"Find one in every car, you'll see" Used car shopping guidelines?

In reply to eastsideTim :

You can often see when aftermarket hitches are used for a bike rack, they don't bother to add a wiring harness.  We have a friend with a Highlander who put on a 2" receiver for bikes but no wiring.   

No price listed, or "$1234".  If you have to ask for the price it will ALWAYS be over priced.

Steve_Jones said:

Photos taken at a gas pump. If that's all the effort you can put into selling it, gotta figure "maintenance" is not in your vocabulary. 

Gas stations have really good lighting when you work to much to take a pic at peak sunlight lol

Window tint being a redflag is hilarious to me. So is vent mounted air fresheners, bath & bodyworks have great scents!

My wife makes scent diffusers that smell even better.  

Remind me not to post my cars on GRM for sale lol

John Welsh said:

In reply to eastsideTim :

You can often see when aftermarket hitches are used for a bike rack, they don't bother to add a wiring harness.  We have a friend with a Highlander who put on a 2" receiver for bikes but no wiring.   

I wish my Volvo's PO installed a hitch.  He used a trunk mount bike carrier, which wore the paint away on the spoiler and other parts of the trunk lid.

All of my cars have trailer hitches because they are cars and I move big stuff sometimes.  It is usually the second thing I do to the car, the first being license plates. 

In reply to yupididit :

I suspect some of it is regional.  Living right on the edge of tobacco growing areas, smoking rates are higher than the national average around here.

Tint has to be a regional thing, dependent on weather and laws.  Some tinting is no big deal to me in Ohio, and laws here are pretty loose, other than front side windows.  If the car has extremely dark tint on those windows, it's likely to be a cop magnet, and everyone here knows it.  This reminds me, I need to see about getting tint installed on the Mazda5, I usually don't, but that thing has a lot of glass. 

Some things are seen around here with alarming regularity. Cautionary indicators include photos evidently taken under duress, or taken simply to provide photographic evidence that the vehicle exists, such as:

• In the driveway at night.
• Anywhere else at night, for that matter.
• In the rain.
• In the same deep grass it's been parked in for months.
• Seconds after a hasty wash, with vehicle and surroundings still wet.
• In such harsh or dappled light that the subject matter is effectively hidden in the shadows or the photo is nothing but glare.
• Washed out by flash or the reflection thereof. 
• Taken from one side only, or other lies of omission.
• Taken from an unusually long distance.
• Taken from indoors, looking at the vehicle through a kitchen window.

Other indicators that I don't want to deal with the seller or their environs, let alone whatever mess of a vehicle they are trying to off:

• Exterior photos wherein the photographer holds a finger up to obscure the license plates.
• Photos including the photographer's feet, especially if bare or in flip-flops.
• Photos including the seller's children, dogs, cats, or chickens.
• Selfies of the seller(s) to suggest that they really are totally cool, totally trustworthy people who just need a little help right now.
• Photos from several years ago to indicate what the vehicle no longer looks like. 
• Interior still contains every single piece of garbage the car has accumulated during the current period of ownership.
• Multiple floor mats of different types, and/or non-vehicle-specific mats, and/or any mats laying loose at random angles in the footwell.
• Tacky aftermarket wheels, black spray painted factory alloys, or black spray painted McParts wheel covers. 
• Suspiciously brief verbiage, such as a title reading only "bmw" and ad copy reading, "Great car text or call".
• An ad full of unrelated keywords.
• Use of "lol" anywhere in the ad copy
• Use of profanity in the ad copy.
• Misspellings or grammar errors that a typical ten-year-old would not commit.
• $1,234 or similar pricing.
• Ad placed in a city other than that in which the vehicle is located.
• "Just needs X but I'm tired of it and want a new project."
• Offers to "trade for boom sticks" (or dope, or anything else prohibited by the selling platform in question).

It is not necessary for anyone to tell me that I am shopping at the rough end of the market. I'm aware. I'm very aware.

yupididit said:

Window tint being a redflag is hilarious to me. So is vent mounted air fresheners, bath & bodyworks have great scents!

My wife makes scent diffusers that smell even better.  

 

Remind me not to post my cars on GRM for sale lol

Some of us - not many, but some - have a sensitivity to artificial fragrances that makes it damn near impossible to be near them. It's not about whether it "smells good" or not. I've had to stop walking until some gym rat got half a block away before I could continue because his man-perfume was so powerful it instantly gave me a headache and sent my sinuses into a rage when he walked past. So yeah, stinky stuff, no matter how "good" it smells, is an absolute no-go for me.

I have been with my wife for twenty years and still cannot convince her of this. She regularly puts stink trinkets in her car.

</party pooper>

Stink trinkets! I love it.

I had one customer car that had one of those liquid filled ones on the driver sunvisor. And it leaked.  On me.

Freshly washed is one thing, but I've noticed a trend of photos of the car still covered in suds at the car wash.  Why...?