Dodgy shit hidden by sellers

[Wack]

Alfa 166 3.0 I was 100% driving it home from the sellers description 

Massive dent in one of the back doors he failed to mention , I thought we could negotiate on the price , twat 

Volvo V70 I knew was a cat D but it was only 10 miles away so I went to look at it as it'd been "professionally repaired" innit 

Lifted the bonnet , there was a wiring loom running from L to R across the front crossmember that looked like a snake had swallowed a rat , bullet connectors,  not even soldered 

[St.Jude]

Just an FYI - I’ve only ever heard about sawdust in the gearbox from Matilda in the 90’s. I’ve not got a car with a fucked gearbox to try.

I’ve nothing to add to victims of sellers, but I’ve got one where the dealer was the victim of a part exchange.

My dad had a Rover 820Si fastback, and it developed a fault where the engine would just die randomly. You could be doing 50mph and it’d just die, or pulling out of a junction slowly and it’d die. RAC came out, identified that it could either be a relay box that was screwed (because after a while you would hear it flutter and then it’d fall open) or it was the ECU. Dad was sick of sticking a bit of cardboard in the relay to keep it closed so we went off to buy a car.

Closest second hand dealer was about a 5 minute drive, and the Rover died once on route. It’d start first time, but it decided to die again as he turned in to the dealership. There was a portakabin that was the office for this place, and the 3 salesmen stood there watching him drive in. I ask him what’s he going to do, and he says “it’ll be fine”. The car rolls past without the engine running and my dad parks it up at the bottom of the site.

There was next to fuck all there, my Dad liked big cars and hated hatchbacks, and the only thing that was semi appealing to him was a Mk1 Ford Focus saloon. Dad took it for a spin, muttered it’ll do, then struck a deal where I think he got £750/£1,000 PX for the fucked Rover. I can’t remember right the figure, but it hurt the salesman. The salesman, btw, was quite proud in saying he was a good judge of character and my dad seemed to be a top bloke. Which he was tbh, if you weren’t selling or buying from him.

The car, apparently, needed an MOT. My dad was adamant he loved the car and wanted to get going with it, so why not let him have the car and he’ll drop it back for the MOT in the week? Sure. The Rover was left, and we drove off in the Focus. He turned round to me driving off and basically said whatever happened that he wasn’t going home in that Rover. He hadn’t even been for a look before hand.

Few days later he rocks up with the Focus, and the Rover is in the same place he left it. Salesman goes to him “here, how do you start that Rover?”

”You put the key in and turn it, why?”

”It won’t start”

Surprised, my dad goes “well that’s strange, you saw me drive in with it didn’t you?”

”Yes, I’ve had every electrician out to look at it and no one can work it out”

”Well that’s strange, it’s been great for me really” as he left the keys to the Focus and walked off.

About 3 months later there’s a knock at the door, and this bloke is at the door and is asking for the radio code of the Rover. I look behind him and the Rover is stood there. I go out to it, and the only thing I can see that’s changed is a rubber nipple switch was installed by the radiator. That’s all I could see that was done, the bloke bought it from someone that wasn’t the dealer, so not sure where it went.

Saw it milling around for years after that. It was a great car.

[Bren]

Not a dodgy seller as such but I sold a trailer to a guy in Oldham. I had put it on ebay and he had won the auction.

Guy came down and collected trailer with no issues - explained he did them up and sold them on.

Later on I checked his feedback - one was negative with the comment " trailer fell apart before we got it home"

😂

[matara]

Bought a 1998 Porsche 996 from an auction in Sydney in 2011! Had cracked heads and seller just filled up the header tank with blue foam so it looked like it had coolant in. Drove in and out of auction block from cold with no coolant so no smoke. 

Dodged the bullet though as the auction house had the seller take it back and provide a refund. They said they took it in part ex and were unaware.

 

https://youtu.be/KZZ2QaT3ewE

 

[bigfella2]

13 minutes ago, matara said:

Bought a 1998 Porsche 996 from an auction in Sydney in 2011! Had cracked heads and seller just filled up the header tank with blue foam so it looked like it had coolant in. Drove in and out of auction block from cold with no coolant so no smoke. 

Dodged the bullet though as the auction house had the seller take it back and provide a refund. They said they took it in part ex and were unaware.

 

https://youtu.be/KZZ2QaT3ewE

 

You must have a massive pair of bollox to buy a 996 from an auction. Respect.

[SiC]

16 minutes ago, matara said:

Bought a 1998 Porsche 996 from an auction in Sydney in 2011! Had cracked heads and seller just filled up the header tank with blue foam so it looked like it had coolant in. Drove in and out of auction block from cold with no coolant so no smoke. 

Dodged the bullet though as the auction house had the seller take it back and provide a refund. They said they took it in part ex and were unaware.

 

https://youtu.be/KZZ2QaT3ewE

 

My neighbour had a 996 that he owned for a good 5 years when replaced with an Audi R8. He sold the 996 to his brother. 10 miles down the road the Porsche lost power and ran like crap. He stuck a bore scope camera down a plug hole and found it had bore scored. 

My neighbour ended up helping his brother rebuild it. 🤣

[NorfolkNWeigh]

6 hours ago, Dead_E23 said:

I used to hear about people quieting noisy gearboxes by adding a nylon shirt, but have never seen it done.  I can't even remember the last time I saw a nylon shirt, for that matter.

Lots of rwd gearboxes used to feature postcard-sized cover plates held down by half a dozen bolts. I'd imagine if you popped one of those off you could insert all kinds of nefarious temporary cures. Either that, or remove the gearshift assembly and stuff it in that way.

I tried it with a couple pairs of tights in Volvo 240 estate about 30 years ago.

Wouldnt go into gear afterwards and ended up trying to fish the bits out with circlip pliers .

[CaptainBoom]

24 minutes ago, NorfolkNWeigh said:

I tried it with a couple pairs of tights in Volvo 240 estate about 30 years ago.

Wouldnt go into gear afterwards and ended up trying to fish the bits out with circlip pliers .

I heard that it was sawdust for gearboxes and a pair of tights for noisy diffs?  It's all very odd when you think about the stuff people come up with.  I'm not sure what denier tights you need for a gearbox, is it sheer or opaque ones, if so what size?  Does the sawdust need to be hardwood or softwood?

A chap I work with managed to rid himself of a troublesome Kia Sedona which had an engine that would partially seize.  It manifested itself by being really slow to start, new starter, battery and earths didn't resolve it.  Once it was running, it was fine. 

He took it to PX against an Aldi of some description and when he turned up for the salesman to appraise it, he left it idling.  The day came to pick up his new car, he drove the Sedona to a neighbouring street with a space closest to the dealership.  With the paperwork done, he drove off in his new acquisition.  Cue a phonecall from the dealership later that day, 'Errrm, how do you start the Kia?'  'I never had any trouble' was his response.

He drove past a week later, the Kia was still there, unmoved!

[Barry Cade]

6 hours ago, Dobloseven said:

Since he got paid for writing the columns, it must have solved the problem of his holiday money a few times! I don't think he's anything to do with our Barry. 

Most certainly not... I'd use P40 and do it right 😆

[Mrcento]

5 hours ago, Timewaster said:

In the 90s I'm sure there was a trick played by second hand car dealers who would have a full page in Autotrader or the local papers listing 30 nice sounding cars.

I was after a 205XS (never actually got one) and would get to the dealer, look at the 15 cars they actually had and ask about the XS.

"Oh, that's gone but we have this lovely 205"

*Points to a doom blue diesel.

This happened a few times so I'm sure it was a thing.

Bait and switch, is the technical term.

Lure folk in with what they want, then disappoint with unavailability of that to get them to take a (worse) alternative.

A practice now illegal in certain fields.

Was definitely a thing with car dealers, though.

Used to be one here years back, this place was all over the radio and in all the local publications. They'd put up their inventory in one of the free papers you used to get at the time, Their stock list was always really interesting and usually pretty high end spec wise.... Being a car daft kid and it being 40 seconds from my school, i used to look for the ones in the paper, and not so astonishingly, they rarely ever had them.

But almost without fail, they usually did have something similar, but less desirable.

[Scrubworks]

A friend of mine wanted a mk3 Fiesta. He had a lead on one, 1989 first year of production, and full Ghia spec, now quite rare. Friend had been told it'd been off the road for a while, and just required a bit of usual mechanical servicing and such like to get it to a roadworthy state. I was doubtful, but my friend wanted to go and see it so off we went.

The Fiesta was shoved in the back of a muddy garden next to a pile of miscellaneous Ford wheels and other bits. The sellers were a father and son pair who were the exact kind of dodgy Ford fanatics you want to stay away from. The car was actually being sold by the son, who barely looked old enough to drive, but had already clearly learned from his old man how to talk out of both sides of his mouth. They immediately tried it on with my friend, doing the standard "yer m8 ford fiesta innit m8 ghia m8 good little car m8 look at these ford bits m8 yeh m8 cosworth alloys m8 escort gti m8".
Safe to say I decided I despised them both.

The car itself was completely fucked. It was complete, and looked fairly straight, but that's where its good points ended. The sills were rotten. The bottoms of the doors (all four of them) were rotten. The bootlid was rotten. The engine bay was rotten. The interior was full of condensation because the sunroof leaked, because it was rotten. The windscreen was cracked. The paint on the roof had been scratched to fuck. I pointed all this out, and the son seemed put out, almost indignant. "Yeh but I've got a pair of good rear doors for it." He protested.
"Are they included in the sale?"
"No mate but I'll do you a deal for £200 for them."
"And what about the front doors?"
"Oh you get them easy mate."
"Oh well that's fine then." I said. I don't think he picked up on the irony.
I lifted the bonnet to reveal acres of cobwebs. "When did it last run?"
"Recently"
This was clearly a lie.

The little shit had an answer for everything. Every single problem I pointed out was met with a "That's ok though m8" or "You fix that easily m8" or "It's a 30 year old car tho m8". The punchline? The kid wanted £1000 for this colander. I told them I wanted a quiet word with my friend, and took him to the other end of the garden. Except, about 20 seconds into me telling my friend "This thing is a basket-case, don't even think about it." the dad walked over and interrupted us by opening his garden shed to show us his mk1 Escort. It was purple, had flat tyres on corroded slotmag wheels, and clearly hadn't run since Tony Blair left office.
"Oh is this for sale too?"
"Ah nah mate I'll never sell this."
".........how come you're showing us then?"
"Oh I just thought you might be interested."
visible_confusion.jpg

We eventually got enough of a word in to tell them we weren't interested, and they turned the sell on. They pretty much immediately offered to throw the extra set of doors in for free. Somehow that didn't change our minds, and we left. My friend then got a facebook message from them a couple of days later offering him the car and doors for £800. I told him if he bought it, I'd burn it. He eventually got a solid Fiesta.

[New POD]

7 hours ago, Wibble said:

Wasn’t there a thing back in the early eighties of Sierras being hired and gearboxes swapped by folks wanting 5 speed Cortinas. Four speed Sierras being returned to the hire company who were none the wiser for a while until a customer reported a problem with the lack of fifth? 

There was on East Enders plot where the Mitchell brothers rented a sierra and swapped engine and gearbox with a well worn example.  

[Amishtat]

7 hours ago, Dobloseven said:

A few years ago, one of the Practical Classics team, might well have been Danny Hopkins, bought a Vauxhall Victor FB from a Jaguar specialist. Apparently it had been taken in part exchange against an E Type. It was soon discovered the sills were crafted artisan style from a layer of finest body filler nestling on a bed of crumpled newspaper. The sellers insisted they had bought it in like that in good faith, but the date on the newspapers proved otherwise.... 

Twenty years ago now, doesn't time fly?  It had been platebummed by the Jag "specialist" so that they could stick its original Coventry reg on another (probably badly)tarted up E-type . Still,hats off to him for welding it up.

[Back_For_More]

Again back in 90's - mate had  a R19 convertible. Wanted a Ford (can't remember the model) so sorted a trade in...... Ford was to be serviced and cleaned etc.... for pick-up later that week.

In the coming 3days matey (actually GF iirc) managed to bollox the passenger side on a bollard in a car park. Cue early morning arrival and parking up - pass side close as possible to shrubbery/wall and waiting. All sorted - keys handed over and 'new' car driven away..... Not sure on the fallout as he steered clear of the place for a long while after.

 

[Split_Pin]

A few quick ones from me.

The Astra Coupe Turbo which my then girlfriend and I travelled all the way from Scotland to Northampton to buy way back in 2009. It looked great but the seller failed to mention that the turbo had expired entirely, billowing white smoke and having no boost. He contradicted himself by saying he 'wasn't an engines man' but amin the next sentence insisting it was fine. He was quite annoyed when I didn't buy it, accusing me of timewasting even although it was absolutely the other way around. Lunatic.

Another was a Rover 75 being sold by a dodgy garage in Greenock. I got there only to see that the one corner which wasn't photographed had a collapsed suspension arm (they are common for rotting out) . How did they think they'd sell that??

[sierraman]

‘I’m not an engines man’ Classic stuff!

[cobblers]

My mate bought a renault 5 turbo in november the early 00s, it was painted in that weird flip/pearlescent white which was the fashion at the time. Advertised in the Ad-Mag -  We turned up for a look round it on saturday afternoon, and the seller had it parked it tight against the wall of his house blocked in with another car on the drive - "fuckin ell my wife has gone out and took her car keys, sorry lads - tell you what, have a good look round it now, she'll be back in an hour and you can take it for a run" he seemed genuine enough and it was a tight driveway which would explain why the car was parked like it was.

Car looked reasonably good, started up fine, idled and revved up OK etc, we buggered off to get some food and stuff and waited for the bloke to call us when his wife got back from work. A couple of hours passed so my mate rang up to ask what the crack was "she's missed her bus, I'll ring you when she gets here"

About half an hour, (just as the sun was setting!) he rang us and we went back over, the other car off the drive was gone and no sign of a wife. The car drove and seemed alright so my mate handed over his £2600 or whatever and I followed him home.

The next morning when he saw the car in the light we realised exactly what had gone on - The entire passenger side of the car was completely the wrong shade of white, you couldn't tell at night but in the daytime it looked a complete mess - it was patchy and blotchy where someone had tried "blending" the incorrect type of flip paint in and the only solution was a full respray.

So he took it in to a backstreet garage for a blow over in white and the bloke took the doors and bumpers off, painted it in primer and then disappeared off the face of the earth and so did the car.

 

 

[Dobloseven]

Didn't someone on here buy a car fairly recently, where the tyres were worn down to the structure, and the seller had used black paint to disguise the fact? Or am I dreaming it? 

[Datsuncog]

3 hours ago, Dobloseven said:

Didn't someone on here buy a car fairly recently, where the tyres were worn down to the structure, and the seller had used black paint to disguise the fact? Or am I dreaming it? 

Dunno if you're thinking of my recently purchased bugeye Corolla - the seller had given the tyres a (very fresh) coat of brush-on tyre paint; it was still wet when I viewed it.

Seemed like a bit of a niche activity these days, when spray tyre shine is widely available, but okay.

A day or two later, once it had all dried in...

Ah, they'll all be totally perished then.

I wasn't too annoyed, as I'd clocked the car was wearing an ill-starred assortment of bargain-basement deathrings and had budgeted for a full set of matched replacements - it just meant this became a sooner rather than later job.

 

I think I've already bored everyone previously about my Car & Classic advertised XM estate with sills made out of plastic bags and electrical conduit, but I'll throw it in again; I knew there was something suspect when I bought it, but I'd travelled quite a distance to view, and needed a big estate with a towbar in a hurry.

It had been advertised in Derry; upon driving all the way up there and meeting the seller at the given address, it turned out that he actually lived way out in the wilds of Donegal, over the border in the Irish Republic.

So I had to follow him across rural backroads for another thirty miles to see the car.

He claimed it was all good, with receipts showing new spheres fitted only a few weeks previously - but having bought the car, he said he couldn't afford to register it in ROI because of the fairly hefty VRT charge applicable on a 2.4 litre turbodiesel.

Which didn't sound like total bullshit, as a friend of mine moved to Galway around 2006 and I knew it had cost him a tidy sum to reregister his Rover 200 down there - maybe the guts of a grand.

Anyway, the XM went really well on the test drive, quiet and smooth, although when I was prodding the sills after I did hear a bit of a crunch and a crack appeared down near the seam join. This was disquieting, but I was moving house in a matter of weeks and couldn't shift sofas in a Mk2 Polo - nor did I want to return from a 250 mile round-trip empty handed. It still had nine months MOT - how bad could it be?

So I half-heartedly haggled £50 off the asking, and drove off home.

Only nine months later, at MOT time, did reality bite and the horrible truth become apparent.

I sold it for spares through Club XM to a fella from up the country who specialised in breaking them; it turned out mine was a 'known car', which had passed through a few owners and had a bit of a reputation amongst the Citroen fraternity for having numerous unwise bodges - including the block tapped and heater matrix bypassed using household plumbing bits (which I hadn't spotted).

In fairness, even if it was a complete lash-up it still did the job of a house renovation load-lugger very capably, and was totally reliable the whole time.

But you'll be unsurprised that I didn't see much of my £800 outlay back from the scrapman.

[HMC]

 

[big_al_granvia]

backstreet dealer in ayr, volvo v70 manual, now i know i can be as charming as a bear the mornin after 10 pints

me, give me a swatch at the history, dealer hands over, i has a swatch, not bad. okay i'll just pop the bonnet, dealer says err dont be poking about, m i am buying it i am checkin it, so i pushed him out of the way ad pops cable..... lifts bonnnet and was greeted by strut tops so rusted the springs were visible.... i starts laughing, wots funny m8 says dealer, fucking you you clown, i ripped him a new arsehole and threatened to put him in hospital... well fuck of m8 and your barred says dealer an dont you dare putti this on facey, aye nae bother cunt, i strolled away saying hee was lucky i am a gent

[Dobloseven]

46 minutes ago, big_al_granvia said:

backstreet dealer in ayr, volvo v70 manual, now i know i can be as charming as a bear the mornin after 10 pints

me, give me a swatch at the history, dealer hands over, i has a swatch, not bad. okay i'll just pop the bonnet, dealer says err dont be poking about, m i am buying it i am checkin it, so i pushed him out of the way ad pops cable..... lifts bonnnet and was greeted by strut tops so rusted the springs were visible.... i starts laughing, wots funny m8 says dealer, fucking you you clown, i ripped him a new arsehole and threatened to put him in hospital... well fuck of m8 and your barred says dealer an dont you dare putti this on facey, aye nae bother cunt, i strolled away saying hee was lucky i am a gent

Irvine Welsh? 

[sierraman]

4 minutes ago, Dobloseven said:

Irvine Welsh? 

Colin Begbie. 🤣

[NorfolkNWeigh]

I bought an immaculate B reg Senator 3.0CD from a general ahouse clearance type auction in Bedford, they only had a couple of cars and because it wouldn’t start on the day nobody wanted it. I think I paid £150 . Towed it home and started messing with it, thought I’d had a right result when I discovered the fuse missing from the injection…

Knocked like a bastard, obviously. Not to worry I trawled the estates and found a Monza with its strut tops almost pushing through the bonnet , but a good engine. Towed the Senator with the Monza to a mate’s unit and asked him to swap it over. A week later he calls to tell me , he’d done the swap and was halfway through an oil change when his idiot partner needed to move it, fired it up with no oil in and did a couple of donuts in the yard !  Scrap was worthless in those days- £200 down the drain.

Whilst on Vauxhall’s, bought a non-runner Cavalier and discovered somebody had cut the petrol pie to nick the fuel, as I’m a genius i sellotaped a Biro into the gap and drove it home.  Then proceeded to tart it up and just about made the local auction. It was only as I went to collect my winnings and saw the proud new owner driving off that I remembered the  ‘ fix’ . Nothing appeared in the local paper about a family being incinerated or owt.

A Carlton estate that had been driven into a skip on the drivers side pillar got a screen and filler shaped up to the rubbers, ended up in that same auction.
 

[big_al_granvia]

1 hour ago, sierraman said:

Colin Begbie. 🤣

naw this cunt https://www.caledoniavehiclesolutions.co.uk/ 

[AnnoyingPentium]

35 minutes ago, big_al_granvia said:

naw this cunt https://www.caledoniavehiclesolutions.co.uk/ 

Aw them bastards. They seem to have a lot of motors about this way, mind you.

[Bren]

[Scruffy Bodger]

16 hours ago, Dobloseven said:

 It was soon discovered the sills were crafted artisan style from a layer of finest body filler nestling on a bed of crumpled newspaper.  

Filler artisans are definitely about. This Justy was an AS car years back bought by a mate. The filler was an inch thick in places. It looked great before the untreated rust broke thru again.

[iainrcz]

I traded my RCZ in chattering its cunt off. I think it was the DMF. The guy never even drove it. Just offered me a trade in price, which I haggled on obviously.

Owning Japanese after a string of Peugeots made me realise I didn't need to have palpitations about things breaking every 35 seconds.

[AnnoyingPentium]

We sent the Auris off with a known airbag light and intermittent EML. EML wasn't on when we sent it away, so netted £2250 for it when car prices weren't sky high.