Well, what a wasted day!

After 4 or 5 calls, 50 pics sent and constant reassurance that the car was near mint i bought flight tickets and off i went.

So this v3 Sti was supposedly a very low milage; sub 20k miles car, no dents or scratches, original paint etc etc... As the garage door opened within 2 seconds it was clear the front had been painted - not too well either. OK fair enough I can improve that I thought. He climbs in and drives it onto the driveway - on tickover there was pistonslap. HMMMM I carried on and did a walkround and spotted 8 or so small parking dents! Not quite as described.

Interior - seat wear was indicative that the cars mileage was not as low as suggested. Steering wheel stitching was damaged in sections, gearknob shiney and peeling away, seat bolster was rippled and so was the flat section.

Popped the bonnet and it was still grumbling, there was a smell of fuel too. Underneath there were signs of fresh fluid leak - but he had changed the oil just a few days before so that may explain it.......and also explain something else too!

As i popped the flip lid on the expansion tank there was a nice thick rim of white mayo sludge! HGF!!!
Complete waste of a day and over £200 in fares etc.
At the end of the day its my problem, i made the choice to trust and thought i had a good picture of the car....its just a shame that some people do not have the same values as others. As he had collected me from the airport, i asked if he would give me a lift back. Nope, apparently he was now short on time and gave me a lift to a train station. Thanks a lot!

Matt

 

feel for you mate
but 200 quid and a day is better wasted than the full cost of the car


was it someone on here ?

 

sorry to hear of your troubles but dont blame yourself,try to forget about how much money you spent you will just wind yourself up,if your going to buy a car regardless of were it is situated you want to see it in the flesh,most people including myself would of done exactly the same just take it as a lesson learned.

 

It's a shame when that happens, as above, atleast you didn't spend out on a rubbish car. I've had the same thing, went to look at a "mint" Hawkeye, got there & spotted the drivers side had been painted, when I asked the vendor, it was "touched up because of some stonechips", looking through the paperwork I found a bill for 3k's worth of body work to paint the whole drivers side & front bumper. The paintwork may have been carried out at a main dealer, but Stevie wonder & Ray Charles must have been working in the bodyshop. So much for his "mint" description!

Good luck in your search.

 

Happening a lot though, don't know if people are getting desperate to shift their cars or they just assume buyers are stupid, young, naive and/or chavs who couldn't care less about the state of what they have bought as long as it's fast (at least to start with)

Like has been said, better £200 down the drain now, than £2K on a new engine in a few weeks time

 

yeah, cheers guys - not too bitter but just frustrated really. I mean the car was no bargain either - absolutely top dollar.

Another thing - according to the advert it recently had brand new speedline alloys. When I checked them i could tell they had been refurbished - I asked him and he admitted they had been refurbished.

What annoys me the most is that even now when you look at the advert it reads so well - its just that the key information is just not true!

When i spotted the HGF signs he offered 500 quid off - nice gesture but not enough to cover the cost of it being done properly and I didn't fancy a 4 hour drive in a car with HGF.

Anyways - water under the bridge. Its just somebody else will buy that and pay way over the odds for something its not.

Matt

 

Matt was that the White sti for 5plus grand up on pistonheads

shame you wasted your day but just good job you knew what you were lookng for just think about the poor buyer who comes along and does not have a clue and walks away with it.

Keep looking

 

better you see that now than buy it and dicover it all a month later......

just goes to show how careful you have to be when buying a car, someone with not quite such an eye may rock up and say yes straight away!!!

 

what type of car are you after matt,

My sti ra 96 version2 with only 32000 miles on might be up for sale shortly.

Regards.
keith

 

I never travel to see a car .... been disappointed every single time, yet I kept doing it!

Now I am older and wiser, I have realised that adverts and what the seller says about a car are to be taken with a pinch of salt!

The rim of sludge around in the expansion tank doesn't mean HDF ...... most cars when they have a few miles and years under their belts have a witness mark there - if it was choclate mousse then yeah, problems!

 

I had similar when I looked at a 'mint' Opel Manta years ago - travelled a long way on the train and viewed the farmers car. Wheelarches chock full of mud, dent in the rear quarters (from inside where his tools were bouncing around!) etc etc. I told him what I tought of it and him. I walked away and he shouted make me an offer so I shouted back £50 his parting words were "time waster"!!!! Cheeky f**ker

 

sorry u went to c a dog mate, but better to be a few hundred down than a few grand on repairs .

photoshop has a lot to answer for nowadays lol

 

Was this the white one from Scotland?

 

Hmmm, dunno really keith. I have two subs already, but was tempted by a holy grail type car. Yours sounds nice mate - let me know when you decide what to do...

Yeah me too - older and wiser these days but this one caught me out.
Deffo HGF - not just a wispy film, a deep thick rim of chocolatey sludge

Aye it was the one

 

Shame you had a wasted day mate. I sold my last one to a guy from down south, he flew up to Edinburgh and i picked him and we went for a run and then back to mine for a cuppa before he headed back down the road with his new car.

 

I put a cheeky bid in on this but I reckon the reserve is way high. Looks tidy but I wouldn't pay top dollar for a car miles away !

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...STRK:MEBIDX:IT

 

Perhaps he thought you were a timewaster ...

TX.

 

i nearly px. that for my modded bugeye sti thank f7ck i never

 

Put a link up so someone else dont make same mistake.(bad luck by the way)

 

The word ''mint'' in the true sense can only be used for a brand new, undriven car

 

I had the same thing a fortnight ago looking for a replacement car for work duties, since my partner uses the Spec C as the 'mum bus' during the week!

My Seat Ibiza Cupra Tdi was sold to a local guy within six days of it going on Pistonheads, so I set out looking for an 07/08 R26 Megane. I looked a three cars all with less than 30K on the clock at dealers in Stoke on Trent, Romford and West Bromwich, one had been rear ended and had *** burns in the seat, other had been company sign written and buffed within an inch of its life to try to remove the evidence, the other had serious kerbing on every wheel. I walked away from everyone without even starting the engine.

Trouble is for every genuine seller there are three bandits trying to rob you.

I got a great low mileage R26 in the end from Pentagon Vauxhall in Burton on Trent. Its a great car but you certainly notice the 140BHP difference between it and the Spec C.

 

mate this happened to me today! see my thread "some people have no morals"

 

When the word "mint" is used to descibe a car its often due to a seller's narrow vocabulary, of which the term "shyte" isn't included.

Therfore, it would be wise to avoid any adverts with the words "mint" in the description. Unless its for a pack of Trebors or some coins.

 

^^^so true

 

'Mint', "ahh, I see you mean the one with the hole !"

 

I'm afraid the 'mint' term was my doing. The actual advert title was 'concourse' lol

Beleive me i really do know what i am doing when it comes to buying cars. At my age of 36 i have owned over 80 cars - seriously i jest not! I had many conversations with the seller prior to making to commitment to travel. My frustration was that when i got there the car was not as i beleved it to be.

Admittedly i have extremely high standards - higher than most i would guess.

I am in two minds as to the seller - either in his mind things were as he described or he thought that i wouldn't pick up on them.

I explained right up front that i am very picky and even encouraged him to perurse my business website - www.offyourmarks.com to show him what i do and how i would be checking.

Thing is though, although i took my paint thickness guages to check for respray work - it was immediately obvious that it had been painted. I obviously asked about respray work in our conversations prior to viewing and he said that his mate is a pro painter and could not see any resaon or signs that it had. The visual indicator for me what the bonnet had inclusions and fisheyes in and the front bumber had a small amount of flaking and an awful finish

As othesr say better to waste a day and lose the 200 notes than buy a car that would cost a lot to get right.

I already have 2 subarus - one is a 16 year old classic with genuine 64k on the clock and comparing the two, my classic is tons better. I was allured by the 19k miles but alas it was probably a heck of a lot more.

Anyways thats that and whats done it done. Thanks to all for the comments and sympathy

best wishes

Matt

 

Concours!? That's even worse LOL!

To me that means the car should look like it came striaght off the production line, inside, out, and underneath.

Some of the Jaguar nuts are fully aware of the term and are well into the Concours de'elegance scene at various shows. Even the tyres are of the correct time period and are like new, plus you won't even find a single dead (or living ) fly in the radiator matrix

 

off your marks?? never a truer name for some one as you really are miles off the mark!

i have seen this car in the flesh and i have also owned over 20 scoobs and it is indeed "mint", the faults u mention were not present on the vehicle and i feel that you are painting a truly inaccurate picture of the car. i remember having a real good look at the car at a meet and its certainly nicer that 99.9% of similar aged scoobs, and if the owner is still the chap paul he could not have been a nicer more accomodating chap. just thought i would try and balance this out as i'm sure most of you know, there are always two sides to every story!!

 

Anybody?

 

^ Mint flavour ?