Worst condition car you've seen for sale?
Discussion
What's the least effort you've seen put in to prepping a car for sale?
The 'cheapest car in the classifieds' thread reminded me of when I went shed-hunting recently. I saw a '52 Avensis at a dealer just down the road from where I work that was up for £595. The pictures on the website didn't look too bad - a few scuffs here and there but nothing major, and it (apparently) had 12 months MOT. I phoned up at 9 and said I'd be there at about 1 - so they'd got 4 hours to at least chuck a bucket of water over it.
First off when I turned up at 1 it took the two blokes 'working' there (who were sitting around doing bugger all), a good 15 minutes to even find the car. Eventually they established that they'd parked it behind a church down the road. When I saw it it was apparent that it had been there for quite some time - completely flat tyres, plastered in tree sap and bird s
t, pretty much every panel with an awful bodged paint repair, and green mould around the windows. I don't know why I didn't turn round and leave at that point but I stayed long enough to find out that other features included a boot that wouldn't open, a stone dead battery and an interior you wouldn't want to get into without an isolation suit on. God knows where they got the MOT from.
Now I'm not expecting perfection, or anywhere near, for £600. It may have been A1 mechanically. But it really was the sorriest looking pile of crap I've ever seen, to the point that I actually felt quite embarrassed for the bloke trying to sell me it. Has anyone else experienced such a total lack of effort from a seller?
The 'cheapest car in the classifieds' thread reminded me of when I went shed-hunting recently. I saw a '52 Avensis at a dealer just down the road from where I work that was up for £595. The pictures on the website didn't look too bad - a few scuffs here and there but nothing major, and it (apparently) had 12 months MOT. I phoned up at 9 and said I'd be there at about 1 - so they'd got 4 hours to at least chuck a bucket of water over it.
First off when I turned up at 1 it took the two blokes 'working' there (who were sitting around doing bugger all), a good 15 minutes to even find the car. Eventually they established that they'd parked it behind a church down the road. When I saw it it was apparent that it had been there for quite some time - completely flat tyres, plastered in tree sap and bird s
t, pretty much every panel with an awful bodged paint repair, and green mould around the windows. I don't know why I didn't turn round and leave at that point but I stayed long enough to find out that other features included a boot that wouldn't open, a stone dead battery and an interior you wouldn't want to get into without an isolation suit on. God knows where they got the MOT from.Now I'm not expecting perfection, or anywhere near, for £600. It may have been A1 mechanically. But it really was the sorriest looking pile of crap I've ever seen, to the point that I actually felt quite embarrassed for the bloke trying to sell me it. Has anyone else experienced such a total lack of effort from a seller?
Paint. Emulsion paint to be precise. Advert with pics of a normal 3 series car interior. Turned up to find paint all over the rear seat, floor and on the back of the front seats where a paint pot lid was knocked open. The guy had simply stolen pics from another advert. 4 hour return journey wasted.
When I was involved in the vw air cooled business decades ago.
Cars and campers. You've never seen such hideous dangerous stuff bought by people
They seemed oblivious to rust and were buying a dream: especially campers. Ie pretty interior and curtains but rotten cloth covered fuel lines, cills and rear quarters made of chicken wire and concrete etc.
Not to mention the stench of a camper that's had some dope smoking hippy in it.
Cars and campers. You've never seen such hideous dangerous stuff bought by people
They seemed oblivious to rust and were buying a dream: especially campers. Ie pretty interior and curtains but rotten cloth covered fuel lines, cills and rear quarters made of chicken wire and concrete etc.
Not to mention the stench of a camper that's had some dope smoking hippy in it.
I'm a valeter and have a few contracts with main dealers around the area, I've just stopped dealing with one of them mainly due to the standard of vehicle they send me. One in particular sticks in my mind, a 5 year old black Renault Clio, the interior was covered in oil, nothing worked, not even the heaters, starter motor was sticking on after it had started and also sounded a bit bottom endy. Upon closer inspection the bodywork was horrific, marks under the pains from poorly finished filler work, sill pushed right up around the door hinge but when the door was shut looked normal. I tapped it a few times and was pretty sure it was solid body filler along at least half of the sill. It had 64k on the clock and sold ON THE FORECOURT for £1500. I'm based at a Jaguar specialist so I get alot of high end jags etc, don't really want that standard of vehicle putting my regulars off!
Edited by Roverload on Friday 3rd July 18:19
The worst car I ever saw described as 'Great Condition' was an X150 XKR that I drove almost three hours to view.
It looked like someone had fired a shotgun of stone-chips at the front bumper, which was badly cracked at the base. There was mould growing inside the rear quarter windows, the seats were badly worn, the alloys were badly kerbed and most of the chrome trim had lost all the coating. It smelled!
I didn't spend more than 5 minutes looking at it, before I handed the keys back and left - didn't even bother with a test drive. The seller didn't seem too surprised either, funnily enough.
Looking back at the photos on the ad I suspect the seller had used the ones taken when he bought the car, then ragged it and hoped someone would just ignore that when they arrived. The even more annoying thing is all of it could have been quite easily sorted before sale. The fact it hadn't told me a lot about the owner's attitude to car maintenance, though, so that was probably a lucky escape!
It looked like someone had fired a shotgun of stone-chips at the front bumper, which was badly cracked at the base. There was mould growing inside the rear quarter windows, the seats were badly worn, the alloys were badly kerbed and most of the chrome trim had lost all the coating. It smelled!
I didn't spend more than 5 minutes looking at it, before I handed the keys back and left - didn't even bother with a test drive. The seller didn't seem too surprised either, funnily enough.
Looking back at the photos on the ad I suspect the seller had used the ones taken when he bought the car, then ragged it and hoped someone would just ignore that when they arrived. The even more annoying thing is all of it could have been quite easily sorted before sale. The fact it hadn't told me a lot about the owner's attitude to car maintenance, though, so that was probably a lucky escape!
Fiesta late 1980s. Rust, rust and more rust. Massive holes on the parcel shelf and in the doors where speakers had been ripped out. Rag instead of an oil filler cap, one-of-those green replacement petrol caps with staining down the side. Ripped drivers seat. And worse of all when he lifted the bonnet up the hinges were rusted solid and it was actually opening by bending the metal bodywork itself.
This was going to be a car for my girlfriend to drive after passing her test. In the end I got a Talbot Horizon. Maybe I was still diddled!!!
This was going to be a car for my girlfriend to drive after passing her test. In the end I got a Talbot Horizon. Maybe I was still diddled!!!
Bodo said:
fausTVR said:
That Dino, was it stored in a lake for safekeeping?
https://www.silverstoneauctions.com/1973-ferrari-dino-barn-findvarious stories as to how it got in that condition.
Bodo said:
Good studio shot, but how hard can it be to go over it with a brush, and at least renew the tyres??
I've seen some horrors at the £200 end of the market, but I'm always much more surprised at the state some expensive "one owner from new" 6 year old cars can be. I was looking for a Volvo C70 this time last year and looked at two cars that one person had owned from new privately (£32k list price for this model) and had about 50K on the clock that were absolutely fked. Weird stains on the leather, steering wheel 30 degrees off straight, brake discs warped to fk, clonking and knocking like an old donkey, generally driving like a 300K mile snotter.
Plenty of tarted up knackered stboxes on any dealers forecourt if you're foolish enough to spend £1500 - £2000 with a trade seller mind you!
ked. Weird stains on the leather, steering wheel 30 degrees off straight, brake discs warped to fk, clonking and knocking like an old donkey, generally driving like a 300K mile snotter.Plenty of tarted up knackered s
tboxes on any dealers forecourt if you're foolish enough to spend £1500 - £2000 with a trade seller mind you!A mate viewed a few Chimaeras which were in a 'surprising' state of presentation. One car looked reasonable in the ad, but had what looked like fag ash lying around the gearshift gaiter and door-opening golfball in one of the pics. Went to view the car and, yes, the owner had been using the centre console on his £10k TVR as an ashtray, with no attempt to clean it before the potential buyer arrived. Nice.
Decades ago I fancied an E30 325i Sport. Arranged to see one at a trader in Glasgow. Car was jammed in at the back of the lot, 4 flat tyres, mold and a battery that had gone flat in 1986. It was up for about £3500 if I remember. Clearly didn't want to sell it.
Went to look at a private sale Mk2 Scirocco which had been lovingly pre-crashed, with most of the near-side panels dented to fk. I wondered why all the pics were from one side only...
Decades ago I fancied an E30 325i Sport. Arranged to see one at a trader in Glasgow. Car was jammed in at the back of the lot, 4 flat tyres, mold and a battery that had gone flat in 1986. It was up for about £3500 if I remember. Clearly didn't want to sell it.
Went to look at a private sale Mk2 Scirocco which had been lovingly pre-crashed, with most of the near-side panels dented to f
k. I wondered why all the pics were from one side only...Worst condition car I ever saw was a Nissan 350z. In the advert it looked a minter, a peach with a great description and worth the journey to see. Now with the seller being a 4x4 trader I knew not to expect an accurate representation and if the truth be told I would only consider it if it ticked all the boxes but I wanted one at the time and it was only 30 miles to see.
Got there to be directed round the back to see a badly faded car lying next to a fence with weeds and 2 foot high nettles growing all around it. It hadn`t been opened in years and the tyres were flat and all the window rubbers were green. He gave me the key to manually open the door and I had to move an old iron fence to squeeze into the mildew `sports seat`.
"Cracking motors mate. Quicker than a Porsche they are" said the seller, oblivious to the fact that his presentation skills had completed scuppered any chance of any sale ever happening from anyone I knew.
Apparently he`s always been the same and still sells stock mostly to the farming community (and the insane).
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