TRIAL BY BUYER

> WATCHING SOME FRIENDS IN NEED GET SHAFTED BY A LOWBALLING BUYER HAS MADE SIMO’S BLOOD BOIL

NOW that I’m in my mid-40s, I’ve realised that I’ve become a bit cranky, so have been attempting to adopt a live-and-let-live approach to life. I’ve been trying gallantly to curb my eye-rolling and raise my wanker tolerance levels to above zero – you know, ignoring the purists kneecapping our hobby and attempting instead to feel sorry for clueless morons instead of engaging in warfare. My success rate has been touchand-go to say the least, but a good mate’s recent experience was enough for me to fall off the happy wagon.

I met this bloke through the shared love of cars more than a decade ago, and we’ve built cars and home lives pretty much in parallel. When he and his lovely wife were expanding their fold from one son to two, it was an exciting time with smiles all ’round. Unfortunately, young fella number two was born with a heart condition that was set to make his foreseeable future a battle, so doctors and hospital visits soon became the norm for my mate and his family.

I tell you what though, you wouldn’t meet a tougher kid; these visits numbered into the dozens by the time he was three, which included two open-heart surgeries and a total of around 200 nights in hospital. You wouldn’t know it though; his cracker smile always trumped any pain he was in.

A make-or-break third open-heart surgery was always on the cards, with quacks recommending it occur after the little bloke turned four to ensure he had enough strength and development under his wings to handle the procedure and recovery.

With a date set in stone well ahead of time, my mate and his wife started planning for their young bloke’s six-month recovery, taking steps to ensure they could keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. You see, it was set to be a full-time affair for both parents, with my mate needing to quit work for at least half a year.

So they did what any decent parents would do and offered up their weekender cars for sale to help fill the coffers for the soon-to-be lean times. One of their rides was a turn-key, clean and tidy, V8-powered mid-60s Aussie sedan. It sounded the goods, and looked a treat too; the wife – a paint and panel whiz – had applied the paint, including a signage design reminiscent of the golden era of drag racing. At $15K, it offered good value, so they sat back and waited for any murmurs.

A couple of vague enquiries fizzled out, before a decent bite had my mate taking extra photos and swapping phone calls and messages with a potential buyer.

This buyer well and truly knew the genuine reason for the sale, and my mate bit his tongue hard to absorb the bloke’s negative remarks about the choice of paintwork and the decision to generally ‘wreck a classic’. My friend even managed to portal to a happy place when copping a lecture for dumping the original engine block 20 years earlier, even after explaining the mill came as-bought both seized and with a leg out of bed.

But despite the negativity, the couple remained focussed on their young bloke and the importance of making the sale, and a deal was eventually nutted out at $12,500.

With a date for pick-up sorted, the buyer made the six-hour trek with car trailer in tow, while my mate and his family said goodbye to 20 years of memories.

But upon arrival, the buyer had apparently had a change of heart about the agreed $12.5K price. He was now claiming that trailer hire and fuel had eaten a hole in his budget and lowballed my mate with a pathetic $10K offer instead. Since when did a buyer’s fuel and trailer hire become the seller’s problem? To add insult to injury, he chose to again bag out the car’s appearance, this time in front of my mate’s wife!

Somehow, my mate managed to avoid dismembering this arsehole, and negotiated the price back up to $10,500. With that, the car was sold and trundled off to its new home.

Sure, it’s easy to say my mate and his wife should’ve just said no, but they were in a spot, the buyer knew it and played on the serious reasons for the sale to get a better deal. I only hope that meeting that sick young bloke and still choosing to shaft his parents triggered some kind of bad karma for this pond scum.

But wait, there’s more! Not long after, their son had his surgery and was on life support in the paediatric ICU, when my mate at his bedside received a message from this moron buyer whinging about the cost to re-chrome the door handles and complaining of a missing piece of 5cm trim from inside one of the doors! At that, my mate finally snapped and fully unloaded on him; it’s safe to say there’s been no whinging since. Thankfully, and most importantly, the surgery went very smoothly and my mate’s young fella is recovering well.

And as much as I normally cringe at Gofundme pages, I know it’s not just Instagram starlets trying to raise cash for a new set of boobs or people trying to replace stuff they never bothered to insure. That’s why through our Thongslappers podcast we were able to raise $1000 to help with travel and accommodation costs while my mate and his brood were staying near the hospital. They are a proud family and we pretty much had to force the donation onto them, but saying it was to help make up for the shortfall on the sale of the car helped get it across the line.

THE BUYER HAD A CHANGE OF HEART ABOUT THE AGREED $12.5K PRICE. HE WAS NOW CLAIMING THAT TRAILER HIRE AND FUEL HAD EATEN A HOLE IN HIS BUDGET AND LOWBALLED MY MATE WITH A PATHETIC $10K OFFER INSTEAD. SINCE WHEN DID A BUYER’S FUEL AND TRAILER HIRE BECOME THE SELLER’S PROBLEM?