Selling cars - your best stories

I sold our BMW Wagon yesterday to an older couple that turned out to be perfect buyers - Showed up, checked out car, payed full price, drove off. It had me remembering some past experiences from selling cars.

Selling a 2008 Miata:

This was a sweet machine in copper red and tan leather, with foldable hardtop, bilsteins, the "big" engine, manual 6speed and a proper diff. A middle aged gentlemen called and asked if he could come by in 20min. He stepped out of his car and walked with a cane up to the Miata, straight to the drivers door. I gave him the keys and we went for a test driver - he took it around the block and bogged it in 3rd, while saying "This is a really nice car". Back home again, he said "I'll give you half now and the rest tomorrow when I pick it up", which he did, no haggling. He had not opened the bonnet or even walked around the car at this point! After we had shaken hands he said "I was just at the hospital and they said I'm going to die pretty soon. So I might as well buy a cool car". Trust me: there is no good answer for that statement.

Selling an 1956 Opel:

I had a nicely restored vintage Opel for sale and a buyer who said he "might check it out as he was driving by". When buyer #2 called, I might have said that I had a buyer "lined up" to communicate some sense of urgency. She just had to have the car! (This was a $3500 car, so perhaps no mega investment). I told her to send me a down payment of $500 and I'd hold it for her, which she did. When she arrived with the rest of the cash, she had her whole family with her and their mindset was 100% that the deal was done and there was no need to scrutinize or check anything. They just loved the car right away with the kids yelling "Look, our Opel!" as soon as they arrived, climbing in it and checking it out. It was such a nice and fun change compared to nitpicking buyers picking cars apart and checking every millimeter and I just knew that they would enjoy it. I had to teach them to drive a column shifter, and what "lead additives" was, among other things.

What good stories do you have?

several years ago i listed my fix'n'flip miata on eBay.   guy from other side of state says "i'll give you $1800 (iirc) for it, i'll be there tomorrow after work."  so i ended the auction early.  he shows up the next day with his very pregnant wife.  looks the car over, points out some things that i had clearly detailed in the eBay description and photos, says "i'll give you $1600."  i pulled the car into my garage and closed the door, left him standing in the driveway.  so he comes to the front door and rings the doorbell.  i told him to get berkeleyed, as i was busy relisting the car.  he says "you can't blame me for trying.   i've got $1750.  my wife's gonna be pissed if we don't go home with that car."  so i said "then you better hope she's got $50 on her," and i closed the door.

i watched through the window as he walked out to their car and talked with her.  she opened her purse and handed him something, and he came back to the door with $1800.

so yeah, that's my favorite car-selling story.

This has to have been in 1999 or so. 

I listed my 1986 Celica GT-S on a corkboard at grocery store for $1200. Before placing the ad I removed whatever radio and speakers I had installed and picked up a head unit and 1 speaker from the junkyard. 

This guy in his late 30’s showed up, he looked old to me back then. He asked me if he could drive and I said sure. While we are driving he asked me if it was a V8, I looked at him wondering if he was serious and did not know what to answer so I said “not sure”. 

When we got back he commented on how good the sound system was in the car. Offered me full price and asked me if he could keep the tag to drive home and that he would bring it back later in the week. 

I never saw the car or the tag again. With the money and $600 more I bought a 1989 Celica All-Trac. 

About 2.5 years ago I was considering selling my 99 Suburban so I put it on FB that I was considering doing so. Within 20 minutes an acquaintance had contacted me and offered to pay my full asking price because he knew I took care of my stuff and he was looking for exactly such a ride.  He arrived to pick it up and tok it around the block for the obligatory test drive.  Handed me a check and drove away happy.

Around the same time I mentioned to a friend I was thinking of getting rid of my Miata.  Same sort of conversation, he stated that he wanted a dedicated AX car and he knew mine was a good one.  He paid full ask and didn't test drive it before rolling out the driveway.  (It has since done 2 full seasons, co-driven by father and son, full send every time, zero failures).

Gaining a solid reputation for my cars has helped.

One time I sold a car to a guy, he flew down to pick it up, and it broke down on the way home after he paid me exactly what we agreed to with no haggling. Still feel bad about that one. Sorry FBC. 

One of my Rangers was sandwiched and totaled. Ran totally fine after tightening some hoses. I sold it to a neighbor for $500. He replaced the rear brakes and tried to sell it back for $800. Fun times.

A year or so after that he came by to ask if we could get him a replacement title so he didn't have to pay the taxes.

I bought a 95 Geo Prism off of my now SWMBO so she could get a new-ish Jetta. Wasn't worth trading in, and I needed something "reliable.: Drove it for a few years and about 50k without popping the hood. Got hit in a parking lot and that check more than paid for the car and I "fixed it" with a hammer and some wood screws. Sold it for an even grand on Craigslist. It was the only time I have ever made money on a car. 

All of my best car selling stories are about the ones I didn't sell. Which is most of them.

2003 Protege5:

Not sure if it counts as selling per se, but in exchange for my Protege5 this summer, the new owner purchased and installed a minisplit in my garage as the purchase price for the car.  I was very happy with the exchange. 

1994 Miata:

My husband posted this on GRM last fall and mazdeuce bought it, sight unseen.    

When we decided to sell our old Accord (still regret that) I gave it a good bath and was out taking pictures so I could put it on CL. Neighbor walks up while I was taking pictures and asked how much. Gave me full price and that was that. His kid totalled it a couple months later. Poor car.

1 more comes to mind:

Volvo 940 Wagon turbo -97

Few cars are as easy to sell as this one on the Swedish market. I posted this at a reasonable but "Firm" price. Got plenty of phone calls and a few over the phone offers. First to arrive was a guy who knew at most the basic standard stuff people know about cars, which I dare say is a lot less then the average GRM-member. He had probably never bought a used car before and started on some weird tactic to find issues with this $2500 Volvo, in order to haggle. Of course, he didn't know what he was talking about at all.

"The clutch feels a bit soft" - Soft? The clutch felt just fine.

"I don't like the sound of the exhaust" - It was a standard OEM exhaust and nothing wrong with it.

"The engine sounds worn" - What? You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.

I got fed up with him and knowing I had a bunch of other buyers lined up, I just held out my hand and told him: "OK then, have a good rest of your day". As he instinctively shook my hand, he said "But I'm looking at the car?!".

"Yeah, but you obviously don't want it, right? With all these issues you are... ehm... finding."

"But maybe we can do something... you haven't heard my offer".

"There is no offer, I clearly stated the car is sold at firm price. I just wouldn't feel OK about selling you a car with all these issues you just found."

"But... I didn't say I didn't want it".

"There are plenty of other buyers and plenty of other cars. It's probably best for both of us if you buy something else, don't you think?"

I locked the car and walked into the house, desperately trying (and failing) not to laugh at his expression. Sold the car at full price later the same day.

I bought my first car, a 1993 Nissan 240sx, when I was 15. Bought it from another teenager who had 'modified' it some, instead of doing maintenance. I didn't know much about how to work on cars, but I bought some tools and did the best I could. About 18 months later, it was having some sporadic, minor, electrical gremlins. Nothing too serious, but minor annoyances - lights going up/down was slow/finnicky, etc, so I listed it for sale. 

Got some interest, and my Mom took me to Staples to meet the guy (title in her name), and so we could copy the Bill of Sale after. He gave me the money, signed the title/bill of sale, my mom ran in to copy the bill of sale. After waiting a few minutes, he asks to get the keys/start the car. IMMEDIATELY the car makes one horrible, loud, metallic "THUNK" when he starts cranking it, but it does start. First time it had ever done that. I went red in the face and looked the other way. 2 minutes later mom came out, I rushed her into her car and we got on the way. Felt a little bad, felt more lucky than anything. I had no knowledge it had any problem like that and wouldn't have known how to fix it anyway. 

Since then, I always write up 2 copies of Bill of Sale. No more messing around making a copy..

Selling Datsun 310GX for $500.  Just replaced clutch slave and bled it properly, or so I thought. 

Two Nigerian college students go for a ride and 30 minutes later one is steering and one is pushing.   

Clutch pedal to the floor and I tell them we can fix it but they changed their mind and left.  

Bought a Lexus ES300 from a neighbor who was about to donate it as it had an “electrical problem-all dash lights are on and battery won’t hold charge”. He offered a price which was fair and I bought it.  Replaced rhe alternator, serpentine belt, battery, and rear anti-sway bar bushings to fix a random clunk.  Wash, vacuum, and window SCRUB as he was a smoker and listed it with Craig.  

The car had 147k, a cracked front fascia, and some minor issues not affecting running/driving.  Random jamoke starts texting me ( MANY MANY MANY TEXTS) all the problems I would need to fix to return car to a pristine state that this fine luxury car requires to be returned to glory and how much said services will cost as a negotiating tactic.   I remind him the car is an 11 year old car listed for $3k and isn’t perfect but if wants it to be for him to make me an come out and make an offer if he’s really interested.  He responds with yet another text with what’s my best price.  I was done and fed up with him and told him HIS best price was $5k.  He got pissy and shocked that I would do that to him, an obviously serious buyer.  Sold it at list price two days later to a nice gentleman who needed a reliable car to get his daughter to MSU that fall.  

The Mazda protege I got for free was parked in the yard next to the driveway, and one day a guy stopped while I was out mowing the lawn to ask if it was for sale. Of course, it was, I just hadn't exactly gotten around to listing it. He left me half my price for a deposit and told me he'd be back in 2 weeks. 

The day before he was coming to pick it up (yes, he actually came to get it), I went to move it within reach of the hose, and pressed the brake pedal right to the floor. Popped line. So I told him what was up, took the day off of work to replace it, and he came by with the rest of the money the next day. Last I heard he was sending it to a family member in Africa. Who knew.

Oh, also some lunatic flew in to buy my Miata and drive it back to Chicago. In January. In a snowstorm. After getting stuck in the driveway then nearly sliding off the road on the test drive thanks to the light dusting we had received to that point, he decided to stay the night and set off in the morning. I didn't even hear him leave. Thanks Robbie!

Last year I was given a company truck, so my old dodge was excess to requirements. I didn’t really want to sell it since it had taken forever to find exactly what I wanted and it wasn’t “worth” anything to anyone else. After a couple months a kid showed up to check it out at $2500 asking. He hesitated, I think to timid to make an offer and ended up leaving. My wife laughed when I said whatever he offers I’ll take it and said why don’t you just give it to him then? So I did.

When I lived in CA I bought a nearly flawless E30 cabrio from a BMW shop in Glendale.  I paid $5500.  Substantial list of upgrades, parts replaced, new top, new interior, clean carfax, and all the VINs on the body panels matched.  H&K sport springs, M1000 wheels, new Michelins, the works.

I drove it for three years including two times cross-country, and took it from 100k to 150k.  When it was time to sell it, I put it on CL for $4k with the list of upgrades and of course got a lot of people wanting to see the receipts (which I had lost).

So I went back to the garage to see if the owner had kept those records.  He got a sorta panicked look on his face and asked if I was selling it.  I said yes.  He whipped out a wad of cash and offered me $5500 on the spot.  He said "I never should have gotten rid of that car."

Long story short, I was standing on the sidewalk outside the shop in Glendale with a stack of CDs from the glovebox and $5500 cash calling my then wife to come pick me up.

I had an 85 El Camino that I sold to a guy in VA and he paid me to trailer it down.  It was used and abused, but driveable.  When I got down there and started driving it off the trailer, the brake hard line blew.  The only reason he believed me was that there wasn't any brake fluid on the trailer.

I gave him a couple hundred back and he was happy.  But I was also thinking how pissed he would have been if he did a fly-n-drive and got 10 miles out of town and lost his brakes.

I used to flip cars to pay for college tuition, so I'd have some weird sales.

1986 300Z - Sold to a guy who never bothered to test drive it. He had gotten an insurance check and wanted his dream car. He dropped cash on the hood, no haggling, and drove off. Damnedest thing I've ever seen.

1978 Pace Arrow RV - Sold to an old retiree who haggled forever on the price. We told him it had an "Oklahoma Warranty". Sure enough, he makes it out of tail light sight and gets rear-ended by a lady in a Maxima, not 100 yards from my back door. Her car was totaled, the RV's Class V hitch was fine.

1973 Ford F-350 Mud Truck -Sold to a guy from Missouri who drove all night down to Atlanta to buy it. No haggling, cash on the hood. He said it was worth 2X my asking price back home. He was almost giddy. I made a good profit on it still.

1967 Volvo P1800 - Sold over a decade ago to a fellow GRMer somewhere up north. First time I'd ever seen a GRM railer relay in action. SVReX was involved at one point.

I just recently sold my M Roadster to a guy from craigslist. His friend who was the one that talked him into buying the car that he brought with him was someone who I later figured out was someone I had met in passing at a local autocross. They showed up to test drive the car in a Tesla Model 3 Performance on autocross tires and offered to let me drive it. They ended up buying the car and I ended up taking a longer (but still not very long) test drive in the tesla than they did in the BMW they were buying from me.

At one point I bought what was probably the cheapest roadworthy 944 Turbo in the country. After I sold it I've actually been able to track it's life through various facebook groups that the new owners have been members of which has been fairly entertaining. The (presumably still) current owner is, to my knowledge, the only person who's ever blocked me on facebook. He didn't take kindly to me pointing out that calling a car with a now blown up turbo "in need of some TLC" isn't quite honest (neither is saying it's got 180k miles when in reality the odometer broke at 180k miles ten years ago), and that some other claims such as "rust free' were blatantly wrong, and that his asking price was comically high even if it didn't have those issues. After that, I got a friend who is a mod for the group to post the photos of the rocker rust repair I did.

A friend of mine had an early 90s S600 briefly. It was surprisingly trouble free during his ownership, but decided that the right time to throw a CEL was as we were driving it to finalize the deal with the new owner. I forget what came of it but I think it turned out to be a minor issue as the car still drove fine and the guy still paid the same price.

In reply to Curtis :

I had almost that exact thing happen as a buyer, I found this mint-lookin' 96 T-Bird with the V8 and a set of Super Coupe wheels on it, flew out to buy it, not 20 minutes after leaving the guy's house we lost brake pressure. One of the lines had a spot that looked like it was rubbing on the inner fender, which then got rusty and it just started spewing fluid from there. I think because the car was garaged and not driven much, the seller had no idea that was going to happen, we just got unlucky.

It was a Saturday and the first 2 places we tried to stop at were closed/closing for the day. The second one told us about a small garage just down the road, we limped it over there with just the e-brake, it took a couple hours but the guy fixed it for us. He told us it was a press fit and should be considered a "temporary" fix, well I never did get around to replacing it and it held up for years afterwards. And we were able to make the 10 hour drive home after a rough beginning.

Selling cars. a 356 that went to Michael Eisner wife, sold a few to some famous people, sold a Shelby to someone very high up at Cadillac in the design center. 

Buying cars that there the fun is, buying classics from literal Nazi's, paying the Russian mob lawyer for a bunch of cars in their girlfriends names, paying off the sheriff before a house was auctioned off on a bad construction loan . I once setup a Bentley buy only to find out that I bought a car from Pete Townsend not realizing who he was.  

Selling cars is easy. 

The strangest one I had was a non-running 16v Scirocco I was selling for $200. Someone from CA contacted me and wanted to buy it. They drove nonstop from CA to OH and got to my house around 3AM. They had a tow dolly that they originally had in the bed of the truck because they didn't want to tow it empty the whole way. I think they stopped somewhere in St. Louis to have someone hoist it out of the bed. They gave me $200 and found a hotel to sleep for a few hours before heading back. 

When I was 18 I bought an 85 Grand Marquis for 100 bucks and it only needed a tune up, fresh gas and a non bent front wheel. It had a factory lsd and teenage me abused it non stop as a daily. I was out at my dad's working on my Capri about a year later with the Marquis sitting next too his garage in need of a starter when a guy pulled into his driveway with a roll back and asked if it was for sale. 

At this point the landau top was peeled off, the passenger quarter panel had a huge dent and it had very bald truck tires on the rear. I told him it needed a starter and started covering the issues when he said he didn't care, he would give me 500 right now for it. So I sold it too him and used the money to buy a tracker. 

Not a car, but my best vehicle sale was my Honda CBR 550-4.  I  bought it for $400, put about $100 into it, and sold it two years  and 3,000 miles later for $600.   The buyer came to get it on a REALLY cold morning, so I loaned him a set of Carhart coveralls to get home.  Never saw the coveralls again, so I guess I just about broke even.