My freind and I are going to pick up this car tomorrow and I was wondering what I should be looking for to see if its worthwile? Are there any comman faults or things that just scream "walk away"?
The engine as you can see from the description has been messed around with quite a bit, what denotes a "thrashed motor"? Blue smoke on a slow start up?
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Thanks for your time!
P.S Mason no need to find out another that golf now dude!
Well you've bought it now, haven't you? It's really not a good idea to jump right in and buy a car based on one very bad photograph and a vague description. Most likely, it's an absolute heap... the idea of eBay is that if you win an item, you have entered into a contract with the seller whereby you have agreed to buy it. Of course, you could do the nasty on the guy and just 'walk away', but you seriously should've gone to take a look at it before you bid and saved yourself the hassle.
Lots of things could indicate a 'thrashed motor' - blue smoke on start-up could, as would blue smoke under acceleration or at idle, or rough running, rattly engine - but these can also be signs of normal wear and may not require full head/engine rebuilds to fix. You don't even know the milage of the car - I'd say chances are you may not even be able to drive it away - it looks like the sorta thing where a bloke bought it locally or off a mate who gave up on fixing it up and it's been standing at his house ever since.. and now he needs to move it.
Still, good luck mate. Hope I'm wrong... it's true, you might be able to break it for parts and at least make your money back, but it could be a lot of effort for very little return.
Nope it isnt even me thats brought it, my freind found the auction and contacted him afterward got the pre-mot list of work and offered £550 includeing all parts to pass the mot. This is a private sale not through ebay.
Ok ill try to remember what you guys have mentioned.
So what, eBay is not an auction and a winning bid is not a contract to buy - so even if he was the winning 'bidder' there is no legal enforcement of any kind that can be applied.
The auction ended under reserve anyway so it's probably an off-eBay transaction...
That's a somewhat grey area, as the legal groundwork covering this kinda thing is probably a little sketchy. However:
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eBay's Unpaid Item Policy -
'Buyers automatically enter into a legally binding contract to purchase the item from the seller if they win the auction-style listing or use the Buy It Now feature. eBay's Unpaid Item policy requires buyers to pay for the items that they commit to purchase. eBay will take action against buyers who do not pay for items they have won.'
Of course, the only action eBay will take is to suspend the buyer's account - which isn't really a big deal since you can just open another one. It would be up to the seller to take legal action, and I think if an auction ended with a successful bid that was not honoured, it would be possible to do so.
At any rate, I'd still consider someone who bid on an item and didn't pay to be an asshole whether there was any legal recourse or not ;)
Yeah, in this case it's nothing to do with eBay.. I didn't notice that it ended under reserve.
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