What past stories can you share on selling a used vehicle

[Tony T.]

I had several years ago a 85 model Toyota 4x4 pick-up for sale, had it advertised in the Truck Trader and was wanting $4500. 00 for it. I had several calls on it until I get this one dude that calls and starts asking questions about the truck (which is fine of course). I was up front with him and told him the 4wd works, but there is a popping noise in lo-lock. The truck is as is no warranty. So he says what is the least you will take, and I replied $4500. 00 was it. He said I want to come look at it, and I replied fine come on. Now when he gets here to my house this guy strikes me kinda strange, not funny boy strange, I guess you'd had to been there. Anyway he wants to drive it and I say ok lets go. He says hows the 4wd work ok, I said man I told you on the phone it works, but has a popping noise in lo-lock. He says can we try it out, and I say sure just take real easy. He slips it in lo-lock, and puts the pedal to the floor trying to tear it up, me jumping all over his arse telling to him to stop the truck. I'm saying why did you do that, Well I wanted to see what popping noise your talking about. I told him lets go back to my house then. When we get there I'm all p o at him and he says could I please have a glass of ice water I really like the truck. I say ok and when I come back he has this notebook out with a line in the center with pro's and con's written down. He's standing there crunching ice and mumbling figures. Then he rights a figure down on a piece of paper and hands it to me. It says $2700. 00 on it and he replys this is all this particular vehicle is worth. I said it's worth $4500. 00 to me no thanks. He replied you will be calling me to come back to purchase this truck. I said I don't think so if your through looking I have other things to do.



Next day two more people come out to look at the truck, one a family looking for their son and another guy that pretty much bought it over the phone for $4500. 00. The kid did call back the day after the other man bought it and wanted to come back out to see it, I said it's gone all ready sold. The kid replied "oh no," "well thank you".



Just wondering if anyone else had some hum dinger story selling a used vehicle to share.



Tony

 

[Bill Lins]

Some years back I had a '76 Jeep J-10 truck for sale. A guy & his "GM Certified Mechanic" son test-drove it & claimed that all sorts of stuff was wrong with it. I had not driven the truck for some time and, for all I knew, it may have had some problems, so I told them that I would have MY mechanic check it out. Ten minutes after they left, another guy came by, drove it, & gave me my price, in cash! That afternoon, the "mechanic's" dad called and asked my if I had gotten the truck fixed. I told him that, as far as I was concerned, it was fixed- another "mechanic" bought it!

 

[MMeier]

Just gotta love some of these jokers at times!! Not that I haven't done it before !

 

[TPCDrafting]

I've got a 99% restored '74 super beetle I can't get anyone to look at!

 

[BKenny]

TPCdrafting ,check out a web site called the samba its all VWs . I have a 63 they have a classified section and all kinds off stuff . It the TDR of old VWs

 

[TPCDrafting]

I've got it there and had it on VWVortex as well. Gonna try ebay next, but I'm skeered

 

[mgoncalves]

Tim,

Park it in Ft. Collins, there's plenty of vw nuts there.

 

[crobertson1]

I had a '57 Chevy 2dr 210 with a 350 and 4 spd, black. Pretty decent shape, rusty floorboards though. I put a sign in it that said "For Sale-$6,000 FIRM". I parked it on a frontage road and got a call, the guy wanted to come see it. On the phone he was telling me that according to such and such magazine it was worth $3,000. Whatever, I thought. My sign said "FIRM". He came out and looked and wanted it and would pay $3,000. I said not interested. I felt like saying "can you read?".



I ended up trading it for a '73 Harley Davidson FLH. I ended up putting too much money into that thing, but it was sweet when it was done. Then I decided to get rid of that and got a call from a guy who wanted to trade his "show" '72 Chevy Blazer for it. I was intriqued and had him send pictures. It was in fact in show condition in the pictures. I did a little research, and found out how popular those Blazers are with the removable hard tops, and how much it might be worth. But I still wasn't sold. He offered to completely disassemble his woodworking shop and bring all those power tools, his bench and everything else too. So, I thought, I could sell that stuff and come out ahead. Oh and he lived about 2 hours away too. So, we agree to terms and set up the deal. He gets to my house with the Blazer and a friend towing a trailer with all his tools and starts unloading and getting ready to fire up the bike and hit the road. I said "hold on a minute, let me check out the Blazer". Those pictures must have been taken years ago! This thing was a rust bucket and a P. O. J. ! So, I was in a sort of stressful situation! I had to tell him I wasn't interested. That poor guy. I really felt bad, but he totally mis-represented the condition. Lesson learned. Cash only from now on. I was afraid he was going to go postal, but I was "with friend" in the form of 9mm. That wasn't fun.

 

[ekroman]

The most bizarre thing happened when I sold my 64 Beetle. I get this call, it sounds like a kid. Sure enough, his mother drives him over, and we all go for a ride, me driving. They like the car, and his uncle comes over and drives it, gives it the thumbs up. Kid pays me 3000 in cash, he's only 14 years old, and I had to drive it home for him. It went to a good home.



My 1985 Dodge Ram was a sad story. It had 210,000 miles on it, new motor, and I sold it to a guy at work. At first, he was just kind of "ho-hum", didn't seem to express any emotion. A month later, I asked him how the old truck was doing, and he spent a half hour telling me how perfect it was, and how much he loved it, and how it was exactly what he needed. His girlfriend totalled it two months later. He was so depressed, and so was I. His next truck was a stick, since his girlfriend can't drive a stick. :-laf

 

[TPCDrafting]

Thanks Matt, I may do that. Where's a good spot? Or is there a thrifty nickle down that way with a web site?



Fess up Craig the blazer just wasn't "clean" enough for ya was it? :-laf



It's frustrating as I sold my HS/College car a '68 bug in one day. Parked it at a grocery store parking lot and some lady wanted it for her son. Went down and made the deal, they didn't even want a test drive. I talked the kid into driving it. It was funny, he was about 6'-3" tall and musta had size 14 shoes. He had trouble with them skinny little close together pedals. I took the money and ran!

 

[tractorface]

There was this one time.....

I am not very proud of this but it was a long time ago. I used to own a 1960 something IH Scout with a 348 (I think). Anyway, I got tired of messing with the POS so I decided to sell it cheap. Some guy was coming over to look and I just could not get it running so my neighbor/friend comes over and says I got just the thing and proceded to dump large quantities of Laquer thinner into he fuel tank. This worked well the truck ran better than ever. What the hell I thought, I'll just tell the fellow that the thing needs a ton of work and doesn't run very well which is exactly what I told him. Of course it ran so well on the thinner that he figured I was just an idiot, so he gave me the $300 and headed off. Said he was driving to West Virginia about 5 hours away. No tags in a real POS. Damn adventurer or something. We just laughed and said go for it you crazy SOB. He pulled out and I figured that was the last I'll see of that guy. About 20 minutes later I was out and about and I spotted the Scout at the GAS PUMP. OH $#!&, I didn't think he would fill it up right away. Of course he filled up the tank... ... . and to my surprise fired it up (as I watched from across the street) and drove off.

I hope he made it



So why did the laquer thinner make that tired old truck run? Never did fully understand that.



FWIW I paid $500 for the POS and had to install a new clutch and install shocks and mounts (it had neither). Some funny guy bolted a Ford 9" under it, just u-bolted it to the springs and connected the drive shaft. Of course I was 18 and just saw that Cool 4wd convertible truck with a big V-8 :-laf

I drove it one hour home with no tags and a buddy following in hios 55 chevy. He said every time I went over a bump or around a turn the rear axle shifted all over the place. My Father almost died when I pulled up in that hunk o doo doo. Ah, that wasn't the last time I bought a real POS. I have an eye for junk. I could tell stories all afternoon about the junk I have paid way too much for. There was the 79' Ford... ... ... .....

 

[J Shocik]

I had 1 joker try to buy a truck I was selling for $1000 less than I wanted. I told him if no one else wanted it, I'd call him. He wanted to give me a deposit so no one else could buy it! I told him "No Thanks" then I was committed to selling him the truck. If he wanted the truck, pay full price. He didn't, and I ended up selling the truck to the next person who looked at it. Just my story... :-laf John

 

[EBottema]

Geez these stories all kept me entertained for the last 10 minutes.



I've got a few so bare with me... .

First a couple years ago as a senior in high school we had a 1974 Bug in the auto shop. It was the cafeteria lady's car who stored it in the shop. Well anyways it needed work and she wanted to get rid of it. she wanted 100 bucks but it needed to be registered so I told her i needed the car and she was nice and gave it to me for free. Anyways, i did a semi resto on it with the cheapest parts i could get. It also was a good learning tool for me with bodywork and paint. New seat covers, 4 new tires, all the body work done correctly, except for that one rust hole on the C pillar my friend wanted to fix. Instead of just glassing it, he wanted to fill it with newspaper and bondo, idiot huh? Well, I also put a rebuilt transmission in it (150bucks :-laf ) and a fresh single stage paint job. It turned out wonderful, wow, the paint was awsome. Motor ran good but Carb was a POS. After a month of trying to sell it, i took it to the swap meet and got 1750 for it cash. Not bad, the whole thing in the end only cost me 900 bucks. So I made a pretty good profit...



Next, My girlfriend's aunt had her 99 Civic for sale. 70k miles 4 door green, bad combo for most ricer idiots in LA. I agreed to charge her 5% of the selling price for selling it. I tried for over 1 month to sell it for 8k like she wanted. Blue book for 7500 and Civics usually bring a royalty here but not this one. I told her in the beginning that I would say we should be able to get about 6500 for it. Well she wanted 7500 and i tried and tried and tried. I then a month later said we need to lower the price or I will have to raise the price to sell it since it has been 1 month. Her jerk boyfriend got on the phone and yelled at me. He quickly stopped after I said I was going to leave the keys in the car on the main street if he didn't shut up. A middle eastern guy finally came and looked at it. He wanted to show his relatives so we drove it a few blocks down the street. They looked over it and offered 6500. I said perfect, then he wanted more money off since their was a 1/8 inch long scratch on the bottom of the door. I said no and he said okay. Well he gives me the deposit and said he would pick the car up during the next weekend. He calls the next day and said he wanted to take it to his mechanic and was only going to give me 6200 since the car had a scratch. He demanded his deposit back and I said i would leave it on the windshield of the car in an envelope. Never heard from him again. Well I finally sold that thing for 7k and don't talk to my G/f's idiot family anymore



Finally, the best for last. This was last year now, I had just bought my 96 12 valve and needed to sell my high school daily driver :{ ... . It was a super clean 98 Camaro z28 and then a SS clone with the hood and spoiler. 38k miles, black, automatic... I paid 15k for the car, put some chrome z06 wheels on it, the hood and spoiler. In the end, I had about 18k in it. I drove it for 2. 5 years and loved it. But while camping I fell in love with the Cummins and the Camaro had to go. I put it up, 18k OBO. Blue book was 10,500, average ebay price was 11k and you could get one on auto trader for about 12-13k. I figured 18k was a long shot. I was not in a hurry for a few weeks later i dropped the price to 17. Accually had some jerk offer me 8k for it, i laughed and told him to **edit** off :-laf . Then weeks later it went down to 16k. I had a middle eastern kid and father from a local high school and lived around the block from me come take a look. They really liked it. They said what was the bottom price. I said for you guys, 15k. Next day, I had 150 $100 bills in my hand Oo. I felt bad on how bad I bent them over on that deal :-laf

I just saw the car the other night while driving and it looks as clean as ever except where the **edit** ran over the curb or something and broke the bottom of the fender before the door off. Now the bottom of the fender sticks out an inch or two. :-laf



Lot of experiences for only being 20.



erik

 

[gitchesum]

When i was selling the 76 Harley I used to park it out in the yard since I live on somewhat of a busy corner.



THe wife was having a garage sale one day and a guy showed interest in the bike, so we talked about it for a while. HE had bought an item that required that he come back with a truck to pick up and he said he wanted to make a deal on the bike. Sounds great.



Now, I was asking $7500 for the bike and stated to him that the price was negotiable.



This dude had the cajones to come back and offer me $1500. My first reply was "As a down payment,? Cause I ain't financing this thing". He days no, total price.



It was all I could do to contain myself. I didn't know whether to laugh my tail off or pound this guy in the ground for insulting me.



I jsut told him to take his stuff, get in his truck, and get out of here.

 

[Gene Arnold]

One of my interesting experiences was in the late 1970s. I had a ’68 Dart GT for sale in Grand Island, Nebraska ($1200) and had little interest shown in it. My neighbor’s brother-in-law, a missionary from Suriname (on the north end of South America), came for a visit. He drove the car, liked it, and bought it. He ran it for several months in the U. S. then shipped it to Suriname. Many years later it was still running. Turned out that slant six Chrysler engines were highly valued down there.



Gene

 

[Tony T.]

The Travel Trailer Stalker

About two years ago I had this 16ft single axle travel trailer I decided to sell. Had a friend that lived next to one of the main drags here in town so I parked it over on his lot. Not long at all I started getting calls right and left because it was a super clean trailer,had a nice floor plan and could be pulled by just about anything (2200 lbs). I showed it to this one couple and they were undecided since they never owned a trailer before always tent camped. So they asked if I would give them until the next day at 6 o'clock to decide for sure. Normally I would ask for a deposit, but since they were young and I liked them I said ok. When I get home my wife said I just got a weird call, at that time the phone rings I picked up, and this guy said well did the couple buy it, I said excuse me, yeah did the couple buy it, I was just talking to your wife, I said, I'm giving them until 6 o'clock tomorrow to decide on it, He said I've got the money for it now, I said well after 6 tomorrow if they don't take it, its yours, I said who is this, do you want to look at it, he would not answer, and hung up on me. Then my wife said this weird guy called, and was asking about the trailer, and I told him you could show it to him, and he said no that's ok and hung up. I said yeah that call must of been him calling back because he said he just talked to you. Any way the next day around 4:30 pm this guy calls back "well can I come get the trailer now" I said I told you I'm giving the couple until 6, well ok "hangs up". He called twice more once offering me a $100. 00 bucks more than what I was asking I said no, and by the way you have not even looked at it. Well the young couple never showed up and the stalker didn't call back after 6. The next day another couple looked at it, and ended up buying it for my asking price. The trailer stalker calls and said well it's gone from that lot did someone buy it I said "yes" it sold "click" he hangs up. He never did look at the trailer or even act like he wanted to look at it, and refused to give his name each time he called. I forgot to add this earlier in the post, but he was setting somewhere watching me show it to people because I did show it to some others before the young couple looked at it and he called those times also, but my wife answered those times. The young couple finally called back about three days later and wanted the trailer, and I said it sold already.







Tony

 

[crobertson1]

gitchesum,



Maybe that was just his starting point for negotiations. Just kidding. Nothing like low-balling right? Like the guy that offered me $3,000 when I was asking $6,000 FIRM. MO-rons.

 

[TMitch]

About 2 years ago I was chatting with a guy who lived about an hour south of here and trucks came into the discussion and he said he was looking to move up from his '84 Dodge 1/2 ton to something a bit newer so i said make an offer on my '90 W250 4x4 Cummins. He said he would think about it and get back to me. Well, I never heard back from him so I figured I'd just keep on driving it. About a year later, I had just finished hauling firewood everyday for 2 weeks and I only took a half day off to replace one broken rear spring hanger (actually severely rusted then broke). When all the wood was in the wood shed I decided it was time to do an oil change, grease job etc so I drove the truck into the shop and started in on the job. As I was rolling around under it greasing the U-joints I noticed that one of the cross members in the frame was cracked. Upon closer inspection, it appeared they were all barely hanging on. At that point I decided a major inspection was in order and 3 hours later I came out of the shop with a 2 page list... ball joints, front axle u-joints, brakes, and on and on. I went into the house with tears in my eyes as I truly felt that the old girl was too far gone. Mind you the Cummins was barely broken in with just 300k. I was beside myself, I didn't know what to do. The body was rusting away. The rear brake lights were intermittent, it was bordering on being unsafe to drive. As I was sitting at the kitchen table, the phone rang... it was the guy from a year earlier... "did I still have that old Dodge?" I told him: "you have to come take a look at it, it needs a bit of work". We arranged a time for him to come up and look it over. So a few days later he shows up with his girlfriend (she is a heavy duty mechanic, and a looker too!) I thought "this won't take long, I wonder if I can sell the engine to someone?" They crawled all over it for a while and then went for an hour long test drive. I kept wondering if they broke down somewhere. They came back with long faces and said we'll call you if we want it. I figured I'd never hear from them again. 3 days later he made me a very fair offer and I accepted. They rebuilt her and she's still going strong! I still miss the old girl.

 

[pepecat]

Many Cars

First Car I owned was a '76 VW std bug , Fuel injected. I found it in someone's backyard with less tahn 50,000 original from 1st owner but had a sunburn needless to say. Interesting story about the car's history it was purchased new by a chiropractor who moved to europe and left it with his ex GF, she basically let it sit until I found it and inquired. I restored it, drove it almost 50,000 miles in 3 years, and sold it to another high school kid, while I was away at college. He brought his big bro to look it over and they agreed to buy it on the spot. Couple weeks later they call my parents house threatening to sue because it needed so much work I didn't inform them about. (like front brakes which were actually replaced new a good 5,000 miles b4 they got it) Sounded to me like a local shop was giving them the treatment... Anyway didn't hear back from them but apparently has had many other kid owners because it has been seen around town driven by a different person all the time and frequently for sale on the side of the road.



2nd car I sold was my '89 s10 blazer 4X4 with the 4. 3 to my cousin. Ex- FBI vehicle, nice truck. He got a good deal and has driven the snot outta it.



3rd car 1985 MBZ 300d turbo diesel. It's where my diesel phase was born Oo. After overloading it on a trip from L. A. up north moving out from college, I arrived home to find two trails of cv axle lube right under each inner boot. Needless to say, both axles toast. over 1000 to fix, towed it back to L. A and traded my MBZ mechani/ friend for his '83 240D 4 spd+ cash.



Only had the '83 for a month or so and sold it in an interesting way, responded to a wanted ad from a guy looking for a stick shift MBZ for biodiesel conversion. Sold it to him while already having another 300D lined up for me and that fell thru.



Then just drove stepdad's MBZ 300SD for about 6 months till my current Cummins. Never looked back

OKOK I guess that was more of a car history, oh well got carried away

 

[Extreme1]

I had a wierd guy come look at a truck I was selling 6 years ago. I had a '94 1/2 ton 2WD Ram with a 318. It didn't pull my new enclosed trailer worth a darn so I sold it to a friend and bought my CTD 3500. He defaulted on the deal so I got the truck back with a major dent in the front of the right side of the box and a small dent in the corner of the cab.



I listed it in the statewide paper for a week for $4,500 and got a few calls. A wierd guy calls from 2 hours away and wanted to know why so cheap? It had high miles on it but it was priced low. I described the damage as accurately as I could. He wanted to know my minimum, I told him I wouldn't take less than $4,100. He got all excited and wanted to come look at it.



While he was on the way another guy calls up from an hour and a half away and seemed real interested, asked questions and got the damage report. He wants to come look at it too. I told him it might be sold before he gets here, call me back in a half hour. He does and the other guy wasn't here yet,try again later.



Then the wierd guy get here. He walks over to the truck, looks it over for about 2 minutes and says he want to drive it. I say no problem, keys are in it. He fires it up and HOLDS IT TO THE FLOOR. I said what the **** are you trying to do?!? He says, "I wanted to make sure it would hold up. " He and his "expert/mechanic" son take it for a 5 minute ride. He gets back and says "I sure does drive nice. " He spend the next 20 minutes looking at the dent. The other guy calls back, he got tired of waiting and is about a half hour away.



At this point the wierd guy offers me $3,500. I said no, I'll take $4,100. He stares at the dent for another 5 minutes and says "If it didn't have that dent, I'd give you $4,100. " I had to break it to him that if it didn't have the dent (the rest of the truck was mint) that I'd be trying to get more than $4,100 for it.



He says "I'll go up to $3,600 but that it. " Then he tried the "gee we drove all the way up here but it had a dent, give us some more $ off". I said it was too bad he wasted 4 hours of driving time. He was getting a little cranky at this point and said "I'm going to go back and buy the Chevy we drove on the way here. " I told him I was glad that the 4 hour trip wasn't such a waste.



The second guy showed up a few minutes later, drove the truck and bought it. Cash.