Got a terrible, or just plain funny Craigslist car story. Let's hear it.

I'll start with mine form this weekend.

Was browsing CL for Z32 300ZX's, looking for something I could drive daily and fix up slowly, when I happen to see a slicktop relatively close to me, oh snap! I'v had a T-Top Z32 before, loved it, had to sell when I had my kid, always wanted a slicktop ever since then. Only 3 pictures in the ad, but looks decent on 2 sides I can see. Very short description, "runs good, shifts good, manual." Okay time to call this dude and get more info. Call him up, chat about the car, again says it runs good, says it's his GF's car so he doesn't know much about it. Body's in good shape, no rust blah blah. I decide to make the 2 hour trip, and if it's good enough to make the 2 hour drive home and I can get it for less than asking price, I'll have it.

I leave early Saturday morning, get halfway there, guy calls, "car won't start"... great. He was washing off the leaves and crap from around the engine bay and now the car won't even attempt to crank. Ughh... Okay well I'm halfway there, might as well see what's up, guy doesn't sound too mechanical, so I can probably fix it (with my prior Z32 experience I know some weak points I can check)

Get there, guy still hasn't been able to get it started. I go to check to see if the clutch switch is getting engaged, open the door and am hit square in the face with that sickly sweet moldy carpet smell. This is exactly why I wanted a slicktop, no leaky T-Tops, WTH? I digress. I check the clutch switch, it's engaging, but I also notice it has one of those old really janky "chip type" security systems. I check the chip, it's in upside down. Unplug it, turn it over, car starts right up (that'll be 1 hour labor @ $60 please.)

Car sounds rough, maybe the old exhaust. Take it for a spin, immediately can tell it's down on power. Probably an injector (known failure point) or coil. Definitely only running on 5 cylinders.

Pull over in a cul-de-sac, to check over a little more thorough. This cars had a rough life, a very poor respray has left over spray on all the weather stripping and under hood. I could tell it had been repainted from the pictures, it wasn't a factory color for that year, but I couldn't tell it was this bad.

Find the source of the moldy smell. The rear window seal has perished and is letting water in big time, RIP hatch carpet. While I'm doing this I walk around to the front and there is now a nice puddle of coolant forming under the car. Sure enough waterpump is leaking like a sieve. Well.. that's the final nail in the coffin for this one. My one rule was I had to be able to drive it back the 2 hours to the house.

Drive it back to the seller, on the way steam is just starting to pour out of the empty radio cavity in the dash and vents. I just start laughing like an idiot. Was only 1/4 mile away so get the car back, tell him whats wrong and that in it's current state, it's a $500 car not a $2500 car like he had it advertised. I wasn't expecting much from a $2500 24 year old car, but I was expecting it to make it more than 1/4 mile.

Drive the 2 hours home and start browsing CL.. this time for a Maserati Bi-Turbo..

Couple of years ago I went to look at a cheapish suburban. It looked ok in the pics and the guy told me it had a broken out window. Drive 1.5 hours to check it out and he isn't there. Call and he'll be home soon so please go ahead and check out the truck. Drivers seat is shredded, interior is filthy and or broken everywhere I look. Well, it's got new tires and the body looks good so let's stay.....

He gets home and tosses me the keys, fire this bad boy up and.... HOLY E36 M3 it's loud! "Oh yeah, I cut off the exhaust just under the front seats." he tells me. Apparently he thinks this is "cool"

Take it out for a spin, first time I step on the gas my seat rocks back 30 degrees. No bolts holding the drivers seat down.

Pull back in to the drive and coolant pouring out around the water pump. "Yeah, I should have mentioned that, but don't worry it didn't get too hot."

I'm out, what a E36 M3 show.

Tried to sell a damaged Civic for $1500 and put my cell phone number in the ad. Should have known what sort of volume of calls that would get. Let's just say that if I were a horrible person, wanted to annoy someone, and had their cell phone number, I'd make a Craigslist add for a $1500 Civic and put their number in it.

Kind of funny/sad story...

A few years ago I went to look at a 1985 Civic 1300 Hatchback that looked Ok in the pictures. (back story - I had a 1300 CRX and liked the motor for GREAT fuel economy and was needing something like that for a DD again). Guy said it ran, but not good. I got there and looked over the car and talked with the guy a bit. He had a new family and was delivering pizza in a 80's Ford van just to get by. He had paid a "professional" mechanic to fix the civic (blown head gasket and had 2-3 other mechanics look at it afterward), but it still didn't run right. I took it for a spin and it was WAY down on power. I aksed him if I could take a look at a few things and ran a quick compression check. Down on two cylinders...I should have just stopped there. But I pulled the valve cover and found the timing belt was installed a tooth off and the valves were WAY out of adjustment. I reset the timing belt and the set valves using the old air-colled VW trick of .010" being close to a match book thicknes. Put everything back together and it ran like a new car! The guy was so tickled with the way it ran, he didn't want to sell it any more, but said he would still sell it to me if I wanted it. It was rougher that I wanted and I told the guy he needed it more than I did...and walked away.

Mines a pretty good story that ended well: Been browsing for awhile trying to find a furst gen datsun Z to go with my second gen. Find one about an hour away for 1000$. Doesnt seem to bad. Guy sends more pics, including ones that show the giant ass speaker box taking up the entire hatch. I say no thanks.

About a month later same guy texts back and says for 500$ its yours. I say berkeley yea and head there the next weekend. Not only did I get a decent Z for a stupid price but the guy's girlfriend also made him give me all of his spare parts. Made out like a bandit on that deal.

In reply to tedium850:

The world needs more people like you.

Went to look at a Hilux one time in Ontario. It was supposedly in good shape, ready to drive and didn't have much rust other than the fenders. Obviously the pic was old because there was a lot less outer fender left than seen in the pic. The shocks were solid lumps of shipwreck rust. Had a few electrical problems. Steering and brakes were questionable.

But the deal-breaker was when I started the test drive, I was looking for the handbrake, and felt like an idiot for not being able to find it. Looked for traditional lever-type handbrakes, pedal-type handbrake, even pull-rod types and column levers. I finally had to ask the owner where the handbrake was, feeling like I was wearing a giant dunce cap, and he tells me "in the house."

"Ready to drive" car with electrical problems that would make it fail inspection, pure iron oxide dampers, and no parking brake

Question, why are you guys working on the car with out negotiating a running and a non-running/bad-running price?

I found a nice Acura Integra that I wanted to grab for $500. I email the seller and say I want to stop by and look at the car immediatly, cash in hand in case it fits what I want. Get a reply with "sure, let me know a good time". So I reply, "Tonight, tomorrow night, any day this week after 5pm." Get a reply with "OK, it need brakes". Yes, I know that from the listing. When can we meet dude? I email a few more times and get polite replies like, "I work till 5 so it will have to be in the evening". Ok, so shoot me an address and a time already! Then he replies "will have to be Saturday or Sunday". WTF? OK, fine, I reply with "OK, Saturday 10am. What's the address?" He replies with "I updated the listing to show everything that it needs." Thanks, now more people will be interested in the flip that I should already own. I press again for a date/time to meet and I will give you cash and drive it home, but the seller never replies again.

WHY do people list things, and even update their listing, if they are not willing to actually sell the item?

pinchvalve wrote: WHY do people list things, and even update their listing, if they are not willing to actually sell the item?

This always perplexes me. I found an ad for a really nice hardly used Jenn-Air Grill. Text, no response, Call, no answer, leave VM, never get a call back. Call one last time, he picks up, says he can't talk he's at work, still has the grill, will call me back, never does. Well, I guess you're not in a hurry to sell, I don't get it either.

I'm guessing because at times we just can't help fiddling with things that are probably easy to fix. And sometimes, as tedium said- they need the car more than we do.

Closest I have is the Miata I went up to try and get from Dayton (about a 2 hour drive). Largely rust-free NA with a matching hard top, had negotiated the price down to $1700. Seller said that it ran well but the A/C didn't work. Back and forth with the seller seemed to check out with the only hitch being that the seller himself was in Georgia and the car had been left with his Father-in-law. Weighed the options and decided it was a good enough deal to take the chance. Unfortunately SWMBO's work schedule meant she couldn't take me up to get it, so I rented a car (ended up being given a full-size Ram truck by the rental company...) to drive up one-way and drive the Miata back.

Get up there and look the car over- looks dirty but otherwise as described. Check everything over and fire it up to drive around the block. It seems a bit sluggish and had a hard time keeping idle when in drive with a foot on the brake- but being an automatic I wasn't too surprised at either. Was pretty convinced it was going to work out after the drive, but we left it running so I could check and if necessary fill the transmission fluid. After running for the test drive and sitting for a few minutes idling while we checked and filled the ATF, I blipped the throttle a few times- and notice a cloud of white smoke coming from the back of the car. It's just SPEWING sweet white smoke- clearly burning a lot of coolant.

Seller's FIL was very surprised- but it had sat in his back yard for a while and only been run for a short while to move it out to the driveway for me to look at it. Called up the seller and he was also apparently surprised. My best guess augmented by the input from a friend-of-a-friend who knows Answers very well was that the head gasket was shot. Ended up having to drive the rental back home instead and was never able to work out an amenable adjusted price for it with the seller, so wasted the rental cost and the fuel going up to look at it- and SWMBO was not pleased with me for the whole adventure in the first place (and would have been even less pleased had I actually bought it...).

Amusingly, it's still listed- at the original price and with no mention of the engine issue... http://dayton.craigslist.org/cto/5173631445.html

In reply to trigun7469:

I actually had talked the guy down in price. I think he was asking $900 and I told him I couldn't give more than $600 with it in the shape it was. He even accepted the offer....before I worked on it. After I got it working, I just felt like the guy and his family needed a break. A civic is a much better pizza delivery vehicle than a van as far as costs go. That being said, it wasn't my responsibility to give him the break, I could have just as easily taken the car and enjoyed the 50+ mpg myself. There would have been no hard feelings either way...

In reply to Ed Higginbotham:

Thank you...I have my good moments.

MadScientistMatt wrote: Tried to sell a damaged Civic for $1500 and put my cell phone number in the ad. Should have known what sort of volume of calls that would get. Let's just say that if I were a horrible person, wanted to annoy someone, and had their cell phone number, I'd make a Craigslist add for a $1500 Civic and put their number in it.

Similar thing happened to a roommate in the early 90's. It was before CL, it was the Penny Saver in LA (same idea, free listing, just in a cheap published book every week). Roommate has a decent looking late 80 Datsun mini truck (VERY popular car at the time). It's missing smog equipment, so can't be smogged (people getting around smog was still pretty doable) so she advertised it at $1500.

We got a phone call, the day the paper came out, at 4 am!!! First of all, what an a-hole, why would you sell anything to anyone that calls you at 4 am. Secondly, he had to work at the place, or know someone, the paper wasn't even distributed until 6 am or so. Many, many phone calls followed that one!

As I remember, she upped the price a bit and still sold it very easily.

In reply to tedium850: That's just good karma. +1 point for you.

Not a craigslist, but funny one prior to the interwebs.

I looked through the local paper or trader's post ( I can't remember that part) when I was 17 or so and found a motorcycle that I HAD to have (Suzuki GT550) that was advertised as may or may not run. My brother and I went to look at it and it was complete but not running. Against my better judgement, which I didn't have at 17, I agreed to buy it as is and told the guy I'd get a truck to come back and pick it up. Being 17 or so he talked he into fitting it in the back of my mom's 1982 Subaru wagon. So my brother myself and a fairly large, out of shape guy actually fit a gt550 in the back of a Subaru wagon! I thought the guy was going to stroke out on us since he was huffing ang puffing so much...but we did get it home. I'm sure it was funny to watch us load and unload that beast and drive down the road with a motorcycle half hanging out the back...sad that it never ran good and got parted out and scraped later on...

A sweet early 242DL was listed on CL, photoed well, seller listed a bunch of work a shop had done, and that the engine had a burned valve. It was originally listed at some silly price like $3K, and while I liked the car, I wasn't going to give the seller the time of day at that price.

Over the course of a month or so, the car was relisted, copy-and-paste of the same ad, about $500 cheaper every 3 or 4 days.

Seller finally got down to $1500 OBO, and I made contact, via email (that's important), I have a "special" CL, potential SPAM, and survey email address I use to keep the clutter from my "real" email address. I got a lot of pictures, more info and details on issues, why they thought it had a burnt valve, etc. I consulted the great hive mind that is GRM, and SWMBO. I decided that there's no way I'd give more than $1K for the car as described, and in photos.

Via email, I thanked the seller, and as tactfully as I could in type, let them know that $1500 wouldn't happen, and based on their description and photos, with out having seen it in person, I doubted that I'd be willing to give more than a $1000 for it. That was the end of our correspondence, no response, didn't hear from them again. The next day the ad was gone. I decided that I either offended the seller, or they sold it. Shucks. So I just forgot about it.

A couple days later a friend sends me a link to a new copy-and-paste of the same ad, this time $1000 OBO. So I made contact again, this time via text message. I never pretended that I wasn't the same guy that had been previously emailing with the seller, but I never came out and told them who I was either. I managed to keep my name out of it until we met.

I set up a time to meet the seller, at the shop the car was at, borrowed a truck and trailer from my folks, and headed down with SWMBO riding shotgun. We had been working on a "plan of attack," so to speak, I told SWMBO that I wasn't comfortable giving $1K for the car, I thought we could get it for less, and we decided that $750 was the number to shoot for.

We show up, seller is patiently waiting, opens the car for us, gives me the keys, I attempt to crank it, battery is dead. The Corolla or whatever economy car the seller had drove didn't have the juice to crank the car with jumper cables, and the truck with trailer was parked in this small service lot in a way that would have made it really difficult to get it nose to nose with the car for a jump.

Strike 1, the car won't start, I do my best used car salesman walk around, and point out all the flaws, I pull the carpet back and show the rusty floor pan the seller was previously oblivious to, etc.

I let the seller throw out the first number, as I ask, "alright, what's the bottom dollar?" Seller hems, and haws, then struggles to say, "I guess I'd take $800."

I said, "close." Then pointed to SWMBO, and said, "on the way down here, she told me I couldn't spend more than $750." The seller started to try and rationalize their asking price with me, I just shook my head, said "sorry," pointed to SWMBO, and told the seller, "she's who you've got to convince."

The seller turned to SWMBO, and started in on her, "did he show you the pictures?" "Did you see it washed and waxed?" SWMBO just stared a hole through the seller, and said something like, "oh yeah, I've seen it all." SWMBO didn't budge, the seller looked down, then back and forth at SWMBO and I, then said "okay, $750," as they stuck out their hand to shake on it.

When we had the car on the trailer, no small feat I might add, I handed the seller cash, and they signed the title over. When the seller saw me write my full name on the title, their body language, and the slight double take they did, led me to believe, that at that moment they realized I was the same ass hole that had offended them on the pricing and they had cutoff communication with via email earlier in the week.

A few years back, I was selling a 93? miata sans quite a few parts... was missing all the interior, top, etc. I had started parting it out, and had already doubled my money (got it for $1k w/ a hardtop). And decided I just wanted my garage space back, so put it up on CL for $800 i think?

Had a couple weird car related trades. And then someone offered up the weirdest trade I ever: "a bunch of lego star wars in box & a whole collection of spawn figures"

I may or may not have been boozing one night and posted a pic of my buddies sweet Jeep Wrangler, his cell number, and the words "will consider all trades" on CL.

He was PISSED!

I still don't think he knows I may or may not have done it.

Before CL, local trader paper. I posted my 81 K5 Blazer for sale. 250 6-cyl was getting kind of tired and needed a rebuild or swap to small block. Guy calls and said he has a early 70's Chevy truck w/shell he can trade w/small cash. He brings it over and said a fresh rebuilt small block but doesn't run right. Carb issue. OK, simple. I can fix that. Walked around the truck and got a closer look. Doors rattled and can see the ground from inside the bed. He thinks it's worth what my K5 is. Tell him no thanks, trying to get out of working on my driver. That is more work than my K5.

Went to look at a SAAB 900 turbo, listed at 1500 on CL. Seller said a couple of things that didn't quite sound right in the ad, but we still weren't prepared for the sight of the car. It was listed as having a couple of minor dents, and boosting sweetly.
When we arrived, the couple of minor dents had morphed into a front end shunt severe enough to have pushed the bumper back up to the radiator and with both headlights broken on the inner corner adjuster. The car had enough mud splattered all over to pass for a rally Subaru, and it hadn't rained for a couple of weeks prior to this night...

The seller was still eager to fire it up for us, and only let us know it might need muffler work a second before splitting our eardrums with the sound off just the downpipe after the turbo, no exhaust at all. Pure CO right under the passenger floorboard, where his wife was sitting the entire time. She may have been reluctant to get out as she (being a person of restricted growth) would have had to jump down about a foot from the seat. The rest of the interior we could see around her was filled with enough trash to indicate that her miniature grumpyness never actually left the vehicle.

He went on to exclaim above the roaring exhaust and clattering lifters that he loved driving this "German luxury car," but didn't know much about maintaining it. As if there wasn't enough noise coming from our corner of the Kroger parking lot, he leaned in and revved it.

Anyone who knows turbos knows that they shouldn't hiss as the boost builds, but that's all this one did. I asked if he knew how far up the boost gauge went, into the yellow or up to the edge of the red, and he said it didn't move. Of course, he didn't know that that was what the boost gauge was for. ... He thought it had something to do with the battery.

Opening the hood showed one of the main pipes from turbo to intercooler was split open like a pita, so all the turbo was doing was making more noise...

He refused our offer of 500, and we went on our separate ways. As we had driven our Swedish SAAB 900 convertible to the Krogers with the top down, we could still hear his German luxury SAAB roaring, clattering, and squealing off into the night for half our drive home in the opposite direction. ..

Went to look at an X type with "minor" frount end damage. Seller sent me a 3/4 rear photo. Called back wanting a photo of the damage but the seller said it was against the fence and could not do it.

The back story is that it was a low millage 45k 2008 with all the options. Seller was asking $4250. I was hoping to get it for $3500.

Anyway drive the 100 miles to go see it and it was indeed a excellent car.... . . from the A pillars back. The car needed a complete frount clip hood fenders and everything that included the HID headlights and all the coolers, Rad, condenser and the top rad support was bent. It did start and run and did not appear to leak (not sure it had coolant in it). I offered 1500 knowing they could part it for the asking price. When I mentioned the add stating "Minor Damage". The guy was apologetic and explained that his people place the adds and they are not really car people. He gave me a great deal on some other parts so the trip was not a complete loss.

We parted friends as I hope they call me back. It is fixable and I priced out all the parts and came in at less than 2k but in the end I would expect that number to double. It still would be a great car for the $$$ and I have found that these cars are actually easy to work on. The ford bloodline actually helps with this.

ZacAutox wrote: A few years back, I was selling a 93? miata sans quite a few parts... was missing all the interior, top, etc. I had started parting it out, and had already doubled my money (got it for $1k w/ a hardtop). And decided I just wanted my garage space back, so put it up on CL for $800 i think? Had a couple weird car related trades. And then someone offered up the weirdest trade I ever: "a bunch of lego star wars in box & a whole collection of spawn figures"

Go price LEGO Starwars mini-figures on E-Bay. That trade was wroth it.

I went to look at a 71 Corvette with a buddy (for said buddy). This was pre-Craigslist, but not pre-internet.

We drove from Syracuse to somewhere in Ohio. We pull up and there's this Corvette faced out of a driveway. It all looks reasonable until I crouch near the rear end, and I see one bumper has a giant stack of washers while the other is flush.

I crawled underneath and saw that the rear two feet has been glued on the top of the original rear end, which was seriously mangled and left under the new rear clip. Climbing back on top, I could see the line going all of the way across the deck lid where the seam was.

Hilariously, he sold it to another guy while we were still looking and laughing at it.

(Rant): I've been trying to buy a car and basically so far if it's cheap it's either a scam or you'll never get your e-mail or text returned. interestingly, the number of spam phone calls that I receive on my cell-phone has tripled, so I'm fairly sure that one of these a-holes has sold my number to a telemarketer - who sold it to his buddy, et cetera. Grrrrrr.