RE: Phil's lament...

[audidudi@mindspring.com (Jeffrey J. Goggin)]

>  >He said "I'm afraid that I just sold the car-- a few minutes ago."
>
>  >I said, "Ha ha"
>
>I don't see what grounds you have to complain.  The risk of a pointless trip
>was yours to take, and according to your story, he never promised to hold the
>car until you could see it.  What was he supposed to say to people who showed
>up in the meantime-- "sorry, I can't show you the car until this guy gets
>here from Utica sometime today?"

Over the years, I've been on both sides of this fence ... the first time, I
drove two hours to look at a car, took it out for a 30-minute test-drive and
returned to the seller's house only to find the NEW owner standing there,
ready for me to hand him the keys!  Apparently, he left shortly before I got
there, thought about it a little more, changed his mind and came back with
the cash ... incredibly, the next-door neighbor was a notary and the seller
had already signed over the title by the time I returned!  I was stunned ...
didn't even get a chance to make a counteroffer.

The second time, I showed up to look at a car at 6:00 pm, took it out for a
brief test-drive, gave it a solid once-over and decided it was enough of a
bargain that I didn't want to risk letting it go ... made the seller an
offer $500 under his asking price as a matter of principle and when he
refused, quickly agreed to pay what he wanted ... later that night, I post a
cute note to the Q-list about the car I'd just bought only to get an E-mail
message from another Q-list subscriber informing me the seller promised him
the day before to hold the car for him while he arranged financing from his
bank.  I was totally unaware that anyone else was looking at the car -- the
seller did say that some guy from Seattle had called him on the phone a
couple of times but he didn't tell me that he'd cut a deal with him -- and,
to be honest, I'm not sure it would have mattered if I'd known this or not.
The fact that I had 80 $100 bills in my hands pretty much sealed the deal
for both of us.

The bottom line is that, like it or not, when it comes to buying cars, all's
fair ... until the money changes hands and the title's signed over, you
don't own the car.  It's not nice, it certainly isn't civil and I wish
things were different but that's the way it is today and you have to deal
with situations as they are and not as you'd like them to be.

(That said, I feel your pain, Phil ... the first car I referred to above was
a 1988 BMW M5 with 85k on it and in 1992, the owner was asking $13,900 for
it -- easily, $7-10k below market at that time -- because he'd been called
home to the Middle East, this was the balance left on his loan and he had
four days to sell it.  I had the cash in my pocket and drool spilling onto
my chin at the prospect but I'm afraid it 'twas not to be...)
 
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   / |      _| o    | \       _| o  Jeffrey Goggin
  /__| | | / | | __ |  | | | / | |  audidudi@mindspring.com
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