Author:
Blog About:
Was reminded of something that happened to me several years ago and thought I would share it here.
So the girl friend and I were driving down this street when she saw an older XJ6 jaguar in this small used car lot's back lot. Already knowing how much she loved the thought of owning one of those I turned around and went back to talk to them about buying it.
the salesman told me that it needed work and thus the reason it was not out front. I informed him that I would prefer to take it as is and fix it myself, if the price was right. So he got the keys and we went to have a close look at the car.
Interior was shot, would need new carpet and upholestry but everything was there, but the in line 6 engine was missing the carburetors. So I asked where the carburetors were. He told me that he was having them rebuilt by a mechanic.
I then informed him that I was a mechanic and detailed the specific type of carburetors that engine would have had on it then asked again WHO was rebuilding the carburetors. He continued to dodge the question so I finally told him, Look there are maybe 3 people in this area that can rebuild and set up a multi carburetor system with Constant velocity carburetors like the ones that came on this car and I know both the other two so if you can't give me a name I will consider the stock carburetors are now junk and have to be replaced.
He refused the offer I made, so I gave him my number and told him when his mechanic couldn't get the carburetors to work give me a call as my offer would still be good. He never did give me a call, but a couple years later I was scrounging in a junkyard for another project I was building and saw that old Jaguar, looking under the hood it was still missing the carburetors...LOL
Comments
car dealers can be plonkers.I
car dealers can be plonkers.I had for a while a74 damiler double 6 vaden plas v12 5.
2 went like sh.t of a shovel but drank petrol like a fish.great car but cost a packet. drive a belingo and a mk 5 transit now
had to do some searching
the 85 2 door model is kinda cute and the interior looks nice.
Probably a nightmare to work on though.
so did you get the car from junkyard?
No I didn't
Unfortunately at the time I had my little garage full of a dissembled 74 jeep CJ5 and the town I lived in had strict codes of non moving vehicles at your home. That's right I said non moving, any vehicle parked on the street HAD be be moved every 3 days, any parked on your property had to be moved every 7 days and being inside a 6 foot high privacy fence didn't make a difference.
A political movement was running amok in the little town to get rid of the police chief, fire Chief, mayor and any of their known friends. I was a shoe in for fire chief when the current one retired and I wasn't one of their cronies, so after the new police chief took over I began finding tickets all over my vehicles for no reason. They were so bad that once when I stopped in front of the court house to run in and pay my water and sewage bill, two cops ran out, reached in and shifted my old Jeep into neutral and pushed it backwards over 2 car lengths so it was in front of a fire hydrant so they could write me a ticket. I saw them do it from the window and took pictures with the digital camera I had started carrying in my pocket everywhere I went due to their crap.
The silver lining was once they got their new accessor in, he appraised my house for twice what I had paid for it (trying to raise my taxes through the roof) which allowed me to sell it for a nice profit and move the hell out of there.
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
if memory serves
I think this one was a 1976 two door hard top.
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
Pride and sense
seldom go together. The used car salesman preferred to lose a sale rather than admitting that you were right. Unfortunately that sort of thinking is not unusual.
probably was hoping to rope a easy score.
Any salesmen that really does not care about the customers will try and always get max profit at the expense of the buyer.
HE was probably holding out for someone who did not know what they were looking at and then to talk them into buying a project car, "that is really rare to find in the US", I have heard that one before. A lot of Newbies at a project car might jump at the chance only to find after they have lost there shirt that it was way out of there league. either the salesmen found a mark to buy it or just eventually said screw it and sold it for scrap.
We will never know what they actually payed for the car to put on there lot. Heck they might have come out ahead on the scrap value.
I never understand that mentality if you both are gaining why not accept the offer. GREED I really hate it becuase it is tearing our world apart.
"Cortana is watching you!"
Salesmen and sexism
We haven't frequented that many showrooms, the one which sticks in the mind was a respectable Volvo dealership, my wife and I went in to peer at the models and enquire about a part-exchange. The fellow who greeted us and offered to help started pleasant enough, but despite us telling him that this was her car search, and repeatedly looking over at my wife in response to his questions, he kept addressing me instead. We didn't stay long - or buy.
Teri Ann
"Reach for the sun."
I know what you mean about sexism
One of my daughters was 'daddy's shadow', she even had her own piece of cardboard to lay down on under a car beside me when she was small. In one of her letters to Santa she asked for a welding helmet so she could watch daddy...LOL.
By the time she hit high school she could do most anything maintenance wise there was to a car and there wasn't much of the heavy repair stuff she hadn't seen as she has helped me rebuilt several engines, differentials, transmissions, etc.
Now she's the one that gets out in the garage and installs new brakes on one of their cars while her husband keeps the two grandkids in check.
Last week she goes to pick up her car, a new 2017, from the dealer. It had been rear ended and was in for repair. The service guys and mechanics avoided her and tried to talk only to her husband, who tried to tell them that she is the one you need to talk to. (really pissing her off doing that to her) She inspects the car and finds the work shoddy and unacceptable and begins to point out the problems, where as the service manager tries to give her a line of bull all because they believe a woman can't know anything about cars.
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
Take it to the next level
As your car was rear-ended I assume that this is an insurance job.
Detail your complaints and send them to the Insurance company.
If nothing happens then sue or threaten to sue. Shoddy repairs are potentially life threatening.
Then as a last resort, go to the press.
Samantha
How can you get a ticket for
How can you get a ticket for a motor being on your driveway or garage .Some of the coppers in the US are well bent.You of thought being a fireman give you lea way.Mind you on you tube yank copper nicked firefighter at car crash check it out and he was just doing his job saving lives cant trust coppers. Well out of order look how they shoot black people just for driving there car check it out you tube.
Homes in the USA
(outside out of surburbia) tend to be graveyards for old vehicles. I used one that had a 30ft Palm tree growing out of the engine space (the car was a 1953 Buick Sedan) as part of my ARPS submission. The car in question was on Big Island (Hawaii).
At one property I came upon not far from Cheyanne, Wyoming in 2014, I counted 36 hulks just rotting away. Like a scrapyard, several were piled on top of one another. If I were home and had access to my photo library, I'd post the picture of it just to show the lengths that people will go to avoid scrapping fees (or that's what I was told).
Samantha
speaking of trees growing up inside of vehicles
I found an old Studebaker pick up in a farmer's pasture that I asked if he would sell. The wooden floor of the truck bed had long ago rotted away and a small tree about a foot in diameter had grown up in front of the rear axle.
The old farmer laughed and told me I could have it free, but I couldn't cut down or tear up the tree to take it.
I think the way he acted he had given many others the same option but no one took him up on the challenge. I came back that weekend with my 3/4 ton 4x4 truck and trailer and dissembled the bed, removed the rear axle and the frame cross members that were in the way. Pulled the truck forward with a winch and loaded it on my trailer, while all the parts I had removed were put in the bed of my truck.
What he and anyone else that he made the offer to didn't realize, the truck was made before welding the frames became common. So to remove the cross members was only a matter of drilling out the large rivets that held it together :)
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.