Best story of easy fix on a car you bought cheap or owner thought was broken

Ive had a few but the ones which stand out as truly simple fixes.

Fiat 850 spider.  Was being purchased as "ballast" on a return trip to NJ when delivering a car to VA.  Seller said he hadnt owned it long but it just didnt start cold and he couldnt sort it.   Paid him the paltry sum he asked and after he drove away my fiat knowledgable friend told me to put the winch away as he reached for the choke cable and fired it right up.  Seller didnt know where the choke was.

Fiat 124 sport coupe.  Seller rebuilt motor and never got it running right again.  Towed it home and set the timing correctly (it was 180 out) drove fine after that.

Early FI VW Type 3, seller couldnt get it to run after sitting for some time.  Spark was good, no fuel.  After I paid him and he walked away I cleaned the *other* set of points in the distributor which were hidden under the ignition points.  That hidden set was the trigger for the fuel injectors...worked great after that.   Same trick earned me big points with my boss on an early MB with similar setup.  They were getting ready to drop $600 on a new computer for the FI when I reminded him of the FI points.

1988RedT2 said:

I bought the T2 not running, but had a good feeling about it.  Unflooded it and it was fine.  Cleaned some nuts out of the area of the turbo, put on a front wheel bearing, and it was good to go.

The S4 cars would get sticky AFM flappers. Before the internet, they'd be listed as "will start, but they die when you try to drive them" or something similar.

I got at least 4 of those and flipped them at a profit for nothing more than oiling the flappers.

The internet has equalized the knowledge base quite a bit- now somebody just has to be fed up with something and just want it gone to get a screaming deal most of the time.

I think this thread describes half the cars I’ve ever bought. Its worth noting that I for each one of these cars besides the Bronco I offered it back to the person, letting them know it was a simple fix. if I’d found them alongside the road looking for help I would have fixed this stuff for them without asking for a thing.

$300 for a ‘00 Neon in ‘11: bad power steering pressure sensor

$200 for an ‘89 Bronco in ‘08: “bad transmission” turned out to be bad starter. 4 wheeling that same night

$250 for an ‘04 Saturn Ion: “$500 alternator replacement not worth doing” turned into $80 battery. Sold it a year later for $1.7k

My best record was two in one day:

’94 Accord supposedly had a bad trans. Turns out it was out of xmission fluid. $400 in ‘10 and it’s still going to this day. Later that night I got in touch with a guy selling a Ranger with a bad trans for $100– I was looking for a gift for a friend. I told him it may be as simple as out if trans fluid. Sure enough! He said he didn’t care and he was done with it. I’d bought a hotdog on the way over so he accepted my $97 and change :) hehe!

oh yeah the best/worst was just back earlier this year. Lady stuck alongside the road with an ‘05 Saturn minivan. Acted like alternator but then acted like a wiring fault. She said she was sick of it and was going to sell it. My ears perked up. She asked for $600 which was a bit high. I was going to argue her down to $400 until I noticed it was a loose battery cable! Ha! 

It turns out she really was in need and so she did accept my offer for her to just keep it. That was a little disappointing :)

I have so many! Have 3 that needed the fuel pump collision switch pressed...91 Miata, 95 Thunderbird and an 88 Lincoln. I think $400 was my top price!

Bad battery cables...Buick Park Avenue for free, Ranger truck for $50 and 91 Escort currently in negotiation.

Current DD was $600 and had been worked on by several mechanics who changed a bunch of sensors, timing belt etc. Had a bad spark plug caused the coil to be erratic even after the plugs had been changed. 

5 dollar Snapper mower that needed gas.

95 Mustang that had blown a head gasket. Kicker on this was I found an extended warranty and Ford fixed it for free! 

65 Mustang with a "broken camshaft". This was the one I learned to not fix it in front of the previous owner. As I was negotiating, my brother jumps in the truck and heads 5 blocks home. Work the deal, cash money and title swapped while my brother was fiddling with it. I thought he was airing tires and hooking up tow chains and such. Nope! He put a distributor in it and we drove it home. Poor guy was screaming at us teenagers and tried to call the law.

Lots of stories left!

Bruce

I must have been 16 when I got my first Sprite.  It was owned by Mr. Walker, our former junior high school music teacher, who had gone on to open a music store. I had seen the Sprite in the store parking lot, not moving for a few weeks.  The battery was dead, and someone had stolen the top off the car, right before a hurricane passed through, so it was pretty humble. I called up and asked if he might want to sell the car. Sure, he said, make him an offer.  I sheepishly offered $100.  "Sold!" was his immediate response, making me wonder if I had offered too much.

The brakes seemed OK, so my brother and I flat-towed the car home on a rope, behind Dad's van. I tried to drive the van smoothly, while my brother steered the Sprite and used its little British brakes to slow both vehicles. (That was how stupid kids like us transported cars, back then.) When we were a few blocks from home, my brother hollered that he was going to turn on the key, put it in gear and let out the clutch, to see if it would start. He did. It did.  We shut it off right away, and continued home, changed the fluids and started fixing it up.  I was SO EXCITED to have a running Sprite for $100. That car would change my life.    

62 Caddy SDV - $1500

Guy said it doesn't run and he was tired of trying to get it to run.  I gave it a thorough inspection, gave him $1500

.... WAITED UNTIL HE WENT INSIDE

put the distributor cap back on, and drove away with my new purchase

In the 80's my pop used to regularly buy non functional "autostick" VW bugs for under $100.  There was a super simple fix to the whatever the sensor on the shift lever was that engaged the clutch when you touched it . When that thing stopped working the car wouldn't go anywhere. One time he didn't have his trailer so he bought a car, reached in and reconnected the wire or whatever and got in to drive it away.  The seller was so pissed at him he tried to punch him and threw things at the car as we pulled away, one of which broke the rear window as I, a 10 year old kid was in the back seat.

Later in life as i was buying a lot of broken VW rabbits i remembered this lesson and would wait until the sellers walked away before i would do the simple fixes like snapping the ball and socket shift linkage back together before driving away. 

For many years I would check out every cheap A1 and A2 VW for sale listed with a bad transmission.  It was bad linkage 90% of the time

One Friday morning, about 15 years ago, the (now ex-)wife's son called, asking if I wanted a free truck. "Hell, yeah!" I replied, "Wait, what's wrong with it?" 

It was his co-worker's 91 GMC Sonoma, and it died as he was pulling out of the parking lot to go get breakfast for the office crew. He had had enough of it "nickle and diming" him to death, so he asked the boy if he knew anyone that wanted a free truck. Naturally, he thought of me.

I went over to his workplace that afternoon, to meet the boy, and he gave me the keys, telling me he'd be back after he returned the delivery truck. I hopped in, turned the key to see what would happen... and it fired up! I drove it up and down the street, parked it where it had been, and waited. When the boy returned, I told him to call his co-worker, so we could come pick up the title, "I'll take it"

"How are we going to get it home?" the boy asked. "We'll worry about that later; we've got all weekend." I didn't tell him it started just fine.

After collecting the title, I revealed that  it ran fine. He chuckled, saying that he wouldn't tell his co-worker, just yet.

A couple months later, though, it died, going over a speed bump in a parking lot. It turned out to be the ignition module - a $25/10minute fix.

I bought a 98 Cherokee for 900 they told me it needed an ecu. I noticed a new tps. Went to a junk yard bought the ecu and tps. From a wrecked Cherokee . Turns out the new tps was bad. Year later bought a 99 Cherokee with a  bad transmission. New tps ran shifted fine. 

I doubt there is a forum anywhwere with more stories like these.  A few of my better ones:

73 914 2.0, rust free, bought for 1500 because the "carb" was bad.  Was a fuel injection motor.  Fuel pump fuse

76 midget, no rust,new repaint, tires, top, engine in a box.  $200 because the owner was getting grief from the wife, she wanted her garage back

79 924S, 1000 on ebay.  PO spent a fortune setting up for the track. Had new springs, upgraded brakes, header, poly bushings everywhere.  Spark plug boots not pushed on.  Tracked for 3 years and sold for 3500

76 beetle, won't start.  $500. Boot to the AFM was torn.  Made a killing on that one too.

Yes I spend too much time prowling craigslist and other car fishing spots.

Best one so far is still my 95’ Escort GT that I’ve had forever.

The guy had it listed on the Ford Escort Owners Association forums for $300 as a “not running” rust-free complete car, partially disassembled (interior trim in boxes, no exhaust system, etc.).  It was about 3 hours away, which was a small distance to drive to acquire a rust free Escort in salty New England… even in ~2006 this was already fairly unicorn-y.  So my dad and I hooked up his old flatbed car hauler and headed up to Maine.  I was planning to buy a turbocharged JDM engine anyway (wound up finding a GTR engine eventually) so the fact that it “didn’t run” was not super concerning.

Upon arrival I gave the car a good once over, and the body was indeed in great shape.  It only had 102k miles on it, so there was no reason to think that the clean BP sitting in the engine bay would not run.  I asked him about the problem… I guess he had taken some things apart, and once reassembled it would no longer run correctly.  He said it would start, run for about 3 seconds, and then shut off.  We connected the battery and tried it… it did exactly that.  Interesting… I took a closer look in the engine bay and made my decision.

While the seller and I were signing paperwork and exchanging cash in the house, my dad had setup the trailer ramps and started getting the tiedowns and whatnot ready to go.  When we came back outside he asked me where he should hook up the come-along.  I told him “oh… you can probably put that away”.  He and the seller both looked at me, puzzled.

I went over to the car, plugged the airflow meter in, closed the hood, started it up, and drove it onto the trailer in deafening open-header glory … to the amazement of the seller.

Funny thing on these cars… with the airflow meter unplugged, the fuel pump won’t run aside from an initial priming pulse.

Bought the 2nd of my two infamous 1987 Mercury Cougar XR7's from the wholesale lot of a dealer my sister used to work at for $250 (just like the 1st one). Dealer said the engine was bad and it needed exhaust. Fired it up and noticed it sounded (and smelled) like my 1st Cougar did when I knocked off the MAP Sensor hose by accident once, belching black smoke and running rough. Sure enough, the hose wasn't connected. Popped it back on and drove it home! Fixed the exhaust and a few other things and drove it for nearly 2 years as my daily driver. Wish I never sold it!

Back in the early '80s, my dad found a '59 MGA in a Fayetteville NC chicken yard. The owner told him it barely ran and ended up taking $1000 for it. After a few minutes of troubleshooting, we found that the carbs were set up completely wrong and the engine was trying to run on only 1 badly tuned carb. Half an hour later, we were on the road to Raleigh. Dad restored the interior and buffed out the paint and it turned out to be a great car that's still going strong.

Not too long after that, he picked up an extremely clean, low miles '80 MGB LE for $1000, too, because it barely ran. Fortunately, we only had to nurse it around the block to get it home. The previous owner had installed an aftermarket electronic ignition to replace the dead factory Lucas ignition. It was triggered by a slotted wheel in the distributor, and the owner had used the wheel for a 6 cylinder engine! We never did figure out how the engine even ran at all with the 6 cylinder trigger wheel. The correct one was in the box of parts the owner gave my dad, and the car ran great after we swapped in the correct part. Dad went on the drive the car literally from one end of NC to the other many times.

He passed up a $1000 MGC GT because Mom was about to shoot him for dragging home British sports cars.

My youngest brother once sold an old VW he could not get to start and wouldn't let anyone help him diagnose.

Buyer showed up, cranked it a few times, gave my brother $150 and said  he would be back in a few  minutes.

Dude comes back with a can of gasoline, puts it into the gas tank, cranks it and it started as soon as the carburetor bowl filled with gasoline.   Drove away waving at my brother.    My other brother and I just stood there laughing.

In college, my friend flipped cars to pay tuition.   

He bought an Aries K car for $50 from the frustrated PO who lived the same apartment complex.   (Aries K....Motor Trend Car of the Year!)

The PO said he just replaced the alternator and was still not charging.  PO gave up.  Took $50 Cash on the spot, all my friend had in his wallet.

My friend looked at car for a few minutes and decided the "new" part wasn't working either.  The receipt and box was in the back seat.  He took off the Alternator and got a replacement for free.  Replaced it and charged the battery. 

Let the car sit for a week or two, so the PO wouldn't be upset.  Then listed in the paper.

Sold the car for $1000, from the same parking spot as the PO....

Never drove the car, just got it running.

I got nothing of my own. Once I find out something is broken I'm dumb and never go look, but on the other hand if you tell me the thing works great I'll just readily assume that is the case unless something is falling off the car when I get there.

Some friends of mine though picked up a $500 Shinka RX-8. The car didn't run, but was in great condition overall. The owner was sick of dealing with the car. They got an extra set of wheels with the car too. They towed it away and on the way home bump started it and got it running. Once they put in a new starter and coils it started and ran fine.

I got a Volvo 850 cheap because it was a 5 speed car and the previous owner had a dog that ate the driver's side seat and door panel. $75 later at the pick n pull and I had a like new door panel and seat that looked even better than the Passenger side

Almost forgot this one. Back in the day eBay used to changed less commission for "parts cars" so I always checked that section for people trying to get over on eBay. I find a 70 Cadillac DeVille vert. It's red but I swear the pictures are so small they had to take them with a flip phone. This is around 2002. It's a storage place up north in Jersey selling it because the owner stopped paying the storage fee. Anyway I won it for $250.  I call them up and pay for a few months storage until I can come get it. A couple of months later I decide I don't have time to go get it so I use the same crappy pictures but list it in the normal cars for sale section on eBay. I always do a nonrefundable deposit with balance due in 14 days. Some dude even further north wins it for $1200. He sends the deposit which covers my buy in plus the storage fees. Then he starts dragging his feet. At 14 days he hasn't paid the balance. Finally like a month into it he says he's going to overnight the final payment. That night I get a eBay message from the losing bidder asking if I sold it. I reply that I got a deposit but not final payment. This dude is in England and he says that he bought it from the high bidder. I'm like that's strange since I haven't released it to that bidder yet. Dude in England says that he really wants it and he'll pay me the $1200. Next day I still didn't get that overnight payment so I tell English dude it's his. He PayPals the whole $1200 within an hour.   I tell the storage lot that they can release it to the English guy.  Several days later I get UPS knocking on my door with an overnight package. I figure it's the first dude's payment so I refuse delivery and returned it to him. And that's how I bought a car and then sold it twice without ever seeing it in person. 

1981 Rabbit, ran like absolute dog poop, so got it for $250 from a fellow USAF officer as a project car while I was stationed at Offutt AFB.  Replaced all four spark plugs and it ran like a champ.  Nothing else really was needed to fix it.

Went on to do fun upgrades like a five speed box instead of the standard four speed, Neuspeed springs with Koni struts/shocks, and lots of Scirocco interior parts fitments (console, steering wheel, seats...).  Also sort of learned how to paint a car in the base auto shop spray booth.  Fun times !!!

1989 Firebird GTA. White, gold wheels. It's on Craigslist and story goes the owner gave it a tune up 6 months ago, but after the tune up, it would not run and had been sitting in his garage. It looked pretty good in the pictures so I drove out to look out it.

The car is really clean. Owner had kept it in nice shape. I think its pretty cool. I crank it over and it fires up, but mis fires bad and dies. I give it a close look and the it looks to me like the distributor is 180 out of phase. I make a deal on the car, push it out of the garage and tell the guy that I'm coming back with a trailer. I grab a friend and some tools. Reinstall the distributor and she fires up and drives home...

I'm feeling pretty good. But I got the car for my wife, who wanted a camaro. She sees it. And hates it. I try to explain how cool it is. Even the pop up lights cpuld not save it. She's not having it. Even after I tell her the deal is got, she just says, "well, you got a good deal. Sell it and get me a camaro"

I purchased a '92 325ic (still an E30) for $500 "runs poorly." But the interior was MINT, plastic bumpers...........I knew I would make my money back and then some just on those parts if the engine ended up screwed. 

I bought all the maintenance parts, timing belt/water pump/distro/plugs/gaskets and seals/etc. Then a friend offered me an engine for it as he had a friend with a daughter needing a new car. So I traded him the car and the parts, about $1000. And turned around and sold the engine for $3k.

Unfortunately for him, it turned out it was a broken rocker. So he replaced it, cleaned up the head, and his friend's daughter drove it the next few years. 

Around 93 timeframe bought a 81 Yamaha XS650 from my supposedly best helicopter mechanics that worked for me in the army for $100. They even delivered it to my house. I replaced the battery and added gas and it ran great. Rode it for a few years till I got a job out of town. Sat while I commuted, hauled it to where I live now and it's still sitting in the corner of my garage waiting for me to get around to it. I check it to make sure the engine hasn't locked up and lube the cylinders through the spark plugs.

1979 Fairmont, needs engine, $50. Original owner had a string of bad luck with the car and was frustrated with the now (shop diagnosed) seized engine and just wanted it out of his sight. I was the first one there because I got the newspaper as soon as it was available, but two other guys rolled in behind me and waited to see if I was going to take it. 

It was a 5 year old car at the time and a little ratty, but engines were cheap and I had lot's of energy then, so I towed it home,  pulled it in the shop and started to take things off to pull the engine... when I noticed it wasn't seized at all. Checked the starter and that was the problem. $20 for a starter and a few hours with a spray bottle of fantastic and a wet vac and I flipped it in a few days for $1250. The next day, and with that money in my pocket, I bought a 74 Firebird with rusty quarters for $450 intending to do a quick body and paint, but before I even got the chance to start it, somebody saw it in my driveway and offered me $900 for it. I made an easy $1500 that week which was a lot of money in the mid eighties.

Harvey said:

I got nothing of my own. Once I find out something is broken I'm dumb and never go look, but on the other hand if you tell me the thing works great I'll just readily assume that is the case unless something is falling off the car when I get there.

Some friends of mine though picked up a $500 Shinka RX-8. The car didn't run, but was in great condition overall. The owner was sick of dealing with the car. They got an extra set of wheels with the car too. They towed it away and on the way home bump started it and got it running. Once they put in a new starter and coils it started and ran fine.

Eh, usually a problem fixed by "starter and coils" on a Renesis is actually low compression. A new starter and higher power coils will bandaid it for a while, but essentially it needs a rebuild. I bet if they ran a compression test they would be disappointed.

In reply to Peabody :

I wish I could buy a roller Fairmont for $150 today. My favorite Fox body.