With Rightsure sponsoring Gymkhana Driver, Jake Archer and my own personal interest in the motorsport of drifting, naturally, I spend a lot of time browsing online for cheap/bad car. Quite often getting carried away for significant periods of time reading descriptions and trying to ween out the good from the bad. The more I do this, the more I see similar lines being used. Some of these vehicles I’ve viewed, some I have even bought…all of them had used some creative wording to glaze over problems yet relinquish any responsibility for the seller of the vehicle. So I thought I’d put together a list so you can see when an inventive description for a vehicle is going to create you a load of issues further down the line….
Ran well but has been sitting for a while – Translates into ‘Before hiding it at the end of my garden, two years ago (due to excessive oil loss all over the drive) it ran fine. But I’ve not checked it since so it may need some TLC.
Replacement parts only cost £25 on eBay – Yeah, well If the repair was really that cheap, it would’ve been done by now. So tell me whats the real problem here?
New brakes installed this year! – But that was 11 months and 23 days ago….and you’ve driven 30,000 miles this year? Not sure those brakes will be up to much now!
New tyres installed two years ago – As above…this is NOT a selling point, nor does it make the vehicle in any way shape or form more appealing – it just tells me everything I need to know about you and how you maintain your car.
Good car to drive around town – It runs and drives however take it off the driveway and it’ll start to overheat…it won’t make it to the local supermarket, let alone a two-hour drive on the motorway (to get the car home!!)
A perfect fixer-upper – Relatively speaking, there is a fraction of the population that is capable of restoring a vehicle to a decent standard – and those people will know exactly what they are looking at when they are looking for a project – Its safe to assume those individuals won’t have bought the vehicle based on the seller advising that it is a perfect fixer-upper, they can tell for themselves…so those describing their vehicle like this are definitely hiding something, or hoping someone naive commits to buying the vehicle. 90% of the time, you’ll see the advert reappear weeks later.
Project car just needs a few simple things to finish – So, its been your baby, you’ve pumped enormous amounts of time, effort and money into building your perfect car and apparently, with the end in sight, you’ve decided to sell it now…despite it only needed a “few simple things” to finish it off. No, Nope, No Way….The seller either ran into a major problem or a major expense – FACT.
It’s an easy fix – Quite simply, If it’s an easy fix, then fix it already. You’ve got to ask yourself the question, why has the seller not carried out the work required….because the seller already tried and either found it too difficult or made things worse with a botched attempt.
The engine is a bit noisy and smokes but it still runs well – Excuse me? It’s broken. It smokes and makes noises, so it’s broken. Example…a blown head gasket will allow the car to continue to run but smoke heavily…and that’s a pretty big repair bill coming your way!
It’s a collector car – What, is it…who’s the collector? Is there only one of these collectors that exist in the entire world? No Sir, this is not a collectors car..well at least not in the eyes of 99.9% of the world’s population!
Save yourself the time and look at the next advert on the list and don’t be stuck with a bad car!
Want to save yourself some money on your car insurance?