I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die

I agree, the chase is a big part of the hobby.

I used to travel for a farm implement dealership. Got lots of old tin just for asking.

Funniest story was when I am cruising down a two lane blacktop in northwestern OK and spot what looked for all the world like a tall T sedan in the middle of a section (Half mile walk in plowed field). After a hot and sweaty hike in soft dirt I find its part of an old combine.

But hey! It could have been a T.

It can work the other way too.

Had a 50 Buick sedanette with a firebird sub and a 455 Buick engine. Still a project but in the running and driving stage. Spent half an hour going over in detail everything I could think of that would properly decribe the car. Guy drives up from Texas with a trailer and says it's a little more of a project than he is looking for then offers me a thousand dollars less than I asked for. Then looked surprised when he went home empty.
No way the car was misrepresented.

 

Dude.....you suck.

 

I was irritated to say the least, But my friend and I had a good couple of nights hanging out with Mr Daniels and the 21 tables. Broke even at the tables but had a good time. We also cracked the innercooler on the diesel on the way home, that was a bit never racking! When we took the truck to the dealer we convinced them to put an aluminum one in instead of the plastic joke that comes stock. All under warranty! We turned a bad trip into a fun one, It just would have been cool to drive a new toy around for the begining of Hot August Nights.

 

Hey if youi guys know of any 56 f100's for sale between L.A. and San Diego please let me know. Cash or trade fora 02 harley night train.
Thank you

 

Has anybody ever got exactly what they were looking for? Have you ever envisioned something that you were going to look at and it be exactly that, i dont think so. what some people think is in great shape usually
needs a ton of work to meet your satisfaction.

Mr. Dick

 

My 84 year old grandmother can post pics of her flower arrangements on websites.

In this day and age, I'm increasingly suspicious of someone who says "I suck at the computer" because even if they did, they could go next door and the neighbor probably has a digital camera or a cell phone and can take a few pics and send them to you.

If they "can't send pics" when you ask for them, 99% of the time it's a surefire misrepresented crap pile.

KK

 

I have bought a couple that were better.

One was a 1948 chevy truck, they said it was rusty, I get there and find solid metal with surface rust bleeding through the pores in the original paint (no real pits anywhere). It was priced like a truck that needed patch panels.

 

JESUS!!
This is the kind of thing I have playing in my mind all the time, sort of a worst case scenario. I've gone into the friggin boonies to meet somebody with a wad of cash in my pocket, and when I get there it's the guy AND 3 of his friends. And I sold a car last week from my driveway way off the road and I was alone. He showed up with his friend and neither of them looked to be the friendliest. In all cases, something like you described played through my mind, but I have yet to have any problems. Damn. I'm glad your friend was okay, and it makes me think twice about trusting the good intentions of others, particularly when all parties involved know there is cash in my pocket. Yuck.

 

Yup. Rustysteeljunky here on the HAMB sold me my Suburban. I flew out with my 10 year old son and some tools and drove that $2,000 Suburban 1,000 miles home. It was EXACTLY what he said it was, the good the bad and the ugly, and it was exactly what I wanted. It was from a HAMBer, so I expected nothing less.

But then there's Tubby, also from here. He found a Suburban in a junk yard near him, and he was gracious enough to get the original front seats, and complete tail gate assembly for me, and then store them for several months until I could get up there to pick them up.
Problem was, he said the tail gate was "rusted out all along the bottm." Lemme tell you, ol' Tubby and I have WAAAAAY different ideas of what "rusted out along the bottom" means!!! I was expecting it to look like swiss cheese, and what I got looks like I could put in a little filler, prime it and bolt it on! Tubby rocks! I'm greatful to him for getting those parts for me.

I've bought parts and stuff on ebay, but I'd never spend a lot of money, or buy a vehicle from across country unless it was from a HAMBer. Period. From a HAMBer, I'd buy anything and not think twice about it.

-Brad

 

Your experience seems somewhat typical to me for a lot of. As said here allready if you do diddle around..... ........If its a good deal you will be too late. The bad has to happen once in a while. You likely will never have that bad of an experience again. I have an example of how it can go the other way....

A few years ago my buddy who had been fishing gets home and calls me. Says there was a 32 3 window setting in a mountain williams front yard amongst a bunch of other yard junk. Said he stopped and the owner said $500. Now my buddy knew a 32 from a 34 3 window or a model a so I really did not doubt him too, just not very believable. I grabbed the misses, hooked up the trailer and off we go on a wild goose chase. About 45 minutes later I spotted this body in a front yard. I stop and walk up to a group of folks who were indulging in feel good beverages and ask if the body was for sale. One of the fellers stands up and says NOPE! I explain how I was told an hour ago $500 would buy it. I say I have 500 cash in my pocket. His response to that was "all right all you a==holes lets get this thing on his trailer and he asked me for the money. As I am giving the man his money someone else pulls up out front. Find out it was the second guy the fisherman called. If I had stopped to piss on the way someone else would have gotten the 32.

On the flip side I have had someone buy a car while I was test driving it. Yep get back and say I'll take it and seller says I just sold it to this other guy and allready have his money. It all evens out over the years. Steve

 

Did ya beat his ass? What a piece of crap!

 

Sounds like a lawyer, or someone purporting to be a lawyer, should have called this shop up with all the right legalese to make them think they're going to be sued for misrepresenting a potentially dangerous problem. I mean, had he had an accident when the A-arm parted company with the frame, you have to think there'd be lawsuits flying all over the place.

Beats me. Beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder, wether it's a woman or an automobile. The only way to be sure a car is what you want is to look at it yourself. I can see the potential in just about any pile of crap - heck, we went back where the '34 Cabriolet came from and dragged out a '28 A tudor, body falling apart, frame crossmember under a foot of dirt - and already traded it and a crappy old body to a guy for a good solid '42 Studebaker 4dr, complete except the motor. Sometimes it works out.

I once went to look at a '53 Willys Aero 2dr sedan that was in the paper for $350.. drove like an hour to this guy's place to find a car that the front and back were held together by about 12" of the trans tunnel and the roof posts. It could have been fixed, the inner rockers double as the side frame rails on these, and it's just straight box tube, but I don't know how you'd ever move the thing in one piece.

And the car auction I went to for a friend to look at a "'37 Chevy parts car" ... which turned out to be a '41, 4dr, no front clip, no drivetrain, basically nothing good left on it. It still sold for $250 (a '48 for $450 if complete is a gift even with a big dent in it). But that's where I found the late model Suburban I've been driving for three years - I'd looked at it, didn't pay any attention to it thinking it would bring $1200 or so, and no one started bidding on it until the auctioneer got down to $200. So for $525 I owned it.

 

Country Classic Cars???
Steer clear of that place like the plague.
Do a search on their name to get some info on their reputation.

 

I just got back from a trip to VA. 959 miles round trip. I bought a car off ebay and on the sellers word I made the mistake of letting him convince me it could drive home. I asked the same questions too. Brakes , trans, engine etc etc.

Long story short I put my foot on the brake to start it up and the pedal goes to the floor. I say "hey man you said this thing had good brakes?!" He says it'll stop. Sometimes ya gotta pump it. When I tell ya if the pedal had 4 inches of travel, it was only the last 1/9909090th of an inch that actually engaged the brakes. Not mention the giant knock in the motor and the exhaust leak that vented into the car. Yeah its ready for the road....

ALWAYS take a print out of the ad with you if you get over the net. It doesnt let him squirm out of his description.

On the other hand, when I went to get my corvair and was very surpised at what I saw. It got it for a song and it came with a lot of extra parts. Win some loose some.

 

What's up with people?? Get some photos before you blow your wad!

i don't know what anyone would buy a car site unseen and especially paying money to go look at it!!!

 

I have always wanted to tell this story. There was a thread earlier about driving cheap shitty cars long distances. I’ve done it a lot and only had one bad time of it, which happens to have been because the seller was pretty dishonest about the condition of the truck he sold me. I’m used to fixing stuff on the side of the road but nothing like this one:

In June of 2000 I bought out two NOS dealer inventories, one in PA the other in in Cincinnati. To get all this home I went "truck shopping" and bought a 1974 Chevy C-60 18' box truck. I try to pick 70s Chevys with 350s as tow vehicles because you can get parts everywhere and they are really easy to fix, which is why I got this one.

On the phone the seller swore to me that the truck was in real good shape, had a brand new engine and was easily up to the trip. I paid him and flew up there to pick it up and it was less than he told me having two front tires that were about to pop and the new engine he told me about was replaced in 1996 (hey, 4 years is new in geologic time right?). It did seem to run OK so I took it. The worst part was that the temp gauge did not work. (Funny thing is, he was a Sopranos type too).<O

I replaced the front tires and went to get my stuff. About 90 miles later the rusted out tailpipe broke in half right under the seat. I found a muffler shop to fix that by welding in a piece. I picked up the inventory in PA and set out down the turnpike for <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comCincinnati</ST1</st1:City>, stopping at a friend&#8217;s house in <st1:City>Pittsburg</st1:City>. Shortly after I left <st1:City>Pittsburg</st1:City>, the truck started coughing and sputtering, and ran like crap. I changed out the fuel filterand it seemed to run a little better. It started running bad again near <ST1<st1:City>Texarkana</st1:City><st1:State>TX</st1:State> so I stopped in an Autozone and changed out the distributor cap, plug wires; points etc. but still couldn&#8217;t get it to run very good.

I decided to press on anyway and got maybe another 100 miles when it started making a lot of noise, . I opened the hood to find one of the fan blades had broken off. I guess it was bent or something before I left. No choice but to change it. The noise got progressively worse by the time I found a town to stop at Autozone and bought a replacement. I also replaced the coil at this time to see if I could get it to run better. After replacing the fan, I noticed the water pump leaking from the bearing (trashed from the off balance fan I guess) so I took it all back apart and replaced the water pump. No leaks but still running bad. I decided to press on and after 100 miles or so I thought to change the fuel pump

I stopped in some rat hole truck parts place and got a fuel pump. This would be the very first time I replaced an <st1:stockticker>SBC</st1:stockticker> fuel pump. I don&#8217;t remember if a passerby finally took pity on me or I figured it out on my own but I must have spent at least 2 hours trying every know method to man to get the pushrod to stay in the block, only to have it fall out over and over again as I tried to get the fuel pump back on. Now I know, put grease on it to hold it in place while you put the pump on but imagine being stuck on the side of the road trying to fix this and having to learn this to get home. (BTW, on a Fiat the rod faces up and gravity holds it in place while you put the pump on.) After all my suffering and replacing the fuel pump, the truck still ran like shit. To top that off, the muffler broke again as the welded section was too rigid and bent back and forth and broke off. I fixed it by taking 3 tech screws and reattaching it with flashing so it could flex.<O

I spent most of the next day trying to find someone who could diagnose the problem since I had pretty much run out of stuff to replace. Nobody seem to be able to come up with anything. Since I was only 400 or so miles from home I decided to keep limping on, at this point I was down to 100 or less miles a day. Over the next two or three days I only got a couple of hundred miles, stopping about every 50 miles trying to resolve the problem.<O

Finally, I stopped again is a little town somewhere in <ST1West Texas and was at a rusted out metal building in the middle of nowhere. An old guy there listened to this tale of the sputtering truck and he asks &#8220;did you change the fuel filter on the frame?&#8221; &#8220;Huh, there a fuel filter on the frame?&#8221; was my response. Sure enough, there was a canister about the size of a beer can on the frame under the cab. Inside it was the most rust clogged, sucked up into a ball filter element I had ever seen. The old guy had one and I changed it. This immediately fixed the problem and the truck was running like a raped ape.<O

I was about 180 miles away and cruising down the highway at 65 happy as shit. I made it to <ST1Pecos when all of the sudden I heard that sound you hate to hear, hard knocking and misfiring. I pulled over and the radiator boiled over. Yep, I had violated my own rule and got bit. &#8220;Never drive a car that doesn&#8217;t have a working temp gage&#8221;.<O

I waited a while and cranked it and heard a lot of knocking. Pulled a plug and found it covered with antifreeze. There goes my &#8220;brand new&#8221; motor. Blown head, knocking rods the whole bit. I figure the fact that I had been going 40 <st1:stockticker>MPH</st1:stockticker> the whole way was what got me as far as I got.<O

I ended up riding the last 110 miles crammed into an International Transtar that got routed through the desert because they were hauling a house trailer that was oversized (took 14 hrs). These four guys had been living in the truck for a week as they hauled the trailer around trying to find a home for it (something about the owner not being accepted to various trailer parks

I had the truck towed back to <st1:City>El Paso</st1:City> and still use it as a shed. Worst trip I ever took in my life, took 9 days altogether. I&#8217;ve done a few of these type trips since but now I make sure that the vehicle I&#8217;m buying is as described or else I tow it. Helps to know who you are dealing with as there are some lying sacks out there.<O

Here's a photo of this steaming pile doing duty as a barn (makes a damn fine shed).

 

I had 20 something photos. It was the stuff I couldnt see that was the problem. I recently bought a digital video camera to put little vids in my ads of the car running or whatever. I like to be over honest in my ads. Makes for a more pleasant transaction and Ive made some good friends through it. I wish everyone thought that way.

 

Dphantom, you're a better man than I. Woulda test driven that thing a few blocks away and neutral dropped the transmission into oblivion or poked a hole in the oil filter and WOT it back to the seller's in low. Come walking back with the keys in hand, "sorry dude it just shut off" Fraud is serious and payback's a bitch.

 

Uh, the roof was pretty shot once I started messing with it, rusted out all the way around the windshield so I scrapped it. The fenders and hood are still in good shape (well worth $140!), just need to locate some hood hinges. I think Kustombuilder had some a while back...48 Chevy hinges anyone?

Oh, yeah, it was a trip going to fetch the thing from Vance as well. He swears all the parts will fit in the back of the Sedan Delivery and then realizes after the fact that he's got seats and a bunch of other stuff. Got to make a second trip to pick all that stuff up and dropped off a rim at Blktopbandit's place.

Been my best car buying experience in years. Had fun with the kids and got to meet some great HAMBers in the process. Haven't done shit with the SD other than swap it over to an S10 frame and left it sitting until I get something else done that's ahead of it! But SOMEDAY it'll be a runner.

 

Fiat128, my journey was a cake walk compared to that.That sucks. Shifty, My friend and I had a sneaking suspicion he was a cop in Carson City, where we were staying, believe me alot of different "ideas" went throught our heads on the ride back to the hotel.

 

Yup, that's the place. Anyhow the car was obviously worse than the seller said, but still better than what I expected. I was mentally prepared for the worst case scenario with really low expectations, I quessed he's bullshitting me anyways. But when you find something you've been searcing for a long time, you take a risk. At least I do.

 

i've had hambers check some cars out for me in various states, good thing too. i went to s.f to look at a panel truck, got there and asked where the truck was he was talking about.....spent 5 hours more killing time until the return flight. i haven't bought a car that i can't drive too (close), but the downside is i have to wait.

 

an example??
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Ford...003QQitemZ130140356838QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

 

This make me think I should start a side business you see I drive all over the USA for a living and I take very good pic and know cars maybe I could save a lot of you time and cash.. Some thing for me to think about!!

 

That reminds me of a thing that happened to me many years ago. my oldest brother was looking for an old car to work on.I was still in high school. A friend of a friend he worked with knew where a couple of them were. One was a model T. According to owner "it needed a magneto". Yeah,you know where this is going...
We go with this guy to some place about 50 miles from here out in the sticks.
We pull up to this shack,complete with barefoot kids and dawgs,and there in the front yard is the remnants of a touring car.I could tell it was a tourer because the back part was all that was left! No fenders,wheels,doors,top,etc.
The frame had sunken into the ground because it had been there so long. Yes,it did need a magneto because what was left of the engine had been stripped of everything except the block and head. "I'll take $200 for it"
Uh... Good luck,no thanks.

 

Jeez, a bad deal for sure. I recently shipped a OT car to California. I e-mailed a bunch of pics., talked to the guy on the phone for about 2 hrs. He wired me the money, in full. About a week later, a transporter showed up. I helped load the car (no engine). Called the buyer a few days later--car delivered as promised, no issues, happy buyer! Why is that so hard? If he hadn't liked the car i'd have felt like crap. I always do my best to tell about ANYTHING wrong with a car or part. Then nobody has any surprises.

 

My mantra....."NO PHOTOS....NO DEAL!" I get these guys from the UK saying, "We have all of the parts that you need." When I ask for a photo taken from a certain angle (to make sure he did not just download someone else's photo from the internet), I get, "So sorry, our camera is not working." That's when I delete the guy from my life.

 

How about getting good pictures and description, then drive 1800 miles to pick it up after telling the guy you are on the way and will be there before the deposit could be sent and arrived. Owner agrees to hold it then when you get there he sold it the day before, is this grounds for a shooting???

 

How about this thread is from 2007?

 

There are experts who check out cars for a fee. For several years I worked for as restoration shop that specialized in Rolls-Royce. Although not a full time job for him, the owner traveled to check out cars for people and accompanied them to auctions.

Opposite of the original poster, years ago I made a 600 mile round trip to look at a car listed in Hemmings. The guy told me on the phone it was rough. I had been looking for a '48/'49 Cadillac Sedanette for quite a while and hadn't been having any luck. Hoping for the best I got there and found the car was rough. Not un-saveable, but much rougher than I was looking for. Turned out the seller was a life-long mechanic near retirement, so he knew what rough was. No harm done and no one to blame but myself. It was a long shot. I took a chance and it didn't work out. It was a nice ride on secondary roads through Ohio. The car sold withing a day of my looking at it. After a lot of looking I eventually found the one I bought only a few miles from where I lived then.