Carry over from my Cars for Sale post re: 1992 S3 from BaT auction

[theDreamer]

Sorry, this is a long post. I decided to put it here as it is related to my Bring a Trailer post.

I was hoping whoever “liimey” was that he’d turn out to be a good guy and fellow Se7ens enthusiast. My biggest fear was he’d be some jerk just in it to make a buck. So, when my brother alerted me that the Caterham I’d lost on BaT was already back up for sale I got this real bad feeling.

I phoned the number and spoke to the new owner Sean. Right away he starts lying. I asked how long he’d had the car and he replied, “A year”. I asked how does it drive, what’s the handling like, are there any known issues? His reply; “It’s a seven! It handles like a race car. Fires right up and runs great.” I asked some more questions and he says it’s all there in the ad. ”I don’t know what more I can tell you”. You’ve got to come see it for yourself. “It’s a concours winning car”. So I said sure how about tomorrow around 10:00? He says make it 10:30.

Yesterday morning (Saturday Nov. 11) we drove the two hours to Sean’s home to view the car. Now at this point he doesn’t know who I am, just that I’m a very interested party. At first I introduced myself only as Stephen and my wife Linda, (my wife came along so I didn’t do anything stupid) as if. He knew he couldn’t keep up the charade once I saw his size. He admitted to us he hadn’t owned the car for a year and obviously hadn’t driven it. Hell, he can’t even fit in it. Rather, he had only just bought it. Then he compounded the first lie by saying he bought the car from a fellow Caterham Owners of Canada Club member he knew was going to sell it. He later changed that statement too but I’ll get to that later.

 

You can skip this part if you like.

He opened one of the doors and motioned us to sit in the car. The wife hasn’t got into a Lotus-ish type car in many years so it was a little tricky for her. Me? A little slow but I slid in fine. Sean handed me the key and I dutifully put it in the ignition and tuned it but… nothing happened. I asked where the battery cut off was. He looked puzzled for a moment and then said, oh ya there’s a plastic thing on the other key ring. He came back with the removable battery cut out key and then set about trying to locate the switch it fit. He thought it was in the engine bay but couldn’t get the cover off. By lifting one side up he located the backside of the switch on the firewall. I reached up and found it then slid the key in. I turned it and then turned the ignition on and the dash lit up. Power! I tried starting it. It took several attempts but it finally came to life. Very rough, popping and spitting back through the carbs and farting out the exhaust pipe. After several minutes of trying to give it a little throttle it final took and I was able to get it to sort of hold around 1000 rpm’s. But still popping and farting. The wife fought her way out of the passenger seat and walked around the car. She stopped at the front and after about five minutes it still didn’t want to hold a smooth idle so I shut it off. She motions me over and says that there was a noticeable rap or knock that I could not hear inside the car. She wanted to satisfy her curiosity so Sean got the engine cover all the way off and I pulled the dip stick. No bad smells or visible water beads but the oil didn’t feel as viscus as I’d expected. Rather dirty too. Now synthetic oil doesn’t look, smell or react the same as the dino so what do I know. Still, it seemed the engine was acting up from more than just being cold and having out of whack Webber carbs.

 

I started pointing out all the inconsistencies in the ad and his phone description to the actual car. At one point I stated that his definition of concours and mine were very different and I showed him photos of my father’s 1934 LaSalle, a real concours winner. (See my story in the other cars of USA7's owners thread.)

I think that’s when things started to go downhill. I explained why, IMHO, his price was way off. I started to list all the things I’d have to do to the car. Funny, he brought up that Caterham won’t ship windshields over anymore because of too much breakage. Anyway, his eyes started to roll. I said I had an offer I’d like to make. He said; “I don’t think I want to hear it. In fact I KNOW I don’t want to hear it. I have a feeing I’m going to turn it down”. He went on about how he didn’t need the money. “Look around, does it look like I need money?” Than a few minutes later he admitted he bought the car solely to make money.

After I’d heard enough BS I re introduced myself by reaching out to shake his hand a second time and saying “liimey, I’m Duke_Audi”. I think that’s when the light bulb went off for him.

Earlier I said he contradicted his statement about buying the car from a club member. Well it was at this time that he admitted he’d been following the BaT auction all along. His “liimey” account was started in October but, of 2019. (My bad for thinking it was new account and missing the year.)

I asked him if he’d changed the ownership over in to his name and he was very candid and said “No”. He further indicated that he had no intention of doing so. Again I tried approaching the subject of purchasing the car. I suggested an offer that would see him recoup what he’d spent so far and put a couple of grand into his pocket for just moving the car from Oakville to Stouffville. Not bad for such a short term investment and no work on his part.

He went from saying he didn’t need the money and bought it because he loved Caterhams to; he bought it to make money. Furthermore, any offer from me wouldn’t be anywhere near enough.

Having owned three SV chassis Sevens he considers himself an expert. Funny how this expert didn’t know how to start his new car or that he had to remove one of the air filter pods to get the engine cover off. He is convinced that he’ll get $55k CAD next spring for it if not before. If he doesn’t he’ll keep dropping the price until it does sell because as he said, he just doesn’t care. He’ll tuck it away in his little car cubby in the back of his garage and leave it there as long as he needs to.

I felt disrespected. I went there to make a fair offer on a car that I’ve become very emotional over. He doesn’t care, he has no interest in the car, HELL, he can’t even drive it! All he can see are dollar signs. He has no interest in detailing it, fixing anything on it, or even just learning about it. He’s just waiting for some poor sap to come along and believe his BS and give him all that money. As you can see in both the Kijiji.ca and Autotrader.ca ads he was so lazy he just took all the info, images and video right off the BaT auction page.

In the end what I was hearing from him was; I don’t care what I sell it for, when I sell it or whom I sell it to as long as it isn’t you! 

I cannot stress enough how very open he was about not changing the ownership over into his name. He plans on leaving it in the BaT seller’s name. When it sells it will be like the BaT seller sold the car. Sean’s name will only ever appear on the check the next buyer gives him. This way he does NOT pay Ontario’s 13% HST. That’s an extra $5 grand in his pocket. The law is very clear here, he has 6 business days to change the ownership over. Furthermore, as long as the car remains in the BaT’s sellers name that person is still legally responsible for the vehicle.

Full disclosure; I offered to buy the car on Saturday thinking it was under the six days and therefore Sean would save the tax. I was hoping he was a good guy and that we would come to a number all would be happy with. As I said above, he declined to even discuss an offer.

[Vovchandr]

Quite a story. Certainly sounds like a salesman at heart.

 

With that said, he's fully entitled to sit on it for as long as he wants with a high price waiting for some fool to come along. Market will sort itself out. Either he's right and he will find somebody or he will be proven wrong in the end when nobody bites at that price.

 

As far as ownership transferring, I don't know Canadian details but in US if he was a dealer he doesn't need to register cars into his name, but I also don't know details of the dealership process. 

 

I know what you're feeling to some degree, there were a few vehicles that I really wanted to buy and have made reasonable (as I'd consider) accommodations towards the seller that would make me the obvious choice but alas sometimes things just don't work out and you can't really force somebody's hand with anything else other than money. Money talks period. (and even that sometimes isn't enough if the item is not for sale).