Got off the train earlier today to collect my BMW. Once I'd met the seller, I dutifully followed him, to get a ride to his premises, I thought, but no - the shiny green paint at the back of the car park alerted me to the fact that he'd brought the merchandise with him and was intending to complete the handover there and then.
'Very well,' I thought, 'I'll get him to come for a spin with me before I part with my hard-earned.' However, as I came within reach of the green monster, it became apparent that the proceedings may not get that far. There was a bad scrape on the lower rear bumper to accompany the couple of light scratches he'd told me about. This rang alarm bells, so I hustled round to scrutinize front end. On my way round, I passed the 'small scratch' above the filler cap. It was small in length, but big in area, like a big ugly S shape, and had been badly touched up to make it even worse. There was also a bloody long straight scratch on the rear door, which I knew nothing of. Or at least if I had been told about it, it certainly wasn't described as it was.
But the real sinking feeling came as I completed my walk round and confronted the mutilated remains of the BMW's front end paintwork. These weren't "light chips, with just a couple of larger ones." The bonnet looked like it had been subjected to a meteor shower. Large depressions of missing paint were dotted right across the whole length of the big hood in abundance. A lot of these had made it all the way to the windscreen, as the lower half of that had quite a few chips, too. It is probably the worst case of stonechipping I have ever known on any vehicle I have paid attention to. The car had obviously spent endless hours travelling at highly illegal speeds.
By now I was getting a stomach churning feeling of dread. I simply could not take this car. I opened the driver's door and turned to the interior to look for further signs of bad description. There were holes in the centre console from a previously fitted mobile phone harness. The inside of the drivers door had been scraped along it's bottom egde and was beginning to rust. Generally the interior was otherwise OK, but I'd had enough. I puffed out my chest and gave him the unwanted opinion of the car, my interpretation of it's condition, and how that differed from his.
He cringed and began to point out that it *had* done 160,000 miles and even offered to drop £100 off the price. I declined and stuck to the opinion that it did not fit the description of 'very clean and tidy throughtout'. Clean it was, tidy it most certainly wasn't. So we both parted with our tails between our legs, him to get back in his unsold BMW and me to buy a far more expensive train ticket and begin a nightmare 5 hour journey home.
There may be repercussions via Ebay, but I don't care. The car wasn't up to scratch and I could not part with my cash. The trains were expensive and I've had to cancel the insurance, which I'd pre-arranged so that it would be insured and legal for the drive home. But I learned a valuable lesson: I will NEVER ever again enter any contract to buy a vehicle without having viewed it first, for as long as I live.
Once I've recovered from my experience, I'll begin the hunt again, but it'll be strictly the old fashioned way from now on :-(