Ever lied about a car to drop the price?

[Albert Ross]

Went to help a friend buy a Mini a few years ago. It was bloody good, but had a "slight misfire" so we knocked the price down a bit........From £400 to £300 (The cost of doing the head gasket etc mate)..got round the corner and swapped the plug leads back on numbers 2 and 3............drove mint after that.........Went to a commercial auction, and there were a few ex MOD Land Rovers lined up, all diesels (110s) and in order to get one cheap, I slackened an injector pipe...........It worked. It rattled, smoked and coughed into the sales area, all the traders avoided it. It stalled, and my mate got it for £550ish when they were all going for aroung £8-900......Nip up the injector pipe a little later, and drove it home on trade plates!Leyland Terrier, ex BR Crew Van. Been stood since Annual test, had 7 months remaining on it, and was at a back street truck traders. "Tight to get into 1st and reverse mate" said I, with a knowledgeable air. "Needs the selector turret off the box, means a lot of work with this body on.......would you take an offer?" The Boss was out for the afternoon. It was up at £1100 plus vat. My mate gave the assistant a grand cash...........The fix? WD40.............and a couple of pints a little while later. He turned it into a camper and went on the crusty festival circuit with it, it gave absolutely faultless performance for three years, needing nothing for inspections...........he kept on top of maintenance.

[Cavcraft]

Constantly. I sometimes accidentally kept stalling cars I was driving round the auctions and told interested punters the cars were a heap of crap. Less interest equalled less bids and a cheaper price.I also did this to the cars of traders I didn't like so they got poor money for them, in fact I loved doing that.

[dollywobbler]

I worry about some of you lot. I'd probably end up fixing someone's 'knackered' car for them and then be unable to afford it because they put the price up. In fact, I think I did this once back in the mists of time, though I might not have actually been able to afford the car at all so just went for a test drive and ended up fettling the car into good health!

[vicsmith]

Well Dollywobbler, at least doing that kind of thing isn`t going to one day result in you getting a good hiding, unlike maliciously tampering with people`s cars that they are trying to sell.

[j-j]

Very bad form

[ashmicro]

A local Pastie-Faced throbber tried to force me into buying his car by loosening one of the wheels before I took it on a test drive. This mong's thinking was that I would crash and have to buy the car.However, my father conducted the test drive, and we hadn't gone 20 yards when the issue was spotted.Said throbber crashed his motorbike some time later, and lost his spleen.Karma.

[Tonka]

I remember going to the auctions with a kid who desperately wanted this Alfasud so he did the old plug lead swap thing while it sat in a corner imagine the look on his face two hours later when it pulled in front of the rostrum sounding sweet, he wasnt the only one who had been under the bonnet that night, and yes it went for far more than he could afford!

[Anglevan]

My mate works in a auction but for plant / commercial stuff. A mig welder came in one day on the sale that my mate wanted and gave the nod to the boss that he wanted to bid on it. Boss was ok but said it had to go through the auction as normal.My mate checked it all over - worked fine, when it came to auction it wouldn't work my mate still bid on it but wasn't sure why it didnt work. He ended up bidding against one other guy but my mate one - when he got it home a couple of the wires had been cut obviously by the guy he was bidding agianst and no my mate didnt get it that cheap cause the ither guy knew it was fine Other than that no i've not done owt like that - too honest for my own good me

[trigger]

Can't say i really agree in tampering in other peoples cars just to save a few quid, especially private sellers, Seems a bit stupid to me.

[binhoker668]

Am with Wobbler on this one. I think half the joy is found in getting some genuine a'shite for really good money - by simple good luck at random places or in papers etc.We're obviously spoilt on here 'cos the majority of us will pass on good luck they've had.Not on a soap box or owt - well non-judgemental me - just sayin like!

[VWPowered]

i agree i always try to be as trueful as possible, come-backs are a pisser and best avoided

[Guest Tony Hayers]

A local Pastie-Faced throbber tried to force me into buying his car by loosening one of the wheels before I took it on a test drive. This mong's thinking was that I would crash and have to buy the car.However, my father conducted the test drive, and we hadn't gone 20 yards when the issue was spotted.Said throbber crashed his motorbike some time later, and lost his spleen.Karma.

Good. Pissing about with wheelnuts is just being a grade a prick, imagine if the wheel had come off and said car had gone head on into someone else with you, father and bellend in the car. Not to mention the oncoming traffic...............That is far, far more serious than cracking an injector union or swapping HT leads around.

[retrogeezer]

I couldn't mess about with a car like that. I always put myself in the place of the other person and think how it could affect me. I'd rather scrap something than rip someone off.

[binhoker668]

I'd rather scrap something than rip someone off.

WORD geezer...(yes, I still havenae got round to posting Haynes - it WILL happen! Things have been tres random at the House of Hoker....)

[Station]

I did the opposite - when I sold my Starion this year, and at the last minute I decided couldn't part with the the original 'widebody' alloys (which I had bought to replace a set that was actually genuinely stolen last year), so put the aftermarket alloys back on (which were pretty nice, and had new tyres on). He turned up, and immediately said 'I thought it had the widebody alloys on' (as per the pics in the advert). I explained they had been stolen a couple of months ago - I then went on to describe how the alloys (that were stolen months ago) were rubbing on the arches when I drove it up earlier that day, and then I noticed them sitting quite blatantly and clearly on the back seat of my Astra. I then refused to budge on the price (the car was worth more anyway). I sold the alloys last week for 200 quid.

[The Main]

Went to help a friend buy a Mini a few years ago. It was bloody good, but had a "slight misfire" so we knocked the price down a bit........From £400 to £300 (The cost of doing the head gasket etc mate)..got round the corner and swapped the plug leads back on numbers 2 and 3............drove mint after that.........Went to a commercial auction, and there were a few ex MOD Land Rovers lined up, all diesels (110s) and in order to get one cheap, I slackened an injector pipe...........It worked. It rattled, smoked and coughed into the sales area, all the traders avoided it. It stalled, and my mate got it for £550ish when they were all going for aroung £8-900......Nip up the injector pipe a little later, and drove it home on trade plates!Leyland Terrier, ex BR Crew Van. Been stood since Annual test, had 7 months remaining on it, and was at a back street truck traders. "Tight to get into 1st and reverse mate" said I, with a knowledgeable air. "Needs the selector turret off the box, means a lot of work with this body on.......would you take an offer?" The Boss was out for the afternoon. It was up at £1100 plus vat. My mate gave the assistant a grand cash...........The fix? WD40.............and a couple of pints a little while later. He turned it into a camper and went on the crusty festival circuit with it, it gave absolutely faultless performance for three years, needing nothing for inspections...........he kept on top of maintenance.

What's your Ebay ID, Mr Ross? No offence, like.

[retrogeezer]

I'd rather scrap something than rip someone off.

WORD geezer...(yes, I still havenae got round to posting Haynes - it WILL happen! Things have been tres random at the House of Hoker....)

I found an old Mazda keyring at a car boot on Wednesday Chris, I'll post it off to you if you want it?

[binhoker668]

I'd rather scrap something than rip someone off.

WORD geezer...(yes, I still havenae got round to posting Haynes - it WILL happen! Things have been tres random at the House of Hoker....)

I found an old Mazda keyring at a car boot on Wednesday Chris, I'll post it off to you if you want it?

Yeah sounds great Geezer! Bear with me on the haynes front - should get it posted in next few days...

[wuvvum]

I think there's a subtle but vital distinction between not telling a seller that the supposed fault with their car is actually nothing to worry about, and deliberately buggering the car up to get the price to come down. I've done the former on a couple of occasions - once with a Saab 900 Turbo that was "overheating" - temp gauge sat at just over halfway, went up a bit in traffic, but all old Saabs do that - and once with a Rover 214 with a "blown head gasket" - it was losing water and the seller had obviously heard the horror stories down the pub and assumed that was what the problem was, but it was actually a leaky coolant hose. On neither occasion did I use the non-existent faults to get the price down though - both cars were advertised dirt cheap because of the "faults" and I paid the asking price on both occasions. I definitely don't agree with the practice of tampering with a car to make it run badly and thereby force the price down.

[shite_meister]

I think there's a subtle but vital distinction between not telling a seller that the supposed fault with their car is actually nothing to worry about, and deliberately buggering the car up to get the price to come down.

Spot-on, I'm sure most of us have experienced the former, I have and used any potential savings to offset all the other work that it needed that the owner didn't mention but badly needed, Also making an offer to take in account a worst case scenario regarding a repair is also alright in my book but dicking about with a car in an attempt to de-fraud the owner is a shit thing to do and if someone tried that with me and I spotted it I'd be inclined to get the rozzers involved.

[whitevanman]

AW Bugger...... I'm a bit torn here........I'm with Billy and AR, as I have done similiar things................BUT I also dont think its right and have generaly tried to be honest and fair with everybody( especially if I'm fixing a car for someone).............

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I can't say I've ever tampered with a car pre auction - seems a bit against the rules to me.But if I look at a car with a fault I know is minor - but looks like doomsday - I'll keep my gob shut. One springs to mind, a left hand drive 1988 524td with an 'overheating problem'. Sure enough, the temp gauge needle went into the red.......after about 3 minutes. That would indicate a severe head-fuck, but after 10 mins the thing was really only just warming up.Paid just shy of 200 quid and drove the bastard home, heater warming the interior nicely, needle up against it's stop. 15 miles later I arrived home, fitted another instrument cluster SI board, overheating cured. I gave it a toothbrush valet, swapped the minty BBS rims with good tyres for some marginal Dunlop metrics and shoved it on Ebay. £900, ker-ching.A mate of mine dragged an old 1971 Mini out of a lock up recently. Paid £300. Not bad for a genuine 'matching numbers' Mark 3 1275 Cooper S.

[Cavcraft]

Going to seem like backtracking, but in all the cases I did it it was to bent as a nine bob note back street shysters at the auctions who pulled far worse tricks than I ever did.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Going to seem like backtracking, but in all the cases I did it it was to bent as a nine bob note back street shysters at the auctions who pulled far worse tricks than I ever did.

Hmmm. I have to say I once did something similar to one of these characters who was nicknamed "Mouth'n'Trousers". He stitched a mate of mine royally so we spotted him entering a Mark 4 Corty into the sales. Underneath with a 17mm spanner and the clutch cable was tightened so the clutch slipped like buggery.Didn't even bid for the turd either!

[Cavcraft]

What got me was how so many of the arseholes would act like your best mate in the world then try and sell you a car as 'very nice' just before you drove it round the block and find out what a heap of shit it was.Oh, and the ones who walked out slowly right in front of you as you were driving round.Still, we always had the last laugh by telling everyone else their cars were nails, driving them as badly as possible and 'fixing' them for them *One particular arsehole started bidding on an old car he knew I wanted when he only traded much newer stuff. I can't begin to tell you how many times we had him over behind his back after that.

[Albert Ross]

Please notice that these were vehicle at dealers/auctions for disposal stock.......NOT private sales! I would never attempt that!