "like you, I'm an engineer; which means I do things properly. Let me talk you through how I repaired the rust on this vehicle". He then proceeded to show me how he used a Black & Decker Power File to attack rust holes, hacked up ally plate with garden secateurs,  pop riveted it on ("stainless steel rivets, they wont rust - this is proper restoration!")  and then smeared over the whole abortion with grey silicone. This had been done on the sills, floor pans, inner arches, strut towers, front inner wings and basically anywhere out of sight that a GSA rusts (so basically everywhere).  He was genuinely pleased with his creation and thought I should be impressed. He then offered me a test drive - I declined.  I noted the name of the garage that had MOT'd the car (not Chevronics) when going through the service history and reported them to VOSA once I was home - that thing was a death trap.

 

Citroen Visa - (I still regret this one)

An impulse viewing as it was nearby.  It was a top of the range model (I forget the designation) with the 1.4 engine, electric windows and a fantastic amount of beige and brown in the interior. The seller was pleasant and very much into their cars, but admitted that they were not the most technically minded. They mentioned an irritating fault, where it would lose power after driving for 15 minutes or more, but were unsure what was causing it - a local garage had suggested carb issues. Anyway, I was then told about how original it was and was shown at great length all the cars features - the seller was very enthusiastic so I let them continue. I was also told that there was "no rust".  Once the sales pitch had ended, myself and my fellow shiter proceeded to prod the car - finding rust in a few places, including all along the bonnet leading edge and down in the slam panel, but nothing structurally severe. The engine started easily enough, but sounded like a bag of nails - I have never heard tappets so far out of adjustment! The seller merely said "I thought it was supposed to sound like that" *facepalm*.  Anyway, I hadn't driven a Visa before and there was nothing to suggest it was a death trap so we hopped in and went off down the road. Unsurprisingly it was completely gutless due to there being sod all valve lift, but it wafted along with no nasty noises - even the heater and fan worked! It was then that we hit an A road and I persuaded it to hit about 40mph, at this point the plastic trim strip along the leading edge of the bonnet detached, taking bits of flaking bonnet with it, and blew up onto the windscreen.  I stopped and went to collect the offending strip whilst the owner waffled on about having only stuck that back on the other day, I stuffed it in the boot - catching a faint whiff of hot brakes as I got back in - and we continued on. 5 minutes later the "power loss" occurred - the brake pedal suddenly went very, very hard and the car wouldn't pull in gear or coast - yep, one or both of the front calipers had decided to pinch.  I pulled over, again, and got out to inspect the front wheels, both were now smoking and the rims were extremely hot to the touch. I pointed out this "carb issue" to the owner whilst we waited for them to cool off so we could limp back home. Needless to say, I didn't buy the car - but considering the price and the faults, maybe I should've as it would have been an easy fix. 

Those are the two main ones I can recall.  Others include: A 306 that the young owner had fitted a "strut brace" to which was made from  a wooden curtain pole painted silver,  an Audi 80 TDi that was only running on 3 cylinders ("the engine on this excellent!") and a BMW E30 325 - that was most definitely a 318 with a 325 badge on the back. 

 

 

[Schaefft]

3 hours ago, Tetleysmooth said:

Reasons for not buying a car....but what about buying sight unseen?

Bought my Olds Aurora sight unseen. Haven't been able to start it in the last 3 years or so. Its the only one in the country and I wanted it badly so Im not complaining though haha.

[Dannyk]

106, looked brilliant in the pics, turned out they was from when she bought it 5 years ago and in that time the roof was covered in laquer peel, bonnet looked like it had been sanded, shed crashed it and it put the fan on within a minute with the gauge off the clock, she tried telling me i still have to buy it as i "won" it on ebay, no love i don't.

Bini, looked good on autotrader, shiny black. Get there its that dirty you cant even tell its black from the door handles down, interior full of rubbish but what put me off was the pile of blue rubber gloves and oily tissue in the footwell and the numerous nuts,bolts and screws all over the boot floor.

Mk4 astra, back when they was worth something. Ad said it was a 1.6 16v, my insurance said 1.4 16v boot said 1.8 open bonnet to an 8v engine, had eml on, oil stains all over interior nuts bolts screws all over boot floor and carpet covered in oil, all front panels slight different shade of green and a missfire. Seller went to get the full history. After 10 minuets i posted key through letterbox and left.

Should of walked away from this, turn up its got speakers bodged in the parcel shelf so its sagging, sounded shit anyway. Cracked windscreen, Being sold by a full on jeremy kyle guest, then his neighbour? Mate? Turns up with a can of strongbow in his hand a few more in a carrier bag at 10am. Telling me its a good car bruv, wheelspins forever. "No logbook because misses has tidied up"  but it was only £125 with 6 months mot and abit of tax. On the way home it stunk of burning pulled over to see see melting ductape wrapped round the fanimold. Lasted about a week then this happend... Turned out header was full of some goldy sandy looking stuff.. not too bad though got £50 for the speakers and stereo and £100 for the car as spears or raper on ebay, never did get the v5 even though he messaged and said hes posted it to me.

[sierraman]

All depends how much you are spending. For a thousand quid I’d expect nothing seriously wrong, good clutch, gearbox etc and plenty of test left. Not too worried about lack of service history, we’re talking pennies here. You can see with your eyes if it’s been looked after or not. I’m more concerned usually with a sheaf of ECP bills and the owners claims that they’ve done all the maintenance themselves. People DIYing it rarely know what they’re doing (on here is an exception I grant you). As above dodgy people and dodgy cars go together. If on the photo the garden looks like Bosnia in about 1992 then don’t even bother ringing up. 

[Split_Pin]

I knew I had forgotten about one from last years search for a Rover 75.

 I went to see an MG ZT in one of the worst parts of Airdrie.

The seller was actually all right but the photos of the car were from the only time he had cleaned it and from some time ago. The car was very dirty, half the interior trim finishers were broken off and in the door pockets and ashtray. Junkies were walking up and down the street  as I was viewing it (one of whom was later driven at by a dodgy looking bloke in an Astra whom them ordered him into the back and drove off) and on the test drive a vicious fight had broken out between some neds in a nearby park. One was screaming "M'ON THEN!!" across a football field and the other was staggering, covered in blood and dragging his leg. They tried to get us to call an ambulance when we were stuck I traffic.

Other areas where I will not go near to look at cars:

- kids roaming on illegal motorbikes

- flat roof shops or pubs, shut down flat roof shops or pubs and shut down, burnt down flat roof shops of pubs ( (c) Squire Dawson before he left here )

- fridges in gardens

- boats in gardens

- derelict children's toys in gardens

- a filthy front door

The Astra I looked at was being sold by someone who lived in a very nice gated flat complex but he was a wee scumbag financed by mummy and daddy.

 

[Datsuncog]

I once turned town a reasonably-tidy-looking-at-a-distance 1968 Renault R16 on the grounds that it had sundry bits of bleb touched up with white household gloss paint...

Other than that, it was actually very clean and drove well. £600 asking, but I really wanted a Cortina, so I walked away.

Still turn my head whenever I pass the house it was being sold from, even though that was over twenty years ago...

[EssDeeWon]

Very true Sierraman and auld ALS,  and if buying from a dealer ask to see the V5 and have a nosey where the previous owner lived, always done this (or used to when I was more regularly changing cars). It is proper post code snobbery I admit but...

[Split_Pin]

Speaking of a trader, I caught someone out on Marketplace last month. They were selling a Bini r50 and I thought that they must have lived nearby as it was parked in my local station car park every day. Then I noticed that it was being sold under their separate Business FB profile (non car related) and it turns out that they had about 8 cars for sale. About 4 or 5 of these were hidden parked long-term in the car park including the Mini which I now noticed had not moved for weeks, together with the others dotted randomly about.

They were also really evasive about viewing so I eventually called them out over it. I'd love to shop them to HMRC but I've enough going on atm.

[Skut]

Walked from a 1995 Panda. Drove from the Scottish borders to Glasgow to see it. One of the last on a an M plate with an underfloor CAT.  What had been assured to me as zero rust car evidently didn't extend to the doors which were rotting along the bottom edges. The weegie owner in his 60s exuded the confidence of a man who reckons he's got the sale in the bag. So confident was he that he drove with a fag dangling from his mouth.. The ashtray was overflowing, the inner wings in the boot looked like they were bashed in by a sledge hammer. It was filthy in general and drove like it had had a hard life. 

He clearly wasn't a car guy as he asked me if some ftp it had a month before was likely to be a snapped camshaft. When asked what I thought it was worth I proffered the probably too honest reply of 100 quid to which I get called a cheeky sod or words to that effect.  He informed me I'd wasted his time and stormed off.  Of course he'd wasted my time with his inaccurate description of his manky decrepit car. 

[Split_Pin]

Aye I've had that patter before as well and annoyingly never had a comeback ready-cooked at the time.

[dave j]

I fell out with a salesman at a car super market over a £50 admin fee, this was about 15 years ago so these fees were not common place. He wouldnt budge on the screen price or the fee so I walked away. Got a similar car a while later for a third of the price! 

[xtriple]

Once drove all the way to the land of the Welsh to look at a peugeot 604 which was a rare car even then. Went with a mate and a pocket full of folding so all ready to drive it home, in my mind it was already bought and on the way home.

I didn't buy it as it smelled so strongly of baby puke I felt physically sick myself just opening the door. Oh, and it had one odd wheel/trim. Regretted it all the way home and ever since.

[Amishtat]

Drove from Coventry to Canterbury one very hot Saturday (via Colchester) to look at an Austin 3-litre about fifteen years ago. Spoke to the vendor twice during the week, had the money in my pocket and as others have said mentally I'd already bought it. Got to the guy's house, yattered with him for a bit before we actually saw the car in the metal. By the time he'd got the garage door halfway open I knew I wasn't buying it. Looked to have been washed with dirty water and a brick but not recently, and leaked every fluid it was meant to contain. Actually drove fairly well if we discounted having to pump the brake pedal to have any meaningful impact on retardation. Didn't buy it no matter how much I wanted a Connaught green 3-litre, in the end the vendor just said "oh well, I'll let the banger boys have it." This may have happened in the end as I can't remember the registration to look it up, I think it was SHU932G but can't be sure of the numbers. On the way back we got caught in one hell of a traffic jam so possibly for the best, but still a episode I think about occasionally. 

[bunglebus]

Took a young lad to look at this heap of shit. This is apparently, in "good condition". Had been MoT'd the day before with no advisories (had to be dodgy). He kept us waiting about half an hour to meet him on some dodgy industrial estate, and wanted £500 for this eyesore. Got the huff when we said we didn't want it, and spun off (with the low fuel light still on).

Glad I was there as the guy would have bought it otherwise. Found him a much newer, cleaner, better looked after car a few days later.

[83C]

Another one I walked from:

Wife needed a new car 3 months ago. Wanted a Focus, no older than an 08, £1500 budget. Preferably diesel, but not a 1.6 grenade-o-matic. 

Found a nice low mileage ‘58’ 1.6 petrol advertised. Looked nice in the photos, so I messaged the seller and organised a viewing. Seller told me it had been repaired after a bash to the drivers side front door. No other issues, but easier to just replace the door than have the damage pulled out and sprayed - fair enough. 

Got there, the door alignment was all to cock, very stiff to open and the shut lines on the wing and bonnet didn’t line up. Looked under the bonnet and the rad cap wouldn’t come off. Asked the seller if the car had overheated at all recently and his reply was “don’t know, just bought it to make some money.”

Righto, see ya.

[sierraman]

What always puts me off is shit aftermarket ‘improvements’, Painted Calipers/drums, bits of chrome, those ‘because Ford’ screen things, wanky ‘dude I almost had you’ stickers for the back, cheap tat hubcaps, naff Poundland steering wheel covers, £40 Argos 15w CD players to replace double din systems - I mean how much is a second hand Ford radio at the breakers? £20? Instead people fit those cack Goodmans players.