In the early thru mid 60's to earn play money I worked after school, weekends and summer vacations at my dads used car lot. One mid summer afternoon a customer wanders into the lot and pokes his head in almost 20 different cars. He's looking at the dashboards, opening the hoods, doing everything but kicking the tires. Me? I'm just going around with some towels and polish, cleaning the outsides, while my younger brother is following me with a vacuum cleaner. Doug and I knew nothing about selling used cars or really anything about the business. He and I just loved cars and needed spending cash. The guy comes to me after about half an hour of browsing and asks why so many cars had Rhode Island and New York stickers on the windshields (We were a Massachusetts dealer). I told him we bought a lot of cars from dealers in those states and that those dealers handled very nice clean low mileage cars which we purchased. Then the guy asks me why every car on the lot only had 26,000 to maybe 27,000 miles. I'm naive and new to this car lot game so I reply to him that I guess that's the time that people probably tire of a car and want to get a newer model. I walk around after he leaves to check out this mileage question and sure enough, nothing on our lot reads over 27,000 miles. As I was to learn as I grew older and got firmly entrenched in the car business, both Rhode Island and New York (mainly the Bronx section) housed thousands of wholesale automobile dealerships and they also featured an odometer recalibration service in those days to further streamline the used car reconditioning system. In the middle 80's federal laws got very tough on those characters that did this recalibration service plus now we have Car Fax, Auto Check , and titles on vehicles that keep track of mileage from birth to death of all automobiles. The changes I've witnessed have really cleaned up our business in the past couple of decades. Now a person can hit a few keys on the computer and check for salvage history, inconsistent odometer readings all those ugly issues that formerly were unknown to most people. I can recall back in my early day working on the family car lot no one really paid attention to odometer readings. Most all the cars we saw come or go always were low mileage, nothing ever read over 50,000 miles. If the car reached 50K, mileage got altered as easily as an oil change was done. Most buyers never even looked at the odometer when buying a car. Why bother, they always showed low readings back in those days. I'm thankful those days are gone. It was a very dishonest period and we've all benefited by changes to the laws.
A lot of customers were as equally guilty of odometer fraud as were the dealers themselves. I recall the time I rented a late model Pontiac Grand Lemans in the early or mid 80's and noticed the speedometer and odometer were both inop. I looked under the dashboard and discovered some prior rental customer had locked a pair of vice grips onto the speedo cable to stop it from reading. In those days Hertz, Avis, Budget, National and other charged for mileage traveled. We witnessed many customers coming to the door with a trade in and odometer numbers had pick marks on them, cracked speedo lenses, crooked numbers, all the bogus stuff, but NOBODY CARED in those earlier times. It was an assumed but never discussed practice.
We advertise heavily in one of those free mags you seen in the convenience stores, parts stores, grocery stores, etc. As a result, we get TONS of calls. Many ask us if we offer buy here/pay here financing on our vehicles. We sell only "old" vehicles. Nothing newer than twenty five years old. Another question: "how much do you need down?" We also get many calls from guys looking to either sell or trade their POS. We ask for an opportunity to appraise and that usually starts with photos emailed. Usually we never hear from them again, or we get terrible photos from a cell. phone. They should do their fishing at the river. Guess that is just part of the business, but it always amazes me how the dealer gets the bad rap, yet so many customers mis-represent and down-right lie about their cars.
Didn't happen to me but the Ford dealer next door to our Lincoln/Mercury store got hit one night in the spring of 1962. He had a brand new double chestnut colored '62 Galaxy 406, 4 speed box-top XL parked at the extreme end of his lot directly next to our show- room. That 406 XL was the talk of the town and even I lusted for the car but I was too young, too poor, and probably doomed to drive only a Mercury for family honor so to speak. We came in to work one Saturday morning and the cops were all over our lot and the Ford dealers front line. There sat the box-top, hood up, cutting torch marks all over the frame and radiator support and NO 406 ENGINE or GEAR BOX. There was a long trail of coolant and assorted small parts for about a half mile down the road. Cops followed the wet trail to a small garage attached to a near by resident's home and found the gang of thieves with the evidence going into another car. Same guys were also convicted of pulling a 413 from a new Dodge at an out of town store with their big old heavy duty type tow truck and an arsenal of cutting torches. Both the Dodge and Ford were totaled due to heavily damaged frames and engine cradles. The tow truck robbers all got time in Concord Reformatory
in the late 70s i worked for a car whole saler that also had a lot. he had picked up a VW at a new car dealer for $150.00,the body was cherry but this thing looked like it was on fire when it was running. he tells the lot mechanic to drain the oil and clean the filter screen, then says he will be right back. he returns with 6 qts of peanut oil and fills the crank case ,throws the extra qts in the back seat,he tells the mechanic to let it run awhile .pretty soon its not smoking any longer.he checks the oil adds another qt. then has a driver take the VW to the public auction.he tells the driver to be sure and keep checking the oil,and add some as needed. the peanut didnt cure the oil burning it just burns invisable. the wholesaler ended up getting 1200.00 at auction. i have not trusted a car dealer since!
In the Boston area Washington's Birthday weekend is always been a big selling weekend for us car dealers. We usually sell more cars that weekend than we sell in a normal month. Our employees have to run at full tilt, keep their wits about them and deal with a huge number of customers those chaotic 3 days. About ten years ago I was appraising trade ins that weekend when I got paged to appraise a family's '85 Mercury Marquis. I go out front, unlock the door to a dark blue '85 Grand Marquis pull it into gear and drive it out back to see how it sounds. I'm idling thru the back yard when this pissed off person run up behind me screaming "Why are you driving my car?" "To appraise it's value for you sir." I responded He glared back at me , told me he hadn't event picked a new car yet ,swore at me a few times and accused me of unethical practices. Then he dangled his keys in my face and told me to park his car immediately. Some thing's bad here I'm thinking. Back in the showroom I relayed my story and was told I was supposed to test drive a dark blue "BABY" Marquis. Funny thing was, the keys I was handed worked perfectly in both Mercury's. Didn't sell 'Mr. Pissed Off' a car that day. Stupid stuff happens in the heat of battle!
Another one of my tales if you can stand it. This time the shoe was on the other foot for me. I was driving an O.T. '64 XKE I had bought from a local new car dealer and spent the winter months giving it a cosmetic re -do. It came out nice but mechanically it was still somewhat challenged ,so my girl friend ( now my wife of 40 years) and I drove to Medford Chrysler/Plymouth to check out the new Road Runners and GTX's. I had a real woodie for one of those 440 Torqueflite cars. She and I are in the showroom with both our heads stuck in the 2 rolled down side windows of a new yellow GTX hardtop. We're both dressed in our 60's style tight jeans, cha cha boots ( remember them?) driving a money car, fucking hippie looking, typical salesman bait. A jolly older fat salesperson spies us across the floor and waddles up to our back sides. "Can I help you fellows?" "Fellows!!" my girl screams The poor guy couldnt tell the difference from the back side. She grabbed my hand and jerked me out of there. Didnt buy no new MoPar that day but months later I landed a killer deal on a heavily breathed upon 1 year old Coronet R/T from the big Cadillac Dealer on Commonwealth Ave in Boston. That's a good story for another day, my typing fingers are getting tired.
I sent 30 years in the car bidness, so I've got a few stories...... I was the sales manager for a large Porsche dealer in SoCal and one evening one of my salesmen said he'd just had a call on a used 928. Customer showed up as promised, gave us what looked like a valid drivers license and insurance card and after he and the salesman had gone around the block he asked if he could take his wife for a short drive too. We agreed.............and never saw them again. The new fully loaded GMC truck they drove up in was stolen from another dealer. 3 months later the car turned up in the airport parking lot in Phoenix, where it had been since that night. I guess he just needed a lift to the airport - in Phoenix! Another time, it was a nice warm Sunday afternoon, a man and his wife came in to look at a 944 turbo, and he and the saleman left for a test drive. An hour later she was pissed, as they hadn't returned. An hour after that I was getting ready to call the police when the flat back tow truck pulled it - the car had left the road at a little over 100 mph and was totalled. No one was hurt. His insurance paid it off as he was driving...... Late one evening just before were we to close, a guy comes in with a gorgeous girl, both dressed to the nines - she was driving her BMW, he was riding. He squired her around the showroom telling her to just pick the one she liked, while he pulls the salesman aside and asks him to take her for a test drive in anything she wants. She's creaming her jeans in the front seat of a 911 Turbo and after 15 min they leave, he tells her he'll be back the next day to buy that car for her. Of course, we never see him again.....till a few months later, same scenario and a different girl! We're wise to him now so we just play it cool and let him do his little ploy with her, after 15 min or so they leave with him promising her loudly that he'll be back the next day to buy the car for her. We don't see him again for a couple of years, this time the girl with him is not quite so hot, driving a Honda Civic, wearing jeans shorts and a T-Shirt, and he's gained about 50 lbs and time has not been kind to him either. This time he has her sitting in an Audi 4000 instead of a 911 Turbo (matching the customer to the car?) and I agree to take her for a test drive, during which I explain exactly what this guy is up to. She gets very angry - probably with herself for being duped by this jerk as much as anything - and when we get back to the dealer she jumps in her car and lites out of there - leaving him! He doesn't see this happen and after a while he starts asking anyone who will talk to him where the girl in the Honda was. Finally someone says, "Oh, she left a while ago, looked pissed too!" and the last I saw him he was trying to hitch a ride on the road in front of the store.....it was a good scam for him while it lasted, I expect he was using it in all the high end dealers all over town. One last one. A young cutie had bought a new Fiat 124 Spyder from us, and the paint was just dull, even after we buffed it repeatedly, so I arranged for her to come in and see the factory service rep so we could get authorization to repaint her car. That day was warm and sunny and she drove in with the top down, wearing short shorts and a low cut spaghetti strap top. She was standing on the passenger side of her car when he asked for her warranty book, as she bent over to get it out of the glovebox, she gave him an eyefull of her copious assets, and she got her new paint job approved on the spot!
Some great stories. Keep 'em coming. I was trying to sell an OT (modified) Chevette to a local speed shop/workshop owner. He wanted to dyno test it as his shop. I took it out there and he ran it on the dyno OK. Reversing out of the workshop he backed my car into an HQ Holden race car that was parked out back. Broken taillight, big dent. Thankfully he bought the caar from me. No discount for the damage.
I worked for a local garage back in the 70's when I was a teenager. Had a underhanded used car dealer across the street. He had a horrible reputation, but people kept buying from him. Many of his cars he would bring over to us when he sold them to get them NY State inspected as we had an inspection license and he didn't. My boss always said if I was doing an inspection for that dealer, do a good one as there was always something wrong. He brought over a 60's Mopar one time and while inspecting it I found out the cross member near the torsion bars was rotted out. Sent it back to him and told him to weld that up and bring it back. Car was back the next day and it looked good, too good. took a hammer and gave the cross member a whack and knocked out a huge chunk of bondo. Instead of welding it properly (and he was a good welder), he just filled it with bondo and painted undercoating over it. Same dealer brought over a mustang one time with the front wheel leaning in. The upper control arm bolts you loosen for alignment were shot and needed to be replaced. Boss sent that back to him, and it came back in a few hours, welded in place instead of fixing it right........... Finally the boss told him to take his junk elsewhere. He was sick of arguing with the guy all the time. Every time you told him to fix something, he would cry he wasn't making money on the deal as it was, just trying to help the buyer out........yeah right! That guy would rather make a single dollar dishonestly, than make a thousand dollars honestly, just the way he was wired. Took many years, but he finally got nailed and spent time in jail. As soon as he got out on good behavior, he broke probation and ended up back in jail to finish his original sentance. He sold degreased motors as re-builts, did bait and switch, wrecked a customers car, and said someone must have borrowed it. I could go on for hours on the things he pulled...........
You probably did the right thing, the big head outthunk the little head. I worked in one big shop where we had some great mechanics. One guy we called the silver fox, he was over 50, still had all his hair and the ladies liked him, even though he was marrried, and he didn't play around. This lady customer took a shine to him, she wanted him to do everything on his car, which wasn't that unusual. She hung around, flirted with him as he showed her what he was doing. Once she was there for a couple of days in a row for a tune up, AC charge, alignment, etc. On day 2, she shows up in shorts, heels and a halter top. She was maybe 45 at the time, not bad looking, nice legs. On that fateful day 2, she went to get something out of her hatchback. Its break time and of course everyone is drinking coffee and scoping her out. She opens the hatchback, leaves the keys in the lock, lifts the hatch and the keys catch her halter top. The top came almost totally off and anyone within a 50' radius got a great anatomy lesson. Her halter was around her head, no bra. It was quite a sight. She got it untangled, retreated to the ladies room and fixed herself up. After that, she hung out in the waiting area and I never saw her in for service again after that episode. Bob
I worked at a Chevy dealer in the late 80s. We dealer traded for a new Corvette. The guy from the other dealer pulls it into the lot going 30 mph or so, morning sun gets in his eyes and runs straight into a light pole with a huge concrete base. Totaled the car, so naturally we didn't take it. There are many more stories from those days.
Watched a service writer walk out to the lot with a bunch of rags in his hands. Seems he had to clean out a console that some drunken salesman $hit in the night before.
Another groundhog story. Our trans guy a few years ago was pulling a trans on some front wheel drive car. Says he thought someone was staring at him. He looks up at where the steering rack bolts to the body and sees a huge groundhog wedged behind it. When we loosened the rack & the poor guy just takes off out the back door none worse the wear.
Years ago in the 70s an older lady comes in with a car that had a gear shift problem. She gets out, thinking it was in park, and it takes off with the choke on fast idle. It takes out the back door (now laying over the hood) across the alley where the body shop is,takes out that door (now has 2 doors over the hood) and finally comes to rest in the middle of the body shop office. How nobody got hurt was a miracle. I wish I had a nickle for every welding tank that shot across the shop like a torpedo.
i worked at another Chevy dealership where we had a multi-car pileup in the back lot. A good sized dealership in metro Detroit. Porter driving a '77 L-82 4 speed Vette (new car manager's personal ride) in second gear, witnesses saying he was accelerating at the time. Another porter pulling out from a blind corner, brand new '77 Monte Carlo, delivered the previous day with 40 miles on it. Porter 1 hits porter 2 in the right front, spins the Monte into three new on the lot vehicles, a Vega, a K5 Blazer and a Malibu. Knocks the front end off the Vette, bends every piece of metal on the Monte except the roof, fenders, bumpers, grilles on the other three. The Monte was totaled, they had to dealer trade for an identical one for the unlucky owner, Vette took a front clip rebuild. Porter 1 was looking for a new career that afternoon.
I just remembered this one. Our dealership owner was a short man, but very slim and always neat and very well dressed. Keep that in mind. One morning I come into work and as I get out of my truck I notice the whole dealership smells like shit! I walk into the showroom and the GM grabs me and says you gotta come with me and see this. As we walk toward the back lot, the smell gets stronger and stronger. When we round the corner into the body shop back lot, I spot the new GMC Envoy which appeared to be the owners demo with the whole front end caved in. I notice some brown 'crap' splattered all over the front and drivers side of the SUV, and the drivers window was down. The smell was almost overwhelming at this point. It seems that the owner of the dealership was driving along the night before in the fog with his window down and hit a cow. The angle was just right that it slung the cow around and the ass of the cow ended up close to the window. The crash caused the cow to shit all over the SUV and into the car, and all over this neat and clean person! Of course we never said anything to him, but his daughter said it was a hilarious sight!
I worked as a lot boy for the local Ford dealer in the mid seventies. I was driving my first car into the showroom. There was VERY little room to spare on each side of the car so I was very nervous while the entire sales staff looked on. As the car was about 3/4 of the way into the showroom I heard a very loud thump. As I whirled my head around to see what I had hit I realized that one of the salesmen had kicked the back bumper for all he was worth to cause the thump.The sales staff thought it was way funnier than I did!
Ok that last one was good!!!!!. Here goes another i was working at a chevy dealer and i just finished a brake job so i go out for a roadtest to make sure its all ok. As i am driving i cut this huge guy off. I did not even see him. So i did not cut him off on purpose. So we stop at the light and the guys rolls the window down and he spits a huge hocker at the car i am roadtesting so what do i do. I laugh my ass off!!!! I am laughing so hard that this pisses the guy even more and he gets out of his car and he kicks the car iam roadtesting. I laugh even harder to the piont of tears in my eyes. He screams at me and says what the fuck is so funny!!! Asshole!!!! I collect my composure and tell him this is not my car!!!! The light turns green so i drive off never saw the guy again he must of maid a turn or just dicided i was nuts!!!. Knuck from indiana.
I traveled dealer to dealer training the parts/serv personnell for a few years. Plenty of stories... I was at a Chevy dealer in the late 90s... first thing in the morning on a Monday - all the dealership folks are out at the transporter, holding their noses. A suburban was on it and it smelled so bad, flies would leave a pile of shit to head out to it. It was Hencho En Mexico (vin starts with a 3...). Some poor bastard broke into it while it was still in Mexico in an effort to get over the border. Good plan, except that the rail car sat for two weeks somewhere on the way. He couldnt get out, and died in the damn thing. Nearly liquified. Over the next two weeks, they replaced everything inside it that wasnt metallic, couldn't get the smell out. GM finally took it back and got them another one. It was so bad, I'm almost retching just from memory.....
How about a Chevy Vega built at the height of the Lordstown troubles, management vs. workers as a tag car for a GM exec's kid? That was a REAL jewel. Electrical gremlins, rattles due to debris being "accidently" left during production, and the car being ordered and VIN coded as a two barrel but built with a one barrel carburetor.
I changed jobs once and almost made that the shortest time of employment at a dealership. On my third day, I was on front counter duty. A customer came in, irate because nobody had been keeping him abreast of the situation with a backorder. I was trying to be diplomatic, but he was hot and not listening to what I said. The gentleman told me that I was lying to him and lied to him a week before when he was in. I then politely told him that I was new there, and I had never spoken to him before, and definitely not the previous week as I had just started on Monday. And while I did not know what happened previously, I would try to get an answer from GM. He next exclaimed loudly that I was a lying SOB. And at this point I lost it. About the same time I yelled that nobody called me a SOB and started to leap over the counter, unknown to me the parts manager heard what was going on and stood at the corner of the counter, hidden by the false wall. He reached around, grabbed my belt and dragged me back over the counter and to his office. All the time I'm yelling that nobody calls me a SOB and gets away with it. The other counter men were laughing, they later told me that the guy turned white and ran out the door. It was subtly explained that at that particular dealership this was not the way to handle problems, we had to do it a little more politely. And this was my free one. I left there six and a half years later on my terms for another job. And I had elevated to a management position. So I must have mellowed out a bit. Or they had more of a sense of humor.......
I was a service advisor at a Chevy dealer and a guy came in with a late model Suburban, asked to have the fuel filter changed...$59.00 job...It was lifted on a twin post hoist and one of the front ears broke off. Fell on a top of a brand new pickup in the stall next to it...
Worked at a Ford dealership in the 70's. Being young, I had to deal with several ball busters having sport with the new kid. Sometimes payback is a bitch. Guy working the bay next to me was always on my case. For payback when he was doing a rear drum brake job on a car, while he was putting the hubcaps back on, I took an old brake spring and left it on his bench with his brake tools. He spotted it after he took the car out of the shop and then had to bring it back in as he thought he left off a spring. He raised it back up and pulled both wheels off again and was scratching his head trying to figure out where the extra spring was from. One of the other guys spotted me doing it and was in tears he was laughing so hard. Seems the new kid is the only one who ever "got" the ball buster of the shop. I was told when working "flat rate" you shouldn't mess with people's time. Rest of my days there, no-one else bothered me............
Same Ford deallership. New Mustang owner brought back his car complaining about a whistling noise from the T-Top while driving. One of the techs took the car out and came back without the T-top! Guess it wasn't latched properly.......... Car sat inside taking up a bay of the dealership for a month waiting for a replacement. Car owner was livid as all they would give him for a loaner was a Fairmont.
My friend Leon and I are in our last few days of college in the spring of 1968. We wander into the big Caddy dealership on Commonwealth Ave ,Boston and walk into the wholesale annex where all the dealers buy swap and sell all day long. I know some of these wholesalers because my dad is a used car dealer and I've seen many of them at the auction when pop takes me with him. Leon wants to by my Corvette I'm driving and I want a bigger car to do some highway traveling this summer. Leon and I spot an immaculate Turbine Bronze 1 year old '67 Coronet R/T hardtop just pulling in the back door. This car is clean! It's got a white bucket seat interior, skinny little 7.75x14 white walls all around, poverty caps, column shift Tourqflite 727 automatic, the right copper color and less that 9,000 miles reading on it. This thing's got eyeballs. I immediately close in on the deal at $3100. I think I'm stealing this car from the Caddy dealer. After I take Leon's cash for my car and write them a check for the balance I'm in a state of euphoria until ............................................a friend of my father's walks over after watching this deal go down and drops the "news flash" on me. His name was Louie Baker a wholesaler from Rhode Island who my dad did a lot of business with. Louie tells me he likes both me and my dad and he doesst want to see me get hurt with this car then proceeds to tell me the rest of his story. He told me he bought the car wholesale from the Cadillac dealer the day before but was returning it because the thing was stuck in 2nd gear. He didn't want to hassle with it so the Caddy dealer told him to return the car and he'd give him his money back. Leon and I huddled for a minute, we figured the car still had factory warranty left on it so I didn't give a fuck. I'd keep this cherry and have Chrysler warranty it later when I got it home. Mind you now, I never lifted the hood on this car, never turned the key, I just bought on impulse. Dealers call it buying with your dick instead of buying with you brain. We put a plate on the R/T and off I go. Wow I'm thinking this engine is ticky and strong. I do several starts and full stops and count the shifts. All the gears and their shifts are there and this freight train pulls like Jack The Bear. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this transmission! I pull off Storrow Drive in Cambridge on the way home and lift the hood to see what I bought. SHOCK!!!!!!!!! I'm gawking at a very built 440 wedge, dual AFB's on a Weiand, lumpy cam, solid lifters. I'm really grooving now. A couple of days go by and I find the Chrysler Certicard with the prior owners name and address on it. I dial him up, we talk and he invites me over for the rest of the story. He tells me after he bought it new the prior year he drove it 1500 miles then shipped it back to Michigan to have a Chrysler skunkworks shop build it up. He lifted out from under the spare tire all the paper work involved with the build plus 2 oily paper bags holding extra gearsets for it. The car had 5.13's in it currently plus in the bags were a set of 4.88's and a set of 3.55,s. He also had more stuff in the basement he handed off to me. This was my deal of a life time. The downside was I didn't get much commuting or normal driving time in with this animal. It was a 4-6 mpg car on the highway and a quart of oil every couple of days or so. For a quick blast 1/4 mile at a time though it was the best $3100 I ever handed over to a dealer.
In the late 60's my family's used car lot bought and sold a lot of pony cars and muscle cars. One in particular I clearly remember was a beautiful maroon '68 'Cuda Formula S. It was an automatic, p.steering, tinted windows and a beautiful white interior. The car was a 1 or 2 year old and had been traded in toward some kind of a Volvo. Anyhow my best friend calls me on the phone one very rainy morning and wants to bring his sister and their dad over to test drive and possibly buy it. I hang up and immediately go out to the front line, pull it into the garage and proceed to give it a spiffing up before they arrive. I notice the driver's bucket seat has some fading on the white vinyl so in my infinite wisdom I grab a bottle of white liquid shoe polish of the shelf and dress the cushion and the seat back with the stuff. It dries quickly, and if I say so myself, looks really good. A professional dye job wouldn't have looked any better. One hour later the three of them arrive, they run it around town for a bit, they all love it so we all move back into the office, out of the rain to write the deal up. The girl, Patricia is the first to walk into the office and as I look up she turns around. Her dad and brother are pointing at the back side of her brand new dark green raincoat. She's sporting a very white skunk stripe down the entire length of the once green raincoat. I handed her a check for her coat as her dad wrote a check out for her new Formula S. We are still all very close friends some 40 years later and they still buy all their cars from me.
Just this week a very nice middle aged woman came into our dealership and made a deal on Wednesday night. Purchased a new Camry 4 door and traded in her 3 year old Solara coupe. Her Solara is very clean, had new Aqua Tread style tires on it (a very aggressive single rotation type tread design). I stepped up to the plate and put big money in her car because it was so well maintained. 2 nights later we deliver the new one to her. It's late when I go home, my old demo is grounded, so I throw my dealer plate on her old Solara and away I go. I'm too tired to pay much attention to it but the road noise seems excessive driving home. Next day I'm up and down the turnpike 2 times and this morning I'm out the door at 6:00 AM to head back up the turnpike to attend the auction. I'm more alert this morning and hear what sounds like a flat spot or maybe a cupping noise in the tires. Arriving at the auction I hop out and study the tires. The Aqua Treads are gone and the original 45,000 OE types are shinning their bald faces at me. This "nice" woman robbed back her own tires. The car even displayed the fresh scuff marks on the tires and rims from some ham fist-ed tire jockey. I've lost count of how many cars I've appraised over the years that come into our dealership with radios swapped out navigation systems pulled, speakers pulled, tires switched and new damage that wasn't there on the original appraisal. Many years ago I even had a kid pull his fuelie heads and dual quad hi rise off his Malibu after I agreed upon a figure with him. I caught him on that one upon new car delivery and refused to trade his car until he made it appraisal correct again. Customers, in many cases, are more shady and crafty than any dealer ever was. How would you feel if you were picking up a new car from my dealership and discovered that I've put a cheapie radio in it or maybe switched out the tires before you come to pick it up? Not too pleased I'll bet. I had a Jeep 2 weeks ago I traded that the engine sounding a little grouchy when I took it home that night. Next morning I had one of our techs do an oil and filter change on it then I drove it again the next night to my home about 45 minutes away. I pulled onto the highway and realized right away I'd been outsmarted by another shrewd consumer. That Jeep sounded like a bad diesel. The guy must have stuffed it with "Motor Honey" to get it by my not too sharp appraiser. The kid appraising it has very little experience and got us caught with this one. And some people think the dealers are bad?????? Monday afternoon a customer backs his Honda Accord up against the building far away from the door and comes inside to do the paper work for his new car. I happen to stroll by his car in the course of other things and notice the $5,000 worth of fresh damage done on the far side of it. He wasn't going to offer that information to us while paying for his new car I find out. He got crashed in a parking lot the night before he was going to pick up the new van we ordered for him. Politely threw him out! Look in the mirror folks, some of you are pretty ruthless! We're not bad people, we're just trying to hack out a living and most of us really enjoy the car business. It just goes smoother when everybody plays with fair rules.
Didn't happen at the dealership but it's kind of related. I'm at a small auto action one day. They ran only 5 lanes , it's near the end of the sale, I'm sold out so I'm standing there watching the remaining action, just goofin'. In thru the door rolls a very tired '97 or maybe a '98 gray colored Camry. It's got a knock in the engine you could hear from 3 lanes away. One real LOUD tap! A guy who's looking interested in this pile jogs over too it, reaches inside to pop the hood and lifts it up. The driver is pretty mad at him because the auction doesn't allow hoods to be opened once inside the bidding arena. A safety thing. Mr. 'Smart guy' has his head under the hood and he's goosing the heck out of this poor engine. Yeah, yeah we know it's got a bad engine buddy, we can all hear it too from a block away. I guess he want's to scare off other potential bidders with this deafening clatter it's making. I turn away in disgust of this fool and start walking when I hear a tremendous CRACK noise, I turn and see the guy, with his knees buckling drop to the floor holding his forehead with both hands. WTF just happened I'm wondering? I walk back over to the poor fool and the toe of my shoe kicks a rod cap across the floor. This dummy has an egg on his forehead the size of a baby's fist, hardly any blood though. Yep, the lower end launched right into his head. That's why auctions don't allow open hood in their lanes.........safety. He walked around in a semi stupor for the rest of the day with a huge turban like bandage on to hold his small brain in for the rest of the auction. Looked pretty lame.
The Jalopy Journal
