Charles will remember the first.
I was looking to buy a car for the girlfriend (now my wife) when I happened upon this lovely little Peugeot 104 in musterd yellow with matching interior.
£150 later I had said car and boy that was one mistake I could truly put down to experience!
Charles (also on this forum) will remember my sighs when I removed the plastic trim over the NSR coil spring only to find that this NSR coil spring was 2/3rds of the way through the wheel arch! This was whilst he was trying to find some floor pan to weld to.
I eventually got rid for spares. Strangely enough I sold it to some student who wanted to put the engine and box in a Talbot Samba for £180! Unfortunately I had spent money on doing a few other bits to it so a profit was not to be had.
Lets have your stories here!
Hugo
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Mine was a caravan hope the Mods don?t mind. Selling my caravan many years ago and advertised it in the Derby Telegraph.
This chap turned up and we got on like a house on fire. Lovely sunny day and we sat in the caravan while he confided in me that he wasn?t a prospective caravanner but bought and sold to make a profit.
We sat there for an hour fortified by regular cups of tea provided by the wife while he told me the tricks of the trade in how to buy low and sell high.
?Rarely pay more than half of what people ask? he tells me. Of course I asked him how he managed that and he passed on all the skills of persuading the seller that he was lucky to get what he was offering.
A pleasant hour passed and finally we got to the business of my caravan. ?Right.. which particular ploy are you going to use to persuade me to lower the price? I asked.
The look on my new friends said it all.. ?why on earth have I just told him all that?
He paid the full asking price with no argument, leaving me thinking he was in the wrong business.
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Mine was a 14 year old Opel Rekord in beautiful condition but with a well-worn engine. During the test drive on some slow country lanes the oil warning light flickered, the seller claimed the switch was faulty, like a mug I believed him and parted with £400. On the drive home it could barely top 55 mph so I realised I'd bought a lemon. Needless to say the seller wasn't interested in my request for my money back.
I sold it at auction 2 days later for £170.
SWIMBO was away on a course that week and even 8 years on I still haven't dared tell her...
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I take it "muterd yellow" was intentional and not a typo?
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Meant to say Mustard yellow, but I suppose Musterd yellow would have fitted. :)
Another one for this thread:
A friend's 18 year old daugher bought this fiesta Mk 2 for a grand a few years back. She advertised it and got some bloke offering her £500 for it, which she reluctantly accepted. He had told her it was for his wife, but on receiving the cheque it was obvious he was a trader.
A few weeks later she got a call from him to say that he had made a loss on the car as it had been declared a totol loss and wanted £100 recompence. Some people will really try it on!
She told him to go forth, you'll be pleased to hear.
Hugo
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The oil light problem mentioned above reminded me of something I'd completely forgotten.
I went to buy a BMW boxer bike (can't remember the model, can't find the photo) and when I started it, the oil light came on. The bloke said it was the reason he was selling the bike. He was asking £1,000. I offered him £400 on the basis that the engine could well need a full strip. He said OK. On my way home (oil light still aglow) I picked up the Haynes manual.
Got home, read the wiring diagram and realised that the oil pressure sender broke the circuit if pressure was low, so a broken wire would light the light. Found the break, fitted a connector, sorted. Couriered on the bike for a month or so then sold it for £1,200. Lovely.
Horrible bike, though.
V
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Many years ago my father went to look at a Ford Consul. When he got there he discovered it was an earlier model than he had anticipated but thought it would do. The conversation then went something like this:
Dad - I'm interested how much do you want for it?
Seller - I don't know, what will you offer me?
Dad - How about £20?
Seller - I was thinking of £10, should we split the difference?
and the deal was done for £15
We had the car for many years, during which time it took our family of six plus dog, and a caravan, from Devon to Scotland twice, as well as 1000's of miles of other journeys.
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Couple of years ago - looked an an 1988 Mr2. Person wanted 7000 quid (include import duties in India) for the mint example as it was in mint condition. It was mechanically ok but it had some rust coming and it had been on some really rough road. I estimated a price discounting repairs and made a much lower offer - 10 minutes of verbal abuse !
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Hi Ajit
You've just remined me of another story.
I went to look at a Renault 5 with brand new 12 months MOT advertised for £250 in south Leicestershire, after learning some valuable lessons with the previous purchase (see opening post on this thread).
I arrived at the house and the chap said he was selling it for a friend to return a favour. He didn't even come out of the house, but just gave me the keys. I was immediately suspicious when I saw the severely cracked windscreen, so I took a look underneath. Rotten as a pear.
I knocked on the door and told him so. The verbal could be heard in the next village. I just left him to it. I think he was still shouting when I drove out of his cul de sac. Didn't really care though!
Hugo
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1976 and I am finishing on site early in Batley, Yorkshire to trade in my 1969 Rover 2000 for a 1974 Renault 16TX at the Renault main agent in Leeds. Waiting to turn right at a "T" I see a bus approach wanting to turn right into my road. He can't because of the width of the road; I have to go first. Good view to my right but the bus blocks the left. I edge forward and catch the bus driver's eye. Impatiently, he waves me on, so I go for it. I am about to take delivery of the car of my dreams; I am invincible.
Bang! A Ford Granada estate towing a 4-wheel trailer with some machinery on it has passed the bus on the inside and taken the Rover's rotten left front wing off completely. The trailer runs over the wing which skates up the road under the trailer's wheels shedding flakes of paint and filler as the Granada stops. There is barely a mark on the Granada's paint but the indicator is smashed. I am distraught; the Granada driver says "Oh, that'll polish out". He tells me that the indicator was cracked anyway. What a gent!
I did the deal at the Renault garage for the cost of a pattern wing, a wing mirror, a sidelight/indicator unit, some paint and an hour's labour.
Lesson learned, but was I lucky or what?
Hawkeye
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Stranger in a strange land
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The car I am trying to sell at the moment (ee the classifieds on this very site). The only people to have spoken to me about it are my workmates, laughing at me, and canvassers! Seriously, do people think I am asking too much for this car?
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The car I am trying to sell at the moment (ee the classifieds on this very site). The only people to have spoken to me about it are my workmates, laughing at me, and canvassers! Seriously, do people think I am asking too much for this car?
Seems dear to me.
Personally I'd sooner buy the Galant listed underneath since it would probably be more reliable and the wife and I could take a 4-week holiday in NZ with the difference. But that's just my personal bias of course.
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Got a few tales from the selling side - a lot actually.
When my father had a garage from the 60' through 70's into 80's I used to work there on and off.
A lot of people would come in for something 10 years old and costing a few £100's and expect it to be like a new car.
One thing I hated was selling any Renaults or FIATs we had in. You just *knew* there would be trouble and the customer would be back. I don't think the older Renaults ran for more than a month without breaking down (even from new) so you were bound to get 'screamers'. In the end we stopped buying/selling Renaults altogether.
I remember selling a rather tidy Renault 25 (big car, like a Rover 800). It was manual. The customer rang us up a week later to say the hyraulic clutch had failed (pipe blown off slave cyliner). We refitted it. Blew off again. New pipe and fittings. Blew off again. Sent to Renault dealer (costing us money now). New M/C, pipe and S/cylinder. Month later pipe blows off again! Customer stranded for umpteenth time. Renault totally clueless - but tell us hydraulic clutch system has a design fault!
In end buy it back off angry customer and send it to auction.
I've had a hatred of Renaults ever since.
Give me a nice little Datsun Sunny or Toyota Corolla - customers were always happy and would come back for servicing and in a year or two's time for another car.
We once had a Sunny estate sold to local chimney sweep. Did about 200k miles and the head cracked. That was the only one I ever remember going wrong.
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Seriously, do people think I am asking too much for this car?
I'd say! About £1,000 too much.
£7,500 is retail money for this car. You should be looking at about £6,900 to take maybe £6750. With cars like this, extras like metallic, alloys etc are expected. Cars without these simply don't sell. Yours has the bits that will interest someone, but not at that money.
A quick look on Parkers (no definitive guide, but a good starting point : www.parkers.co.uk/pricing/used_car/valuation.aspx?...e
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