History How to cheat and avoid getting cheated! (Pre1965) The old timer's stories....

Yep, the labor rate is just the same for hail damage or train damage, and once the shop figures out that you can handle hard hits, you will get buried with them. Meanwhile, the newbies make just as much as you, while they are sucking up the door dings and hail damage.

 

This is kinda different, backwards to most post here. A fellow firefighter friend of mine, that knew nothing about engines, bought a nice ot Caddy , in Dallas, cheap , and drove it to the station here in Muskogee. He said it runs kinda rough but everything worked . Being the mechanic for our dept, he wanted me to look at it. Well right off I saw a spark plug wire hanging down. I put it back on.... the car ran beautifully! He drove the car for years, no trouble! I could never have that kind of luck! Lol










Bones

 

Another great post! These things happen too! Sometimes the average guy wins.

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When i was 19 , young and clueless, I put up my car for sale and one kind of shady back alley car dealer stopped by to look at it. I had cleaned and waxed the heck out of it and of course he was trying to find something wrong as a reason to lowball me. I was asking 4k , he was offering 1,5k. The car was old but a flawless old lady´s car and a good deal at 4k. He did not find anything to haggle the price so I told him he was welcome to buy another car just like that for 1,5k in case he could find one. He said nothing, paid 4k and left. A few hours later he calls me and yells at me that he was going to sue me for not telling him the windshield wipers would not work, the wiring harness under the dash would have caught on fire during his ride home and he wants 3k back for fixing all of this .
He hung up on me before I could answer ...Young and clueless me was shaking and trying to take a breath... after a few minutes I decided to ride my bicylce over to his "business" and see my car. I just couldn´t believe what he said.

And there it was sitting , the only thing they had done to it was to put on a 5,9k price tag. The door was unlocked and the key in the ignition so I jumped in and pulled the windshield washer, tested the wipers, checked for burnt smells. Nothing. I locked the car, walked into his office , handed him the keys and told him I had just fixed the wipers for him, at no cost.


Another good one was this 68 Mercedes...
I friend of mine traded this one in. He is not a pro dealer, just selling and swaping parts and cars like most of us. I was looking for a winter daily and he said he had this old Benz. So I and a couple of buddies teamed up and had a good time and few beers together buying the Benz from our friend. All of us checked it out and aggreed what a nice car it was... I drove it for a week but something was wrong with this car. Usually these cars feel pretty solid, where this one was handling like a wobble doll on pudding although all steering componets and bushing seemed to be pretty new.
So I put it on a lift and heard funny noises... I could also see that the weight of the rear axle was pulling and bending the floors down and the paint on the rockers was cracking.The car was doing the banana... I immediatley put the car back on its wheels . After closer inspection I noticed that the steering box would not only turn the wheels but also twist the driver´s side badly rusted framerail . The whole car was rusted thin under all this beautiful white paint , thick black undercoating and insulation.
The last pic shows how it ended up after I was done parting it out...Funny thing is, I got more out of the car parting it out than I had paid.

I was kicking myself because I had seen the car in person and still did not notice the bad spots, they were well hidden. My friends and me are still getting a good laugh off this story.

 

Probably not so honest!

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...this sign demonstrates very well what you're saying.....

 

Used to love the so-called 'expert' used car buyers. They were always giving me the benefit of their knowledge on the art of the used car deal. After all, they did it once every two/three years, as opposed to my 15-20 times a week, so they just had to know way more.....

 

Yeah, I gave up on my family members too. Because I’m a car guy, and I was a car salesman for a couple of years, the family always used to come to me for advice when they wanted to buy a car. I would tell them exactly what they needed to do, and what they needed to know, before they went in to the dealership to get a good deal and avoid getting ripped off. In EVERY case, they would all completely ignore what I told them, and wander in to the dealership like a bunch of damn sheep. They ended up buying the worst cars, and getting their collective asses handed to them. Eventually they quit asking, because they knew better than me.

 

Back in the mid '80's, Shutts' Used Cars, in Parkersburg, WV, used the slogan "We cheat you right!". Good folks though.

 

I bought a OT 80’s model fwd Ford one time for a work car. When I raised the hood, everything was covered in engine oil, everywhere! I pulled the stick, sure enough, over full. Dickered around with the salesman, they were asking $600, I got it for $200. Drove it home, it smoked like a tar kettle. Drained out about two gallons of oil, put 4 quarts back in, right on the full mark. Washed it all off, it never leaked a drop! Only had something like 50,000 miles on it, they thought it needed a engine, it was just over full of oil! Drove that little car for a year then sold it for $800. Never had a minutes problem out of it.

 

Normal...they are all POS in my opinion.