I Got 'Dem Low Down Dirty Rotten Lookin' At The Used Car Blues
 

Oh the joys of buying a used car from a private seller........
That bad feeling hit me as soon as I got out. Fairly dusty car, exchange greetings etc. When the seller starts with a line similar to "It does need a bath" they are probably right!!! Or....."I bought another car because my kids are growing", at least take the car seats out, all of them. And the other kiddie stuff. Anyone drawing a picture in their head yet? I tried to look inside. All things considered it was OK for a (DD Daily Driver). Ive been there, kids n all but U R trying to sell UR car. Clean it a bit, $10 car wash, 10-15 min with a vacuum. Throw out the trash. I'm not saying a $100 detail job. The time it took to connect should have told me this was not a "Motivated" seller. I poked around a bit under the hood and trunk. Tint so dark I wondered to myself if it was legal in my area. Did not drive it, some small talk and I politely said no thanks. No warm fuzzy here.......U do want to sell the car right?

I look on Craigslist a lot for old Volvo redblocks. Found an ad for a 740 turbo wagon. A picture of the engine bay showed that it was not a turbo engine...no piping...no turbo...nuthin even close. The kicker though was him stating that the oem hubcaps were worth $200 by themselves. I wish that were true...I got quite a few in the basement.

Better sell those caps to him for half and see if he can make a profit. lol. I follow local S40 prices. Actually did a spread sheet on them then magically made it go away. Its sort of a hobby. I do need a life. I keep an eye on 4 cylinder Camrys too. Some craigslist sellers dont know (or care) what they have so I try to look at engine photos and trunk photos. I go easy on the filters, or else I would have missed that "3 cylinder S40", must be a rare one, the sedan filter is dangerous too. The last S40 I looked at was a steal (he said). Sure, I passed, and its still for sale. Maybe some photos are bad on purpose. I dunno. That and dirt can hide a lotta minor body scratches.

OK. I give up. Maybe I got lucky when I bought the wifes car from Craigs list. Gonna spend my cash on some house repairs and put some money into the S40 that I have. Craziness on CL. Especially if U dont have to have another car. Bad photos and or descriptions. Maybe only 1 photo if that. Saw a pic that featured the left front tire only. It was flat. For petes sake. If ya wanna sell your car act like it folks. I can spend my cash on other stuff. This could've been a detailed rant but I dont like typing on a laptop. My 2 cents

Blessed are they who expect nothing, for they will not be disappointed.

Or, a pessimist is never disappointed?

That flat tire line made me laugh.

On the flip side though... while talking with the guy I bought my '89 740 from he had some horror stories on potential buyers...both in person and online. He had two volvos posted... the 89 and a late 90's something. He couldn't give away the 740. I saw the price go from 1500 to 1250 to 1000 which is when I contacted him. It is a nice car. I've had it 2 years now and it's never failed to start.

The other Volvo had some lookers one of which opted for a dodge neon instead... people... what can I say. I remember someone offered him cash AND a bulk set of steaks.

Years ago we acquired a 'big o' boat' Olds from a dealer (!) for $950, had electrical issue so ran hard, otherwise nice, clean and everything else worked. We fixed the electrical issue in 15 minutes, drove the car as weekend cruiser for the next 5 years, didn't do anything else with it, sold it for exactly $3K as good runner and nice/clean car ... yes after 5 years of driving. :D
You can get trashy looking cars just do a thorough inspection, you could find gold under the dust.

I agree. I drove a 95 honda to death that I bought cheap. Solid drive train, serious hail damage. I had it on the road for my job. Didnt care to much what it looked like. Drove it until the auto tranny lost 2 gears. I did get to a point where I changed plugs once a year to get thru emmisions testing. A bit of oil consumption if you will......

But "apples to apples" which one would you take???

I'd ask about the maintenance history. One wise forum member once posted that if somebody can't keep the interior clean, how can you expect them to keep up the engine? I think the key is to know your limitations on what you can/will repair. My "find" story is years ago, I was looking for a BMW 2002, a car I knew very well. Found a guy selling one, said it was running rough, didn't handle that well etc so he took my low ball offer to get it out of his driveway. First things first, dropped in new points and plugs and the car immediately ran like a champ. New tires and an alignment corrected the handling. Strong armed compounding job (wax on/wax off...) brought out the malaga color (in the days before clear coat!). Drove that for 2 years before relocating to California where I feared it would never pass emissions (the air pump was removed, I installed webers, a 292 cam and header ) but sold for $1000 more than I paid.

Oh fer grins, went to the "flat tire" volvo ad and noticed this line, "The tires are matching set and are BRAND NEW!" Hmmm. One mo jab at Craigslist, If I may. Maybe its a sales trick but Im seeing recycled Volvo ads. And Camrys. I always check posting dates on cars. 1 day ago, 7 days ago, 30+ days ago etc. Just saw another 1 that went over 30 days now re-posted as 1 day ago. Same pics, same price. Really?

My 2nd suggestion is drink good coffee. That always improves my outlook about the world.

Unfortunately most of the CL cars I have looked at have never made it past the fluid and blow up glove tests. My favorite was the guy who claimed his car only had a few dings b/c he tended to get mad at it. The poor car had at least 5 good sized dents on every panel. No service records, ugly sounds coming from the engine, claims of good maintenance but no records. Amazingly his bad pictures had avoided most of the dents.

Our current 2005 S60 was actually a used car dealer find. They at least cleaned it up. The car had all of the things wrong that are typical for a 150K+ car but it passed the wife test. It had all the service records, the AC was cold, the core components checked out except for the glove test, the engine wasn't coked up with oil sludge, . That and the wife loved the color.... She got it. I got 6 months in the garage going through it and much lurking on this forum for answers.

3K later I'm happy, it's at stage 0, the wife has a 2014 XC60 T6 and now she listens a bit closer when I tell her "bad idea to get that car."

One for the books as Im still considering a 2nd volvo. Came across an ad at a local Volvo dealer "6 speed manual" it said. Pictures say auto tranny. Exterior color "Unknown" I know monitors can be different but its as white as can be to me. Oh, last I looked the flat tire volvo is still for sale too. Dealers, gotta luv 'em...............

Yeah ... a used car dealer near by us also has a first gen C70 convertible but looks it was badly treated and also it's an automatic so I would not consider it.
You just got to look out for what you buy. Some hides dusty gold but some better just be parts cars.

I've never understood people that don't clean a car before trying to sell it. I spent all afternoon washing, waxing and detailing my S60 getting it prepared for sale. Interior is in 99.5% perfect shape and I want it to show off how well she looks.

One time I went to see a car that was far outside of town. The guy had to chase the chicken out of it before I could sit in the seat. Then I quickly saw all the things wrong and never even took it for a drive.