I'm going to tell you a (Long) story....get a brew. :)

[Guest Ikari]

Hi Guys and Girls,

 

Just thought I'd share my weekend experience with you all, sorry its a bit long, but get a brew and enjoy/laugh.

 

I've currently got a 95 silver N/A, Auto with 72k on the clock, totally standard apart from a HKS Super D, now, I was looking to slightly upgrade and saw this....

 

http://www.platinumautos.co.uk/28161/stock.htm

 

Second from top, Black, NA, 6 Speed Manual, 30k on the clock, £9000, pretty rare car, so I thought, heck, why not, could be and to be fair, should be a minter right?

 

So, I drove down to have a look, and probably purchase and part ex mine, after abit of haggling maybe, but never the less, drove down anyway, the car looked worth the effort.

 

I live in Cheshire, the car as you can see on the add is in High Wycombe, 130 miles away. I'd spoken to the chap selling it it, tax ed till end of Sept, MOT'd until April 09...all good.

There was nothing else to report and I did ask about everything that I could think off (Not much) but with a little help from the 'Guide to buying' on this excellent site I thought I had pretty much covered everthing and it all sounded good.

 

So, asked my mate, Mr Potts, who has had two Supras in the past, a mint White NA, and a Demon 400Bhp 98 Black Face life, to come down with me and lend me his knowledge, which he kindly agreed to do.

 

Anyway, cut a long story short, 'too late' your thinking, we trundled down the motorways in my NA, which I have to say, preformed really well and is still a lovely car to drive.

 

Okay, we got there, Sat Nav had us on the exact spot, "Hmmm" I thought, no garage, not even a secure unit in site. Travelling a touch further down the road, I saw it, gleaming in the sun shine.

 

"Well, okay, he deals from home, no problem" I thought, Mr Potts was instantly suspect, but I thought hey, benefit of the doubt, lets take a look.

 

We walked over, and were met by an Asian chap, nice enough bloke, he was working on an MR2 on the drive. He told me the guy I was dealing with was on his way around, would be here in a minute. "No worries" I said, "have you got the keys to the black Supra so I can have a look over it?"

He handed me the key, I asked if he knew much about it? "No, not a thing I'm afraid, I'm not dealing with this car" (Remember these words)

 

So, thought, gives us a chance to have a look at it unhindered anyway. Opened her up and sat inside and popped the hood, instantly I was disappointed, tatty, Hmmm, thats not good for a 2000 plate I thought.

 

But again, wanting the car I was fairly ready to forgive, even though my car looks 5 years newer in comparison.

Got out of the car, and my mate, instantly stood up from the other side of the car and indicated to me to come over.

 

Walked around to the front passenger wheel, my mate had instantly been drawn to the Calipers and wheels, which he thought looked really bad for a car of that age, so he had gone round the entire car checking them. Upon reaching this badly pitted and bashed wheel however, he had spotted something interesting, a slightly touch of black paint on the rim of the wheel.

 

Alarm bells where now ringing in both our heads, we checked the paint work, orange peel, all over the front passenger wing...."Oh dear, whats been going on here then?" my mate said.

We then of course were hightly suspect, we went around the car checking it out...this is a brief list of things we found:

 

Orange peel: All four wings had been resprayed, badly!

Orange peel: Tail fin, resprayed, badly!

Orange peel: Boot lid, resprayed badly!

Orange peel: Rear bumper.

 

Badge movement: 'Supra' Badge had been moved, you could still see the glue from the old position! reinforcing the bad respray.

 

Rubber seals: The rubber seal around the tail back window was crooked and raised.

 

Wheels: All four looked like they had hit every curb from here to Manchester to London! One looked buckled!

 

Exhaust: Held on by a rag!!! and had a huge hole staring at me when I looked under the back.

 

Wheel Arches: Should be flat and straight edged, these were bent and buckled inwards and had evidence of white filler still on them!

 

Interior: Dash marked badly, I expect a touch of wear on the gear stick, hand brake etc, but what this car had was a joke.

 

Engine bay: to be fair, looked okay, although the oil had be changed, or topped up recently, as who ever did it was blind and missed the hole!

 

 

After finding all this, I had obviously made my mind up that I wasn't going to have it, so, not wanting to waste the guys time, and the time of the chap coming round, I told him I wasn't going to have it, but thanks for letting us look around it.

 

"Whats up? could I have some feedback?" he asked.

 

"Okay, well, its been resprayed" I said, not wishing to go into everything else so as to avoid wasting time.

 

"Oh, yeah, its had some retouching work done to it, nothing serious, just cosmetic, I don't see why thats a problem?" he said.

 

On hearing this, I was starting to get a little annoyed, all I was thinking was 'When I asked you earlier you said you didn't know anything about the car?'

If he had mentioned this when I had asked about the paint work on the phone and by E-mail, I would never have even gone down, but, I thought, stay quiet and just leave.

 

My mate, bless him, wasn't ready to leave just yet...and took him on a tour of his cars faults.

 

After which the guy still didn't see a problem! and I honestly believe he didn't think any of it was a problem!

 

I said, "Mate, with respect, that spray job is skocking, and I know from experience, bad paint work gets worse...and then a lot worse, this would need a total respray"

 

"I don't agree, its not that bad, just cosmetic, everyone does things like this to cars." he said.

 

To which my mate replied, "Mate, the spray job on this car is a joke...."

 

Time to leave.....to be fair, the guy took it in good spirit, but like I say, honestly didn't believe anything was wrong with the car?!!!

Now, I'm not a car expert, or indeed a Supra expert, but this car had obviously had a lot of work done on it....badly.

 

And that led to my mates next question, and one that was obviously playing on my mind too. "Has the car been had a knock?" my mate asked.

 

"No, no....nothing that I know of, if you check the HPI you will see its not been in a crash"

 

Woo hooo there....who said anything about a crash? we were talking about a knock?! and besides, you knew nothing about the car? how would you know that? plus, a HPI wouldn't pull up anything unless it had been claimed on. At this point, I decided it was best we left, before the other chap made an appearance and things got possibly worse.

 

So, we got back in my Soop, the instant my mate shut the door, he said to me. "Mate, even though I know you wouldn't have anyway, I would never have let you buy that car, its been in a bad shunt, I'd know, I've badly shunted a Supra!"

 

I had to agree with him, looking at it now, the TRD body kit that ran along the bottom of the door looked almost new, who knows what surprises that was hiding too?!

 

We started driving back to Cheshire, disappointed more than anything, £70+ in fuel there and back, and a lot of wasted time for me and my mate......

 

I'd like to say there is a lesson to be learnt here, but I'm not sure there is! I mean, I did everything I could to make sure I found out everything I could about the car. THe pictures looked good but I guess, nothing replaces the 'Human Eyeball Mark 1'

 

I just thought I'd share my experiences with you all, and warn you away from this car, like I say, I'm no expert, and I'm 100% confident that no one on here would buy it on seeing it anyway, but there you go, thought I'd share anyway.

 

Most of all, I feel sorry for the car...I know it sounds stupid, but a car like that, should have been looked after, and cared for alot more than it has been. (Regardless of possible crash damage) Some people don't seem realise how nice these cars are! this should have been a minter in the prime of its life...instead, it is dying and no doubt will continue to be abused.

 

The hunt goes on for a mint 6spd/facelift/NA in black, time to speak to Jurgen I think!

 

Many thanks for getting this far, hope I didn't bore you all too much.

 

Ikari

 

P.s. Please ignore spelling and grammer mistakes....never my strong point.

[Jake]

TLDR.

 

z

[Guest Ikari]

Tldr?

[Matt H]

too long didnt read would be my guess? not sure, though theres a long list of silly acronyms on this site i've seen that get made up everyday

 

AIF

[Havard]

I would have just settled for calling it a pig mate!!

[Bobbeh]

Sounds like a waste of time.. and you did the right thing in taking a freind and walking away by the sounds of it!

[Jake]

theres a long list of silly acronyms on this site i've seen that get made up everyday

Like what?

[Charlotte]

Nightmare!

[michael]

TLDR.

 

z

 

indeed but I did read... in summary there are dodgy people selling used cars.

 

The white one with the orange bonnet is... erm... interesting.

[Guest Ikari]

Ahhh right, Too Long Didn't Read.....of course....

I did say it was long in the title though.

 

Yeah Bobbeh, my mate was a god send, I felt really bad wasting his time though.... :/

It was a nightmare though like you say Charlotte, just a really bad example of a Supra, brought a tear to my eye....

 

Ik

[Guest Ikari]

'Pig' was a good word for it Havard, I think my mate Pottsy (Who used to be on here) described it as a 'Lemon'....haha

 

Damn shame to be honest...

Ik

[Jake]

in summary there are dodgy people selling used cars.

NO. WAI!

When did this start happening?

[tbourner]

like what?

 

ijmtouihnsib

[Rob]

Maybe you should put details of the MR2 on their OC. If that guy thought there was no problem with a supra in that condition, god knows what his own cars are like.

[keener]

Hmm. No contact address on web site, Hotmail email account rather than a company one, no pictures of any kind of garage set up all point to possibly suspect 'dealer' in my eyes.

[Jake]

Originally Posted by Matt H View Post

theres a long list of silly acronyms on this site i've seen that get made up everyday

theres a long list of silly acronyms on this site i've seen that get made up everyday

Like what?

ijmtouihnsib

You just made that up today, right?

[tbourner]

You just made that up today, right?

 

I did just make that one up, I have never seen it before.

[Guest Ikari]

Keener, ahh...Hmmm....yeah, maybe I should have spotted all that, jeez...now I feel even more stupid. :/

 

I guess I was blinded by the car....damn my eyes!

The car was Fubar big time....

 

Ik

[Multics]

Well done for walking away, it sounds like it's a proper dog. But can I ask you, were you seriously willing to pay 9k for an NA in the first place, even if it's 6sp facelift?

[Guest Ikari]

Yeah had no other choice but to walk away to be honest.....it was a dog like you say.

 

I would have paid close to 9k if it had been mint yeah....I knew it was fairly expensive, but I was going to haggle, that is, if it hadn't been a dog. I don't seem to see many post 2000 Manual NA's, you know a good place to look?

 

Ik

[SilverSoop]

What a shame, nice one for giving us all the heads up though!

There are definetely cowboys out there who think we were born yesterday!

That guy must of thought you and your mate were stupid...hmm...you already have a Supra so the odds are, you know exactly what you are looking for!

[Guest Ikari]

Yeah SilverSoop, I would have thought they might have guessed we'd know what we were looking at. But like I say, I think he actually thought it was fine?!!!

 

But yeah, I thought I'd at least say something about it on here, just in case, I mean chances are no one would have been as stupid as me to even look at it in the first place, but hey, you learn from your mistakes eh.

 

Ik

[Guest Budz86]

Hope the weather was good as you would have had a nice drive, so day not totally wasted!

[merckx]

What a shame, it looks really nice in the photo's.

 

A long post you made there, but I read every bit of it.

 

Well done for using paragraphs and punctuation which makes it easy to read.

 

We went to look at a Rover SD1 over twenty years ago, it was described as immaculate. Someone had taken a massive chunk out of the dashboard with what looked like a chainsaw,we didn't even bother knocking on the door.

Edited September 22, 2008 by merckx (see edit history)

[j_jza80]

Fair play to you mate for wanting to buy the best that you can afford, but to spend £9k on an NA would be a mistake IMHO. It will depreciate badly. I think you would be better looking at on for sale through the forum which has been looked after. Afterall, you could bag yourself a very nice TT or even a single for that kind of money.