Is this an unreasonable request

[TM99]

Pic #10 looks like the rear right door has been keyed and subsequently poorly touched-up with a bad paint match.

[RWD cossie wil]

PUA said:

In my experience when I've come to sell cars privately, the people who asked huge lists of questions are actually the least likely to buy. I think it may be because they are looking to tick lots of boxes or expecting to find an absolutely mint car which by some crazy error is priced 20% less than it should be

Sums it up...

[MMT]

Interesting. My last 4 cars have all been bought from Internet advertised sales and my first contact was via email checking they were still 'For Sale' and other information not in the adverts. On each ocassional the responses have been timely and informative. One reason is that after working all day, I generally browse car sales fairly late at night. If I'm interested and to be fair I've generally narrowed my choice down to only a couple of cars, I'll send an email there and then. So this could be 1am which could be a bit late for a quick enquiring phone call. Once that initial exchange has completed I've followed up by phone.
Also, I sold my Skyline to a guy in Germany and all correspondence was via email, not one telephone conversation even though the guy could speak English.
Subaru Impreza - 1 site dealer selling approx 80 cars £3k to £100+
Skyline R33 GT R - private from Pistonheads
E60 535D - 1 site dealer selling approx 25 cars £5k to £40k
E46 M3 - 3 sites dealer selling approx 200 cars £3k to £80k

[daemon]

MMT said:

Interesting. My last 4 cars have all been bought from Internet advertised sales and my first contact was via email checking they were still 'For Sale' and other information not in the adverts. On each ocassional the responses have been timely and informative. One reason is that after working all day, I generally browse car sales fairly late at night. If I'm interested and to be fair I've generally narrowed my choice down to only a couple of cars, I'll send an email there and then. So this could be 1am which could be a bit late for a quick enquiring phone call. Once that initial exchange has completed I've followed up by phone.
Also, I sold my Skyline to a guy in Germany and all correspondence was via email, not one telephone conversation even though the guy could speak English.
Subaru Impreza - 1 site dealer selling approx 80 cars £3k to £100+
Skyline R33 GT R - private from Pistonheads
E60 535D - 1 site dealer selling approx 25 cars £5k to £40k
E46 M3 - 3 sites dealer selling approx 200 cars £3k to £80k

Interestingly, that fits perfectly with what poorcardealer was saying RE: email enquiries versus quality of car.

[MMT]

daemon said:

Interestingly, that fits perfectly with what poorcardealer was saying RE: email enquiries versus quality of car.

I think it does. Certainly in my case, I would only send an email if I was really interested and in a position to do a deal.

[FLASHG1981]

MMT said:

I think it does. Certainly in my case, I would only send an email if I was really interested and in a position to do a deal.

Actually very true. When I was selling cars I was dealing with the lower end of the market and I had no sales at all via email.

[405dogvan]

Some people in here are trying to suggest that by emailling questions about a car FOR SALE ON THE INTERNET you're showing you're not a likely buyer. Seriously - are you insane!?!?

If you can't be bothered to reply to an email containing 3 perfectly sensible questions, don't bother listing your car online - simples...

We had a thread on here once where someone had asked several sensible questions and then made a 'stark staring bonkers' request about needing a 10 day test-drive or somesuch st - and the seller rightly replied to say "you're having a laugh mate" - but in this case, the questions were fine and the reply just shows the seller to be a moron.

Which - if you think about it - is telling you more about the car than honest replies to the questions were ever likely to. "Car owned by a dhead".

Seriously tho - you sell your own car to make more money from it. Being polite to people and answering any reasonable question adds to that - wheras being a dhead, doesn't.

[carreauchompeur]

405dogvan said:

We had a thread on here once where someone had asked several sensible questions and then made a 'stark staring bonkers' request about needing a 10 day test-drive or somesuch st - and the seller rightly replied to say "you're having a laugh mate" - but in this case, the questions were fine and the reply just shows the seller to be a moron.

That was a fecking hilarious thread, the OP wanted to basically do a 50-mile test drive under controlled conditions with full tanks of fuel to work out the exact MPG. Utterly bonkers.

I would regard yours (OP's) as perfectly reasonable questions, I suspect it's the tyre one that cooks the goose of the general public who just want something black and round.

[FLASHG1981]

405dogvan said:

Some people in here are trying to suggest that by emailling questions about a car FOR SALE ON THE INTERNET you're showing you're not a likely buyer. Seriously - are you insane!?!?

No the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. After many years of answering countless emails and getting no sales I stopped answering them like any sane person would do.

[daemon]

405dogvan said:

Some people in here are trying to suggest that by emailling questions about a car FOR SALE ON THE INTERNET you're showing you're not a likely buyer. Seriously - are you insane!?!?

For the record, and i repeat what i said earlier - i answer email enquiries in a timely manner, its just that they very rarely result in a sale.

[JREwing]

HowMuchLonger said:

Silly person left their lighter in one of the pictures, this would imply to me that the car has been smoked in. Smelly..

You can't assume this. If I place a lighter on a table at work, does it mean I've been smoking inside work premises?
Of course, it's very likely that it's been smoked in at some point. I doubt many cars more than a couple of years old haven't.

[Mike Oxbig]

HeatonNorris said:

I walked away from a grands worth of MX5 because it was on Fullrun or similar tyres, on the basis that a set of decent rubber would cost the best part of 25% of the asking price... The seller wasn't willing to budge, either.

More fool you then

[HeatonNorris]

Mike Oxbig said:

HeatonNorris said:

I walked away from a grands worth of MX5 because it was on Fullrun or similar tyres, on the basis that a set of decent rubber would cost the best part of 25% of the asking price... The seller wasn't willing to budge, either.

More fool you then

Why?

A week later, I bought an MX5. Cost me £100 more, but was newer and had a full set of branded rubber on it.

[405dogvan]

FLASHG1981 said:

405dogvan said:

Some people in here are trying to suggest that by emailling questions about a car FOR SALE ON THE INTERNET you're showing you're not a likely buyer. Seriously - are you insane!?!?

No the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. After many years of answering countless emails and getting no sales I stopped answering them like any sane person would do.

Do you do the lottery or enter any type of competition or draw or bet on any events or anything like that?

It's just if you follow your logic, those things wouldn't exist.

Until you've sold maybe 10,000 cars, your personal experiences are worth the sum total of fk-all y'see - as they're horribly skewed.

Hell, for all you know, the reason emaillers don't buy from you is that you answer the questions wrongly

[daemon]

405dogvan said:

FLASHG1981 said:

405dogvan said:

Some people in here are trying to suggest that by emailling questions about a car FOR SALE ON THE INTERNET you're showing you're not a likely buyer. Seriously - are you insane!?!?

No the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. After many years of answering countless emails and getting no sales I stopped answering them like any sane person would do.

Do you do the lottery or enter any type of competition or draw or bet on any events or anything like that?

It's just if you follow your logic, those things wouldn't exist.

Until you've sold maybe 10,000 cars, your personal experiences are worth the sum total of fk-all y'see - as they're horribly skewed.

Hell, for all you know, the reason emaillers don't buy from you is that you answer the questions wrongly

Flash, whilst i agree with your sentiment surely it is wrong to allow people to believe they can get response by email from you?

Surely a simple solution would be to put an out-of-office auto reply on saying 'sorry, we are unable to answer email queries relating to our cars, please phone us on XXXXX XXXXXXXXXX'?

OR remove the functionality that allows them to email?

[FLASHG1981]

daemon said:

Flash, whilst i agree with your sentiment surely it is wrong to allow people to believe they can get response by email from you?

Surely a simple solution would be to put an out-of-office auto reply on saying 'sorry, we are unable to answer email queries relating to our cars, please phone us on XXXXX XXXXXXXXXX'?

OR remove the functionality that allows them to email?

The auto-of-office reply is a good idea, not something I had considered before but would definitely give that a try.

[Stinkfoot]

When I sell a car on the net, I try to avoid putting an email address in the advert almost always they seem to ask stupid questions or you get a deluge of spam.

I am one of those weirdos who likes to talk on the phone with potential buyers. Also i am mobile quite a lot and I have no desire to be tied to email so I have not even set up email on my ipad or iphone.

I check / fire up the mail program maybe twice a week tops.

I dont think I have ever sent an email asking about a car for sale in my life. Dont get me started on texts now.......

Edited by Stinkfoot on Monday 30th July 01:16

[daemon]

daemon said:

I've fired off a couple of replies there now to emails that came in this evening, so it will be interesting to see if there will be any follow up.

Of interest, neither query that i replied to on saturday evening resulted in either a phone call or a subsequent viewing / purchase.

[POORCARDEALER]

daemon said:

Of interest, neither query that i replied to on saturday evening resulted in either a phone call or a subsequent viewing / purchase.

Par for the course!

[daemon]

POORCARDEALER said:

daemon said:

Of interest, neither query that i replied to on saturday evening resulted in either a phone call or a subsequent viewing / purchase.

Par for the course!

Oh i know.