WARNING for anyone looking for a GPW AP1...
07-23-2009, 07:20 AM
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WARNING for anyone looking for a GPW AP1...
Hey guys, I just wanted to share my experience of going to buy a car yesterday so that no one else on the forum gets involved with this seller, and potentially hurt with buying this car. Yesterday, I found a link posted in the for sale forum to a local craigslist ad in the Washington, DC area (Waldorf, MD to be exact). Here is a link to the for sale ad...
http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/n...283847743.html
After I saw the ad for a 2001 GPW S2000 with 7k miles listed as being in "like new condition" for $15k I immediately called Kevin who was listed as the seller in the craigslist ad with his phone #. Although this car's bluebook is listed at around $12.5k, I figured I would pay a premium for a car that was within driving distance of me and was the color that I was looking for with extermely low mileage.
Anyway, after speaking to Kevin for two minutes on the phone he tells me that he isn't the owner of the car, but that he listed it for his friend because his friend is just too busy to list it himself as he owns several bodyshops. Hmmm... that was strike one in my mind, but since Kevin assured me that the car was "LIKE BRAND NEW" I figured that I would give the actual owner a call and see what the story was.
Ok, so now I have Clifford's phone #, who is the actual owner of the car, and I start speaking to him about the car. Cliff assures me that the car was simply never driven and that he has more money than sense so he has extra toys, including the s2000, that he wants to sell. Cliff tells me that its just like brand new and that I HAVE to see the car. After speaking with him it was around noon so I decided to cancel my work obligations for the rest of the day and take the 5 hour drive out to see the car. I am a for real, no BS kind of buyer so I brought $15k cash with me with all intentions of purchasing the car if it was even remotely close to the description that he gave me about the car.
Ten minutes into my road trip I decided to give a good friend of mine back home who owns several nissan/infinity dealerships a call. I asked him to carfax the vin and he told me that he would run an autocheck on the car. Two minutes later he calls me back and says "we have issues." Hmmm... what are the issues? He said that the car scored lower than it should have on the autocheck because there was never any recorded mileage after the car was titled at 21 miles. No recorded mileage after 8 years of ownership on a car that claims to have 7,000 miles isn't too reassuring, but I decided to give the seller the benefit of doubt. I then called the Maryland DMV and they informed me that they don't record mileage with yearly inspections, and that it is only recorded when the title transfers ownership.
So, five hours later I pull up to "Complete Autobody" to take a look at the car. I meet the owner of the car, Cliff, who is a pretty large (obese) guy so I was wondering if he actually drove this car or if it was his wife's car. After seeing the side bolster of the driver's seat that was absolutely destroyed, I figured that he was the one that was driving it. Anyway, Cliff's entire demeanor was pretty shady, this guy was sweating profusely and doing nothing but talking, talking, talking, non-stop while my brother and I were trying to look over the car. He just gave off the vibe that he was trying to distract us from seeing something.
The first thing that I noticed about the car was that it was dirty. The car looked like it was washed over two minutes before I arrived and he threw some tire shine on the tires, but it was never even close to being detailed. The paint felt like sandpaper and every crease on the car had hardened dirt in it from the car just sitting and never being washed. This was far from the "like brand new condition" that he promised 5 hours earlier. I asked Cliff several times on the phone if there was anything inside or out that I should know about the car as far as imperfections are concerned, and he assured me that there was nothing, its like new! Also part of the showroom condition was a plastic soft top window that couldn't even be seen out of, it was completely cloudy.
More so than the dirt on the car, which was no big deal, was the owner's attitude towards the car. I asked him why he wouldn't detail the car if I was standing at his bodyshop, and he said "eh, I don't have the time" as if he couldn't care less abou the condition of the car. After looking over the car and his incessant talking he ended up hanging himself by telling me "I never drove this car, the only thing it ever had was an oil change and two batteries." Woah... an oil change?... as in singular?!?!
He was bragging that he had only changed the oil once in 8 years of ownership!!!! So, now I decide to pull the dipstick to discover that there wasn't enough oil in the pan to register on the dipstick!!! The remnants that barely touched the bottom of the dip were BLACK like asphault. This car was at least a quart and a half short, if not more. When I told him that the car was very low on oil he tells me "well, I never check that." 
I then told him that I would like to do a compression test on the car because his attitude was one that clearly showed that the car was completely neglected and never maintained. He got offended when I said that I wanted a compression test done, and when I explained that the car looked like it was short two quarts of oil he responded by yelling at me and saying "YOU'RE AN IDIOT!! IT'S NOT SHORT TWO QUARTS, IT ONLY TAKES FOUR!!!" Wow, I could not believe this guy was getting angry with me after lying about the condition of the car and wasting 10 hours of my time driving. He then pulls out a service slip from his local honda dealership from when the car had 81 miles on it showing me how he brought it in for service after complaining that his 2nd to 3rd and 3rd to 4th upshifts when "powershifting" the car wasn't smooth and the transmission would grind. He also then proceeded to tell me how he lends out the car to all of his employees, and that the guy, Kevin who listed the car on craigslist for him was actually a customer of his who he let borrow the car while he was doing bodywork on his car. WTF?!?!
Cliff then proceeded to top off the oil with a quart and a half of the wrong weight oil to assure me that the car was fine. This was was clearly NEVER maintained, and this guy's attitude after two minutes of looking at the car was "if you don't want to buy it, go back to NC" after I drove there for 5 hours with $15k cash in my pocket. I would advise everyone looking for a low mileage AP1 to STAY FAR AWAY from this guy and his car. I can only imagine how many years this car has been run on the same oil, which was not only never changed, but also below being measurable by the dipstick.
Long story short, this guy is a scumbag, and if he offered me the car for $10k I wouldn't take it. The ad seemed too good to be true, and that was exactly what it was. Oh, btw, the picture in the craigslist ad was not even his actual car. When I asked him if he took the front lip off his car he looked at me like I was retarded. I told him that the picture in the ad had an oem front lip on it, and he told me "oh, that's just a generic picture that was used." No, a generic picture is from a honda ad, its not a picture of a well maintained car in someone's driveway. Overall, this guy is a piece of crap, and his car despite only having 7,000 miles, was severly neglected.
I hope this helps someone from getting burned on this car.
http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/n...283847743.html
After I saw the ad for a 2001 GPW S2000 with 7k miles listed as being in "like new condition" for $15k I immediately called Kevin who was listed as the seller in the craigslist ad with his phone #. Although this car's bluebook is listed at around $12.5k, I figured I would pay a premium for a car that was within driving distance of me and was the color that I was looking for with extermely low mileage.
Anyway, after speaking to Kevin for two minutes on the phone he tells me that he isn't the owner of the car, but that he listed it for his friend because his friend is just too busy to list it himself as he owns several bodyshops. Hmmm... that was strike one in my mind, but since Kevin assured me that the car was "LIKE BRAND NEW" I figured that I would give the actual owner a call and see what the story was.
Ok, so now I have Clifford's phone #, who is the actual owner of the car, and I start speaking to him about the car. Cliff assures me that the car was simply never driven and that he has more money than sense so he has extra toys, including the s2000, that he wants to sell. Cliff tells me that its just like brand new and that I HAVE to see the car. After speaking with him it was around noon so I decided to cancel my work obligations for the rest of the day and take the 5 hour drive out to see the car. I am a for real, no BS kind of buyer so I brought $15k cash with me with all intentions of purchasing the car if it was even remotely close to the description that he gave me about the car.
Ten minutes into my road trip I decided to give a good friend of mine back home who owns several nissan/infinity dealerships a call. I asked him to carfax the vin and he told me that he would run an autocheck on the car. Two minutes later he calls me back and says "we have issues." Hmmm... what are the issues? He said that the car scored lower than it should have on the autocheck because there was never any recorded mileage after the car was titled at 21 miles. No recorded mileage after 8 years of ownership on a car that claims to have 7,000 miles isn't too reassuring, but I decided to give the seller the benefit of doubt. I then called the Maryland DMV and they informed me that they don't record mileage with yearly inspections, and that it is only recorded when the title transfers ownership.
So, five hours later I pull up to "Complete Autobody" to take a look at the car. I meet the owner of the car, Cliff, who is a pretty large (obese) guy so I was wondering if he actually drove this car or if it was his wife's car. After seeing the side bolster of the driver's seat that was absolutely destroyed, I figured that he was the one that was driving it. Anyway, Cliff's entire demeanor was pretty shady, this guy was sweating profusely and doing nothing but talking, talking, talking, non-stop while my brother and I were trying to look over the car. He just gave off the vibe that he was trying to distract us from seeing something.
The first thing that I noticed about the car was that it was dirty. The car looked like it was washed over two minutes before I arrived and he threw some tire shine on the tires, but it was never even close to being detailed. The paint felt like sandpaper and every crease on the car had hardened dirt in it from the car just sitting and never being washed. This was far from the "like brand new condition" that he promised 5 hours earlier. I asked Cliff several times on the phone if there was anything inside or out that I should know about the car as far as imperfections are concerned, and he assured me that there was nothing, its like new! Also part of the showroom condition was a plastic soft top window that couldn't even be seen out of, it was completely cloudy.
More so than the dirt on the car, which was no big deal, was the owner's attitude towards the car. I asked him why he wouldn't detail the car if I was standing at his bodyshop, and he said "eh, I don't have the time" as if he couldn't care less abou the condition of the car. After looking over the car and his incessant talking he ended up hanging himself by telling me "I never drove this car, the only thing it ever had was an oil change and two batteries." Woah... an oil change?... as in singular?!?!
He was bragging that he had only changed the oil once in 8 years of ownership!!!! So, now I decide to pull the dipstick to discover that there wasn't enough oil in the pan to register on the dipstick!!! The remnants that barely touched the bottom of the dip were BLACK like asphault. This car was at least a quart and a half short, if not more. When I told him that the car was very low on oil he tells me "well, I never check that." I then told him that I would like to do a compression test on the car because his attitude was one that clearly showed that the car was completely neglected and never maintained. He got offended when I said that I wanted a compression test done, and when I explained that the car looked like it was short two quarts of oil he responded by yelling at me and saying "YOU'RE AN IDIOT!! IT'S NOT SHORT TWO QUARTS, IT ONLY TAKES FOUR!!!" Wow, I could not believe this guy was getting angry with me after lying about the condition of the car and wasting 10 hours of my time driving. He then pulls out a service slip from his local honda dealership from when the car had 81 miles on it showing me how he brought it in for service after complaining that his 2nd to 3rd and 3rd to 4th upshifts when "powershifting" the car wasn't smooth and the transmission would grind. He also then proceeded to tell me how he lends out the car to all of his employees, and that the guy, Kevin who listed the car on craigslist for him was actually a customer of his who he let borrow the car while he was doing bodywork on his car. WTF?!?! Cliff then proceeded to top off the oil with a quart and a half of the wrong weight oil to assure me that the car was fine. This was was clearly NEVER maintained, and this guy's attitude after two minutes of looking at the car was "if you don't want to buy it, go back to NC" after I drove there for 5 hours with $15k cash in my pocket. I would advise everyone looking for a low mileage AP1 to STAY FAR AWAY from this guy and his car. I can only imagine how many years this car has been run on the same oil, which was not only never changed, but also below being measurable by the dipstick.
Long story short, this guy is a scumbag, and if he offered me the car for $10k I wouldn't take it. The ad seemed too good to be true, and that was exactly what it was. Oh, btw, the picture in the craigslist ad was not even his actual car. When I asked him if he took the front lip off his car he looked at me like I was retarded. I told him that the picture in the ad had an oem front lip on it, and he told me "oh, that's just a generic picture that was used." No, a generic picture is from a honda ad, its not a picture of a well maintained car in someone's driveway. Overall, this guy is a piece of crap, and his car despite only having 7,000 miles, was severly neglected.
I hope this helps someone from getting burned on this car.
