The Dumbest things found done to your "new to you" MKVIII

[xtriggerman]

With most of these cars being purchased with high miles and multiple owners, you never know what you will find when you get a chance to take a good look at it at home. Heres what I found. My test drive found a slipping trans when you first start to go from a stop. When I brought that up to the female owner, she said "it never failed to get going once it revs up a little". The issue ended up being 3 quarts low on trans fluid and the reason for that was some nit wit put in a newer radiator at some point and never put thread sealant or Teflon tap on the NPT trans line fitting into the rad. What a oily mess below and behind the fittings. She claimed she recently put new tires on the car and they did infact look pretty good but once I got up to high way speed, the vibration was way more than I could handle for the 8 hour trip home. So a stop at Walmart for a balancing job found the tires were never balanced! Basicaly, she destroyed the "good" tires. I just ordered 4 new ones. She said she just had new brakes put on the front and yup, they still looked new. But once I got into Atlanta traffic, I quickly realized the rear pads were metal on metal on one side! To add to that, After I put in all new upper control arms to fix the bump clunking going on, the clunking was still pronounced on the right side. A closer look at the "new brake/rotor job" she told me about revealed a brake caliper that was dam near ready to fall off! Apparently the "mechanic" forgot to turn the caliper bracket screws in all the way, let alone tighten them. I have to say, what REALLY made this the most memorable used car purchase Iv ever had in my 44 year driving career is when I got the car home and went threw it. I found her last regy card......
To put this into perspective, the woman looked like she may have done time as a Line backer for the Florida Gators with the wide shoulders and brush cut hair. Then there was this older woman she was hanging with...... Then it all came together when I saw what her FL license plate said. Hey, I can't make this S*** up if I tried!

 

[capt fast]

takes all kinds to make the world spin, don't it?
what with the backspacing on the wheel rims, I believe the calipers would have only rattled around a bit.
A good practice when buying a car out of town is a u-haul car tow trailer. keeps little problems from escalating into expensive problems like wheels and tires leaving the car on the interstate or the unknown quality of a shadetree technician's capabilities destroying your new found toy. saved me once.

 

[capt fast]

Tactically, I discovered it is a good thing to put the car on the trailer right after the handshake and before money is exchanged. shows how serious you are about the price you just negotiated.

 

[xtriggerman]

Tactically, I discovered it is a good thing to put the car on the trailer right after the handshake and before money is exchanged. shows how serious you are about the price you just negotiated.

It wasn't the caliper slide bolts that were loose, it was the caliper frame on the hub that were barely holding on by maybe half a dozen threads on the worst one. That would have ripped the brake line off and probably wedged the wheel to a skid while the brake fluid pissed out! But Your right, trailering would be the safe thing to do but in my case would mean renting a truck to haul it with. At that point, I would just kill the deal. She assured me the car was well cared for and would make the trip easily with no issues.... so much for believing in her assessment! But it did in fact get us home and at 25mpg running a steady 75 mph up I-75. Pretty happy with that. Any way, I have no regrets in this 5K purchase. It runs like a top and with the BOSS stereo I put in, my oldies sound outstanding in the factory multi speaker system.

 

[mustpaike]

Had something of a similar experience when buying mine a few years ago.
First, as gas in Europe is somewhat expensive, some heavily-driven American cars run an LPG conversion, since LPG is priced at about 40% of gasoline. Well, mine had the conversion and the seller assured me that everything was running fine. Well, it was, if one disregarded the smell of the LPG every time it was running off the stuff. Took it in to service the system, and they found out that the last time anybody had professionally serviced the LPG system was 7 years ago! In fact, considering the state it was in, they were surprised it was working at all. All in all it took me three visits, and about $700 in part and labor + a set of new iridium plugs to get the system to some level of 'properly working' again.

 

[germansheperd]

1) people lie
2) its an OLD USED CAR- refer to rule #1
3) its in great shape. “Its in great shape” comes under beauty is in the eye of the beholder AND refer to rules #2 and#1
4) its been well maintained- refer to rule #1