I drove 7 hrs one way to trade one of my bikes for a car that was supposed to be a 8 out of a scale of 1 to 10 not a hamb freindly car 84 monte carlo ss.when i got there the car was lucky to be a damn 2.the guy told me on the phone when i asked him bout the interior he said the only thing wrong with the int is the driver seat on the corner started to come unstitched , the whole side of the seat is ripped, and the interior was faded like it sat out of the car and in the sun for 100 years. he said the body was great and the only thing is the driver rocker is starting to bubble a little,shit the rocker had holes in it from front to back and it had dents and paint faded all over it.the engine bay looked like someone poured sludge all over it,it was covered from the front to back wit sludge.The guy sent pics before hand and pics looked good but we all no pics on com lie and we had numerous phone calls he just flat out lied. I guess he thought i wasnt gonna look at the car so i politely said nope and left and made my long journey back home. anyone else had any run ins with fuckin idiots who lie like this
Some of those lying idiots are just idiots who don't know any better and others are liars who are idiots as well. Can't avoid 'em, they are part fo the car world and the rest of the world too. BUT they shouldn't be allowed to breed.
Most of the car guys I've dealt with, local and from a distance, have been honest. I think it's just a matter of the unusually bad experiences (like you just had) or the unusually good ones (where something is better than described or somebody does more than they promise to do) standing out in our minds simiply because it was unusual. We've all forgotten about all the deals we've had where things have been as we expected--a car or part was just as described, no better and no worse, or somebody did just what he said he would do, no more and no less. Those experiences, at least for me, have been too numerous to count.
Dude i have been there and back over the last 15 years. I would take trips 3-4 days to seach for cars that were SHIT. Owners are lyers. Now a days I bite the bullet and send someone usually a rod builder or reputable shop to see a car. I got burned once on my 55 Bird in September. check this story out. Car was advertised on Carsonline. Spoke with the owner a millionaire Nappa Wine maker. He sent me pics and they looked much better than expected so i was hooked. I didnt know the car was a frame off. The guy was the nicest guy on the phone it was like talking to my Dad. Price was right so I looked in Hemmings and found a jerkoff to look at it for me, he was a FAKE. Ever since i got the car he never appeared in Hemmings after i told him i was going to sue him over his screw up inspection. The car was decent but not what i expected and I bit the bullet and started over on the resto 50%. I am still ahead since i did most of the rework myself but i had intent to flip the car fast so i can pursue my hot rod project. Best part i mentioned he is a millionaire seller. Well he forged my checks for start then he kicked the car before it got on the carrier and it arrived with a damaged drivers door and fender. I went ape and he wouldnt answer my calls. I called his neighbor and he tried to help. I get a fax to my office that since i got the car at such a good price i should have enough money set asside to fix it. All I will say is what goes around comes around and I do feel it will come back to this old prick one day. What kills me is he was RICH. My take is honestly is almost impossible to find and when you do someone was looking at for you that day. And when it comes to looking ar cars always expect the worst since most owners dont know or havce the same standard as you do.
I've been there once so I know how it can feel to get your hopes up......since then I've been lucky to know or find a friend's friend or local club to go take a good look at the car for me as a 3rd party to give a honest opinion of how good or bad it is. It's saved me afew gas bills and disappointment in the past....lol.....good luck with your search......most of the time what your looking for ends up being right in your own backyard...lol........well sometimes.
Dozens. I've been lucky all mine have been fairly local. Years ago a guy I knew drove a thousand miles one way with a trailer to pick up a "show quality" '58 Impala only to get there and find out the pics had been touched up and the car was a total POS. He told the guy he was lucky he was so tired from the drive or he would have beat him into the ground right on the spot for being such a effin' liar.
I think a major issue is that "some people" are really of the impression that what they have is "perfect" or "Mint for its age" or thy will say 'Hey its x amount of years old ,,put a lil work into it and it'll be like new" if I had time or did'nt mind doing the work ,,I'd get that kinda car or part, lol
More times than not if I am going to go and look a car newer than 1975 the guy is a liar. Typically speaking if the car is older than 1969 people are pretty straight forward. You must really want a Monte Carlo...............
Man Ive been there thank god I didnt drive 7 hours, if I would have taken it our on the guy Craigslist is where I had my goofball.....add was for a 54 2 door 210 and I was looking for a builder so I asked for pictures and he said he needed 1000 out of it.....pictures where kinda blurry but looked good and I asked him if it was solid did it have dents and so on.....well i jumped in my car drove 45 minutes to find a car that had been burried up to the bottom of the door for god knows how long......had no glass, no hood, no engine, no front end, and I saw it and said good luck getting 1000 out of this....he asked how much I thought it was worth and I said $300 for paarts only....guy got pissy saying for $3000 it would be on the road and perfect...I laughed said good luck and headed home....you would die if you tried to put it back on the road
One mans gold is another mans shit. I drove 1.5 hours to check out a late model luxury car. Owner sent pictures, I talked to him on the phone. He sent a close-up of the left rear wheel well showing rust bubbles. Wll I figure he's being pretty up front. I go look at the car, cash in hand ready to deal. OMG. It's from back East. The back window is ready to fall in to the back seat. Rusted right through, all the way around. The picture of the rust bubble he sent me was the best part of the car. The left rear wheel well was GONE. Floor? GONE. Rockers, GONE. So I figured nobody got hurt, it was a nice day for a drive. Called him a useless piece of shit and a waste of skin and drove away. Lesson learned? Buyer beware.................
ive been trying to sell my bikes for a couple of months no luck so i figured i could trade them off and sell the car a lot faster than a bike im not a fan of montes but where i live at every corner you see a monte with candy paint and wagon wheels so i know i couls sell it faster and for more than my bike to fund my other projects but everything i asked the guy about he just flat out lied about
It works the other way too. Why can't buyers be honest about being lookers instead of buyers. A prime example--I was working at the shop one day, had a guy come in and say he was looking for a 56 Ford pickup. So, I told him I had one that was rough, rusted through the top corner, etc. I told him how much I would take for the pickup. He said he wanted to look at it. I took time to close the shop (when I should have been working) drive him out to where the pickup was, and showed it to him. He then told me he wouldn't give the price for a pickup with a rusted out top. So why did he waste my time and his????????? If I'm selling something, I usually run it down to worse than it really is. That way if someone comes to look at it, they won't be disappointed in what they see. Still kind of hard to deal with folks that want a primo, rust free, 30's to 50's vehicle for less than $1000.00 though. Larry T
Well, now you know how us Female Gear heads feel when the opposite sex talks to us like we were born last night!!!! Just saying...we get it alot
A buddy of mine worked a deal on a 35 Chevy about 4 hours away.The owner strategically photoed the car to avoid the warts and screwups on the thing. When we got there,a dude that looked like Billy Bob Thornton's character in that Sean Penn movie comes out and says,"I guess you'll be running that one thru Barrett Jackson?" Now that was funny,sad,but funny?
ive been there to larry.only i didnt have to leave the shop i just had to stop what i was doing and take time to uncover car show hm the parts and what i told him it needed the only for him to say well its to far gone for me after i already told him it needed quarters and floors and so on
I drove nearly 6 hours to get a 58 yoeman wagon out of redding, turned out to be a pos that was mis represented, diff motor and all. He had sent me pics of most of the car and left out and misled the bad stuff. The only satisfaction I got was he came up from bay area with the car on a trailer and was supposed to take a different one back with him. I guess he learned his lesson. I was really bummed but two days later I struck a deal on another wagon that popped un on craigslist 2 miles away. Turned out to be a steal and a very nice car. I was being looked upon that day. Joe
works both ways. I was trying to sell my 61 Dodge. described all the flaws as well as the good stuff. the potential buyer was from Ohio (I'm in California) so he sent his brother in law to have a look. took them 3 hours and 15 phone calls to get here from about an hour away.. then the guy offers me $1500.00 for a car I was asking $3500.00 for. car is exactly as described. if he felt a car like this was only worth $1500.00 why waste my time?
I have circumvented all this stuff. if the seller does not say "It's a complete rusty pile of crap", apparently, I won't buy it. Nice cars...pfft. I prefer a bloodletting. and "it is dented,rippled,and rusty beyond repair" seems to make my wallet vomit cash every time. even better is if it has a severe knock and the transmission is either in the trunk, or slips violently.oir it,too, somehow has a knock. mismatched wheels and tires get me all in a tizzy...and interior? what interior? I like it when I can see how long it has been sitting in the same place by counting the layers of rust and weeds...by peering through the floorboard.
it indeed does happen and seriously, I don't know what the sellers are thinking, like nobody is gonna notice it ain't as described? weird in my book. I do know some cats that would have beat his kidneys till he peed red for driving 7 hours and no deal.
I saw one of the few non HAMB friendly cars that I would actually borrow money to buy listed in a local little nickle add last week. Called my banker to make sure I could get my hands on the cash and then drove 70 miles to find out that the car was a different and less desireable model that had a nasty ragged out interior and hadn't been run or driven in ten years. No sale on that one but my dog and I had a nice road trip that made him happy.
The guy i bought my truck from was a real sleezbag: http://orphanyears.blogspot.com/2008/10/in-beginning.html
I think the bad sellers figure that if you drove that far or even called about thier POS, you'd find something to love about it and buy it.
I went to check out a supposedly running hemi one night after work about an hours+ drive out. Said "oh yeah it should run..." Got out there, and the valve rockers were on upside down, crank was next to the engine, rods and pistons in a bucket... Thing was a pile of shit. Guy had all kinds of other stuff though I could have bought, probably why he tricked me out there. TP
LUX BLUE, have I got a deal for you... We've all been there at one point or another. I got screwed real hard on an ebay deal. I swear the car that showed up on the transport was not the same one in the pictures. But the seller was in NJ and I'm in IL and I didn't have anyone look at the car for me. And, I didn't have anyone to blame but myself on this one. When I'm selling I'm overtly honest about the condition of the car and I'll take as many pictures as the buyer would like. I lay it all on the line in the description too. But generally speaking every car I've sold up to now was a POS to start with.
It's happened to me twice on Egay, first was a mint elcamino in huntington beach that had "no rust". I bought it and paid the guy $100. a month to store it for me 6-7 months. Drove down I-5, from canada, and picked it up, sure looked nice. When I got home my body guy showed up and started showing me where all the rust was. So far he has replaced the roof skin, the firewall, and the dash. Next is the floors. The next one was another El camino but this time it was only in Bremerton, Same deal no rust except where the holes were. This time I didn't spend any money and walked away...
I had a experience something like this.. I was at the Portland swap meet 1 year.. and noticed a Willys aero eagle off in the distance.. went up to the car , and it was not to bad.. and the price was right.. got the phone number , came back up to calgary.. a few months later , I phone the guy to ask if he still had the car.. and yes he did.. I asked if the title matched the serial number, and yes it did over the phone.. I flew all the way down there to portland, I cab it from the airport to his house to find out the title did not belong to the car.. needless to say.. he was not bothered by the fact of what he had stated prior. Some people just dont care.. .
"The worse things become the worse people will become " pinman 39 2009 You must take control of the transaction or people run over the top of you. Once sold a 47 chevy to a guy for next to nuthin ,cut him a hell of a deal we loaded on his trailer and had him bring it around the block to my house to do the paperwork and pay and the Bastard gives me 50 less and has the balls to say he will unload it in my front yard if I don't take his offer ! Fucker .Beleive me that was the biggest mistake he ever made I have let my Pepes know and we have cost him dearly and he has no clue .
That's exactly what I was thinking! I think why sellers are not honest is because they just want you get out there and HOPE maybe since you drove "all the way out there" you might just buy it anyway..
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