In My Humble Opinion

Mike Humble warns of buying cars unseen and untested when suffering from Covid-induced cabin fever.

Mike Humble warns of buying cars unseen and untested during Lockdown.

 To a lot of people, selling, finding and buying a new or used car is a nerve-wracking and time-consuming affair. The state some people get into is staggering and even myself after many happy years of motoring mayhem continue to be baffled at the things I see or hear about when it comes to four wheels. Lockdown and/or furlough has made buying a car rather difficult – my take is simple, if there’s nowt wrong with your current motor, wait for Boris’s green light when we can all skip around the forecourts and showrooms with total abandon. Here is an example why...

With some people having more money than sense – owing to earning but not being allowed out to spend it – it seems that social media is becoming the Mecca for dunderheads looking to buy cars when they are stuck at home bored – in some cases totally unseen and based purely on… wait for it… trust! Yes, I know, I laughed too. Before you shoot me down, sit back again and allow me to clarify that for you. Trust is something that is not in abundance when it comes to buying cars – especially a used one.

More so, when it comes to dealing with social media friends, just how many of those would you regard as being long-standing, loyal and trusted, out of the hundred’s, nay thousands, on your list – the number shrinks a bit bloody quick now doesn’t it? One tale of sorrow popped-up on a group I moderate only the other day – a chap had bought a car from someone at the other end of the country – a so-called

“Facebook Friend”. He had paid for it unseen, untested and in full before the illegal journey to collect it had even begun.

The plot sickens

He noticed things were amiss or awry when he arrived but rather than baulk the sale the deal went ahead regardless. By the time he arrived home he stated there was a Roman scroll of items needing attention, immediate replacement or fettling – most of them being the sort of things you and I could spot on a thorough test drive or inspection. As if that was not enough the buyer took to social media to vent his spleen about the vendor and the car. At this point common sense prevailed and most of the comments in reply to his constant wittering included words like, daft sod, berk and LOL.

The only time you can buy a car this way without the worry is if you can fully substantiate the owner and the car. There is a reader and subscriber to this very rag you are reading, Neil Rapsey – we regularly swap our cars with each other. Even though we live about 17 light years apart we know and trust each other rather well now – both of us fully understanding the risks. Also, both my missus and his wife would physically tear strips of us if Neil or myself tried to hoodwink one another – hell hath no fury like Jacky or Tracy scorned.

Neil, and his wife are what I would call good solid chums – I even stepped-in as his wedding chauffeur at the last minute. They are what you call proper friends. Just because some mush ‘up north’ is on my friends list with nothing more than a bit of keyboard dialogue between us doesn’t mean

I am going to wire them £2000 for a polished unseen turd of an unseen car. More to the point, I wouldn’t be the first one to vociferously witter on about it on the internet either if I had. If I did, I would expect nothing more than the odd retort telling me that I had clearly lost my marbles.

That said, I have bought a car unseen, untried and untested via the web – oh and for extra laughs folks it was also turned out to be a non-runner. The difference being that I had some idea of the risk, the car was such a bargain and the vendor lived only twenty miles away – close enough for me to visit him and ram my size nine into his buttock should the milk have turned out to be sour. As it happened, the deal did go a bit cockeyed when the vendor only told me after purchasing that said car was a non-runner with a boot full of engine components where they had failed to get the car running.

It arrived on a trailer with the boot contents looking like an explosion in a scrapyard. Did I choose to shout and scream from the keyboard? No, I just got on with repairing it and sold it on with a nice bit of profit – my balls-up, my risk and no-one else to blame but muggins sitting here.

You see, when it comes to buying cars, be them new or used, rather like the war cry from the Sergeant Major in the film

Zulu, I prefer to; “wait till you see the whites of their eyes”. As much as the internet has brought us oldies untold wonder and knowledge, it also brings-out the very worst, the stupid and downright dishonest too.

Where once those old bombsite pitches with beige caravans, gravel flooring and a chain-tethered German Shepherd roped to the bumper of an old Zephyr were the beacons of buggered second-hand cars, the internet is now the quicksand for those with more money than sense. Lockdown boredom is the reason as stated. The best advice is rather than spend for the sake of it, keep buying this wonderful magazine. That way, you’ll keep me in the pink with ciggies and drink while hopefully doing those niggling jobs on the car you’ve been putting off for months. Keep your car, keep your money and never mind keeping the enemies close – keep those internet friends closer.

“By the time he arrived home he stated there was a Roman scroll of items needing attention, immediate replacement or fettling – most of them being the sort of things you and I could spot on a thorough test drive or inspection”