Car buying stupidity in car parks

StereoSound

Saw a young girl and her mother buying a Polo from a car park today in Lucan.. Having my lunch with the window down sort of thing, then a 08 Polo pulls near me. This thing had obvious engine trouble. Anyways the girl and assuming it's her mum started looking at the car and they drove it around the car park. It had very obvious blue smoke coming out the back of this thing and it had an intermittent miss fire along with a tappety engine.... The engine was fooked in it IMO. Anyways the mother was more interested in the VW badge. She kept pointing at the badge and saying "Sure it's a VW they don't break down" to her daughter... She said this a few times and she also kept saying " It's Chunky". She was walking around the car and saying this several times "It's chunky". "Look how Chunky it is, it's perfect".

This was none of my business and it's not my responsibility to point out their poor judgement in an extremely obvious situation. But at one point I wanted to roar out the window and tell her "ITS A SHED FOR JAYSUS SAKE". Her and her " Sure it's a VW and it's Chunky" nonsense. So they paid the man 3k with cash in an envelope and drove off down the road with blue smoke puffing out the back. Amazing how the smoke was not a dead give away to either of them?.... Fooking blind both of them? Any idiot would at least question the smoke on this thing. It was a 1.2L petrol model... Blue smoke on a petrol motor is bad news, piston rings are fooked in it I'd say.

Big chunky VW repair bill coming your way there Mrs, Your unfortunate daughter won't be getting far in that thing. Next time you'll know to bring a mechanic before buying a car in a car park.

rameire

Joe Duffy Call on Monday, or a Facebook witch Hunt is coming.

OldMrBrennan83

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StereoSound

Patww79 wrote: »

Only thing is that if they don't know enough about cars to notice the smoke then it wouldn't even matter if they'd bought it from the sellers house, they wouldn't have an iota of comeback.

There is only one way for people to learn from situations like this and that's the "hard way"... You can point out their mistakes if you want but true learnings come down to one's mistakes. I was having my lunch and wasnt going to play mechanic and have any argument with the seller .

DaveyDave

Ah sure it's a VW it's grand...if it's looked after and actually serviced. I hate how people like that just presume without doing any research whatsoever.

Similarly how people get diesels because on paper they get 3.5L/100km rather than 4.5L but when you go round to the shops and back you'd be lucky to get 5L/100km. But sure it's a diesel they get great fuel economy. People will get them for their cheap tax, but the car cost 2 grand extra...

How many people here are driving older cars without an issue? The Luxobarge thread is a fine example.

You don't need to know anything about cars to know rattles and knocks aren't good. There's a reason why that Polo is a ****e box and many of the members on here have much older cars that run just fine because they're looked after. To be fair though you can't even get Irish people to put a half decent tyre on their car let alone getting it serviced and repaired...

Hopefully she isn't in an endless money pit, breaking down on the way to work, needing to get a new car in 6 months etc.

Cee-Jay-Cee

Everyone for themselves and all that but I personally would have got out and told them. Some low life prick has now €3000 in his pocket for a car that is pretty much worthless if correctly valued.

Del2005

Plenty of threads here where people recommend a brand or model as bullet proof and stay away from another brand because they are all crap. No model is bullet proof or crap it comes down to maintainance and a bit of luck.

CJhaughey

I bet if you'd intervened you would have got shit from the Mother /Daughter as well as the seller.
Sometimes its best just to bite your tongue and say nothing.

Del2005

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

Everyone for themselves and all that but I personally would have got out and told them. Some low life prick has now €3000 in his pocket for a car that is pretty much worthless if correctly valued.

If they'd paid €50 they could have had a mechanic check it over. There's a reason why people can sell crap cars and it's because people don't do the basics. There are plenty of websites, including this one, detailing the checks you need to do when buying a 2nd hand car yet people choose to ignore them.

James Bond Junior

I sold my car from the house a few years ago and would be slow to do it again. As the woman test drove it she revved the ****e out of it and was burning the clutch. She bought it anyway and went away dead happy. I even knocked an extra 100 quid of the price as she was a single mum needing the car to get her autistic kid to school and I felt sorry for her as she had struggled to scrape the few bob together. Fast forward two days later and I get a phone all to say the newly serviced and perfect before i sold it car has broken down and left on the side of the road. The next day It has been impounded and she misses the truck to have it collected but the garda drives It out of the yard and it's driving perfectly again. Then she hit a kerb and the tyre gets burst and the radio stops working. It was nigh impossible get rid of her and I cursed selling it from the house as she hounded me for weeks expecting me to sort it. I saw it a few weeks later outside her own house with the front bumper in ribbons and it was gone again never to be seen 2 months later. Moral of the story, don't sell outside your house.

Guy:Incognito

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

Everyone for themselves and all that but I personally would have got out and told them. Some low life prick has now €3000 in his pocket for a car that is pretty much worthless if correctly valued.

If it was as bad as the ok describes then the seller has made no effort to hide it's issues.

pablo128

The eejits don't even listen to mechanics. I went to look at a Punto a few years ago for someone. After driving it and speaking to the seller, I turned and told your man straight out not to buy the car.

He bought it.

Oops!

Why did he even bring you??

Cee-Jay-Cee

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

If it was as bad as the ok describes then the seller has made no effort to hide it's issues.

He got €3000 for it which makes him a crook in my book. Just because you don't try and hide something doesn't give you the right to fleece someone who doesn't know any different.

allthedoyles

I've seen this from both sides . We sold a VW Polo in a carpark to a few foreign nationals . We told them it had no NCT and would unlikely pass due to emissions . ( we had spent hundreds and could'nt sort it ) . The engine was shaking and they asked us why it was shaking , but we didn't know why. They still bought it .

More recently we met a guy in a car park . He was selling car . The first question I asked him was '' how far did you come to meet us '' and he said '' Oh I just live in the next housing estate up the road .'' Dodgy to me . Had a mechanic check the car there and after 5 minutes , we were gone . It was looked lovely but mechanic found many issues .
.

Atlantic Dawn

The basic rule number 1 of buying a used car private is to buy from the owner registered on the logbook, fail this and you reap what you sow.

ShadowHearth

CJhaughey wrote: »

I bet if you'd intervened you would have got shit from the Mother /Daughter as well as the seller.
Sometimes its best just to bite your tongue and say nothing.

Maybe its best, but I would be the fool who would go out there and try to help them.
Yeah, I might have gotten **** for it, but at least I would know I tried.
Doing nothing can be worse then trying and making a bad decision.

bazz26

Some people need protection from themselves and in alot of cases a lesson earned is really the only way a lesson is learned by them. It's a hard call intervening in such matters as you don't know how it will play out. You simply don't know who you are dealing with from both sides.

Del2005

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

He got €3000 for it which makes him a crook in my book. Just because you don't try and hide something doesn't give you the right to fleece someone who doesn't know any different.

He did not fleece anyone. He presented a car, granted in a jock, and asked for an amount which the buyer was happy to pay. He didn't hide anything that a basic bit of research would have highlighted as an issue. Would it have been better if he'd drained the oil so that it wasn't smoking?

If someone can buy something on the Internet then they can research how to buy it on the Internet.

shaunr68

StereoSound wrote: »

So they paid the man 3k with cash in an envelope and drove off down the road with blue smoke puffing out the back. Amazing how the smoke was not a dead give away to either of them?.... Fooking blind both of them? Any idiot would at least question the smoke on this thing. It was a 1.2L petrol model... Blue smoke on a petrol motor is bad news, piston rings are fooked in it I'd say.

Big chunky VW repair bill coming your way there Mrs, Your unfortunate daughter won't be getting far in that thing. Next time you'll know to bring a mechanic before buying a car in a car park.

Wow you must have been up close to have been able to count the cash in the envelope

Sorry but standing by watching someone getting shafted by some scumbag is cowardly and immoral. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Toyotafanboi

To play devils advocate a little bit, those Polo 1.2 engines, particularly the 12v ones rock back and forth in the engine bay when they are ticking over like nobodies business. They were like that when they were brand new and you see examples with 200k kms which havnt gotten any worse (probably because there isn't room to move further).

They are also a seriously loud petrol engine. They really are very droney, almost squealing when revved, again, even ones in good condition.

The car may have been in average, perfectly serviceable condition for a Polo. Those three cylinders have zero refinement whatsoever, they are awful.

evolving_doors

shaunr68 wrote: »

Wow you must have been up close to have been able to count the cash in the envelope

Sorry but standing by watching someone getting shafted by some scumbag is cowardly and immoral. You should be ashamed of yourself.

They are paying 3k for a very valuable piece of education. For them it's money well spent.

I see idiots pay over 700 for a new phone all the time.

CJhaughey

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Maybe its best, but I would be the fool who would go out there and try to help them.
Yeah, I might have gotten **** for it, but at least I would know I tried.
Doing nothing can be worse then trying and making a bad decision.

The issue comes when the buyer/s have convinced themselves that they have found a great deal. You coming in unknown to them or the seller and telling them that the car is poor can raise alarm bells, and make them think that you are trying to buy it.
People can be very strange when it comes to things like this, I have experience of similar and when I thought I was doing the right thing they didn't see it the same way.
Now unless I am specifically asked I don't bother offering an opinion as it often offends.
Hard to win either way and you could say that I wasn't doing what is morally right but at the end of it people have to learn to be adult about decisions they make in adult life and often they come from life experiences like this one.

OldMrBrennan83

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demanufactured

James Bond Junior wrote: »

I sold my car from the house a few years ago and would be slow to do it again. As the woman test drove it she revved the ****e out of it and was burning the clutch. She bought it anyway and went away dead happy. I even knocked an extra 100 quid of the price as she was a single mum needing the car to get her autistic kid to school and I felt sorry for her as she had struggled to scrape the few bob together. Fast forward two days later and I get a phone all to say the newly serviced and perfect before i sold it car has broken down and left on the side of the road. The next day It has been impounded and she misses the truck to have it collected but the garda drives It out of the yard and it's driving perfectly again. Then she hit a kerb and the tyre gets burst and the radio stops working. It was nigh impossible get rid of her and I cursed selling it from the house as she hounded me for weeks expecting me to sort it. I saw it a few weeks later outside her own house with the front bumper in ribbons and it was gone again never to be seen 2 months later. Moral of the story, don't sell outside your house.

I hope you didn't do anything for her , you were under no obligation.

James Bond Junior

demanufactured wrote: »

I hope you didn't do anything for her , you were under no obligation.

You'd be right. I knew she would wreck the car herself by the way she drove it. She was from one of the more colourful areas of limerick and not very far away from my own house so I was afraid if come back home to a smashed window or a burglary but thankfully not.

storker

pablo128 wrote: »

The eejits don't even listen to mechanics. I went to look at a Punto a few years ago for someone. After driving it and speaking to the seller, I turned and told your man straight out not to buy the car.

He bought it.

People are strange alright. The last time I brought my regular mechanic to view a car I really grilled him on it. He looked it over and we took it for a spin and he said it was grand. After a couple of are-you-sures and what-about-the-whatevers I finally accepted that it might actually be grand, so I bought it. As it turned out, it was grand.

shaunr68

evolving_doors wrote: »

They are paying 3k for a very valuable piece of education. For them it's money well spent.

Vile attitude, so people deserve to get ripped off and it's their own fault if they're a bit naive and fall for it. I hope a vulnerable, elderly relative of yours hands over their life savings to some itinerant driveway contractors.

It would serve them right, eh?

blade1

evolving_doors wrote: »

I see idiots pay over 700 for a new phone all the time.

I've seen bigger idiots getting "free" phones and stuck in 2 year contracts paying €60 a month.
Bad comparison in fairness.
You'll be covered for a minimum of a year if there's a fault with the phone.

StereoSound

shaunr68 wrote: »

Wow you must have been up close to have been able to count the cash in the envelope

Sorry but standing by watching someone getting shafted by some scumbag is cowardly and immoral. You should be ashamed of yourself.

I was close enough eating my big sandwich role, I heard them agree on 3k, is that alright for ya?

It's not my business to intervene.... And like someone else already pointed out I don't know who exactly I am dealing with and have no idea how it would play out.

Lesson 1: If in doubt DONT DO IT....

blade1

Remember, it's not just shady carpark sellers that prey on the gullible.
My niece, for her 17th birthday went off and bought a car off a "car dealers" in Waterford.

You should have seen the piece of crap they sold her.
Obviously it was taking in as a trade and I'd say not one glance was given to it to see if was roadworthy.

Too much wrong with it to list but I popped the bonnet and you could see a kink along one side where it got a slap at some stage,along with almost paper thin brake discs,a stuck front caliper,headlights so discoloured you could barely see at driving in the dark and a load more things.

I told her bring it back to them, point out some of the things wrong and tell them they are a disgrace for putting a deathtrap on the road and you want your money back or you will be taking matters further.

They just handed her the money back.
Just goes to show, they just took a chance and probably thought hopefully it won't come back.
Chancers!!!

I told her don't ever do that again.
She said as it was a dealer she thought she could trust them! :rolleyes:

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

shaunr68

StereoSound wrote: »

I was close enough eating my big sandwich role, I heard them agree on 3k, is that alright for ya?

It's not my business to intervene.... And like someone else already pointed out I don't know who exactly I am dealing with and have no idea how it would play out.

Lesson 1: If in doubt DONT DO IT....

I agree, if you'd said the seller looked like a bit of a headcase and you didn't fancy getting stabbed, fair enough. I wouldn't either. But it's the apparent glee at seeing someone ripped off and the crass conclusion from some in this thread that it's their own fault for being so gullible that I find so mean spirited.

jca

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

Everyone for themselves and all that but I personally would have got out and told them. Some low life prick has now €3000 in his pocket for a car that is pretty much worthless if correctly valued.

So would I, I'd have told them to run a mile, chunky or not. She'll need at least another€1000 to replace that engine, if she can get one.

kona

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

He got €3000 for it which makes him a crook in my book. Just because you don't try and hide something doesn't give you the right to fleece someone who doesn't know any different.

Eh its called idiot tax. The mother and her daughter are both idiots.

dmc17

evolving_doors wrote: »

They are paying 3k for a very valuable piece of education. For them it's money well spent.

I see idiots pay over 700 for a new phone all the time.

Plus, they saved 50 quid by not getting a mechanic, so all in all a good days work

corks finest

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

Everyone for themselves and all that but I personally would have got out and told them. Some low life prick has now €3000 in his pocket for a car that is pretty much worthless if correctly valued.

And me

Toyotafanboi

Ah I don't know lads, personally I'd consider it none of my beeswax.

You'd need to be a serious mechanic to be able to tell by looking at a car from the other side of the carpark that it had mechanical trouble. A whiff of blue smoke isn't ideal from a modern petrol car, certainly but it's not my place to step in as the private transaction consumer protection police based on that alone and either offend the women or be harrased by the seller.

For all you know they were two female mechanics buying it as a fixer upper. The whole story is a bit dodge to me.

Guy:Incognito

For all we know the bloke selling it was a clueless eejit too that figured "Its a vw, it's grand"

But sure, he's a bloke, so must know all about cars and is out to screw people.

bear1

Personally I'd have told them.
If the seller would give **** then you could give **** back and be calm knowing you tried to help.
3k is a lot of lose on a **** box and it's a pity that they were so clueless as to what the car is going to be like.
People seem to focus on the badge only.

Alfa -> **** box cause well it's an alfa.
Anything German -> ah yeah I know it's pissing smoke out the pipe but it's a vw!
Renault -> ah those are terrible cause you know it's French like.

If it was as bad as you say then the family will learn an expensive lesson.

SCOOP 64

Op, how did you know it was 3 grand in the envelope ?

punisher5112

SCOOP 64 wrote: »

Op, how did you know it was 3 grand in the envelope ?

He was the sellers partner just feels bad and his conscience is at him ;-)

StereoSound

SCOOP 64 wrote: »

Op, how did you know it was 3 grand in the envelope ?

I heard them agree on the figure, they were a close enough to me doing the deal.

Sam Kade

evolving_doors wrote: »

They are paying 3k for a very valuable piece of education. For them it's money well spent.

I see idiots pay over 700 for a new phone all the time.

Why are you an idiot if you pay over 700 for a phone?

Sam Kade

evolving_doors wrote: »

They are paying 3k for a very valuable piece of education. For them it's money well spent.

I see idiots pay over 700 for a new phone all the time.

Why are you an idiot if you pay over 700 for a phone?

punisher5112

Sam Kade wrote: »

Why are you an idiot if you pay over 700 for a phone?

Because phone cost about $20 or less to make.

Eric Cartman

punisher5112 wrote: »

Because phone cost about $20 or less to make.

and all the Research, design team, software developers, tooling, initial production runs , testing, CE/FCC approval , marketing and carrier approval were all free.......:rolleyes:

MAJJ

Mad to not have a mechanic check. I nearly bought an 'immaculate car' but had a slight doubt on a panel alignment. Asked could my friend look and then called a mechanic buddy he came out plugged in his diagnostic scanner, feck in airbag codes all over. Should have seen the impish look from seller as I had already asked was it crashed. Bullet dodgy, pints bought and a really lesson learned for me.

punisher5112

Eric Cartman wrote: »

and all the Research, design team, software developers, tooling, initial production runs , testing, CE/FCC approval , marketing and carrier approval were all free.......:rolleyes:

Of course.

colm_mcm

punisher5112 wrote: »

Because phone cost about $20 or less to make.

Nope, components alone cost them 1/3 of the RRP on an iPhone 7 for example

bear1

punisher5112 wrote: »

Because phone cost about $20 or less to make.

How are you going to back up that claim?
Back in 2015 it cost Samsung 215 usd to manufacture one phone.