Why Craigslist Sucks: or my Canadian Adventure (Vancouver B.C. Laguna Seca Blue E46 M3 Convertible)

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Last photo of my MGA

Alright, I’m dog tired from a 2 day public transportation ordeal brought on by a Craigslist liar, but I’ll try to vent in a coherent way.  Namely, after several friggan ridiculous Craigslist experiences I’m almost ready to climb in a hole and give up on finding cars.

Now you might be thinking, “Crap, now he’s going to tell me some stupid first world problem like the Craigslist seller never called him back.”  You may even be considering mailing me a straw and telling me to suck it up.  But that’s not the sort of thing I want to whine about.

I have had the no call backs/no replies more than once.  They’re lame, but they don’t make for material for a blog.  For example, there’s a nice ’65 Mustang coupe with a 289 and a manual 3 speed in the next city over, 15 miles away.  It needs a restoration but it’s a clean, running old muscle car.  He wants $13k.  I have $12,500 (well, at least I did but more on that later).  I looked the car up on Haggerty and their estimate for a 289 coupe in that condition was $10k.  So I sent him an email saying basically, “Hey, I’m interested in the car but Haggerty says $10k for a value.  What’s your thoughts on $13k?”.

I wasn’t being rude, I genuinely wanted to know.  Here’s where he could share that it’s a single owner car, or that the body is ugly but the frame is a brand new aftermarket frame from Racer X.  Whatever.

But instead I got silence.  Not a word.  Not even a “screw you”. (Note: I just checked Craigslist, and he's lowered it to $10k and never told me; what a moron!  I already bought another car but I might have bought this had he returned an email telling me he lowered the price).

It was even worse when I was selling the MGA.  I’d peruse the “for sale or trade cars” and ask them if they wanted to trade for an MGA.  The value would be similar, I wasn’t being ridiculous.  Some of the answers from those emails were to the effect of, “Not a chance in hell would I consider being in the same county as that piece of crap”.  And the dude would be selling a fastback mustang that was rotten from the door handle down, no motor or trans, and an imaginary title.

But still, not blog material.

Then about 6 months ago I saw a Subaru rally car pop up on Craigslist.  It was the base model Impreza but had a full cage, racing belts and upgraded shocks.

 Photo License Flickr Creative Commons - Grant C

As the months went by the price kept falling.

Around the same time I watched a video about how indestructible Volvos are.

Yes, Volvos.  How in the hell does that relate? Well, I commute to work in a Geo Metro.  The cars the Volvo’s were being crashed into to demonstrate their ruggedness were Geo Metros.  And the metros were being smashed like aluminum cans and the speeds didn’t seem that high.

Fearing for my life a fully caged beat-up Impreza started to sound good.  Especially since the price had fallen to two grand.  I could probably sell the Geo for $1500 and for $500 dollars I’d continue living after an accident.

So I take two grand, and a friend (to drive the Subaru and my car back home), to my arranged meeting with the Subaru guy. He lives an hour from me. 

When we arrived the car was beat up but drove solid and I liked it.

So we move into haggle mode.  I offer him $1800 and he’s insulted. So, being a tactful person (just don’t ask my wife if that’s true) I tell him point blank that, look dude, we all expect our car to come down at least a couple hundred from the value we put on Craigslist; a little haggle room is the nature of the deal.

He sort of sees my point and says yeah.   So I say, “Look, I like the car but it really needs tires.  How about $1900”.

This is when it all got weird.

He just goes silent.

Then starts muttering about how my price is fair but he needs to think.

Then he just stares off into space for like 10 minutes.  My buddy and I are watching him like some sideshow circus anomaly.

Finally he looks at me and asks if we can go for a walk around the block.  Just the two of us.

Now if he was a bigger fella I might have been worried he was going to try and subjugate me once out of view of my friend, but he was a scrawny yoga/rock wall type (the Impreza had prayer flags draped from the roll cage) and so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to go for a non-romantic stroll if he’d just sell me the d@^# car.

We start walking and he starts talking about how much he loves the car.  Then he tells me he’s decided he can’t sell it because he’s in love with it and didn’t realize the strength of his love for the car until he saw me driving it (at least it wasn’t me he fell in love with!).  That, and he tells me he was going to lose his lease that day for non-payment but the landlord gave him an extension.  He wanted to walk so his roomates didn’t hear that part as they had no idea (they were all under his name).

I wanted to punch him for wasting our time but I refrained.

And truthfully, I’m not completely sure it was that or if I had offended his Portland sensibilities.  At one point during the test drive he was talking about how great Subaru’s were and I said something to the effect of, “Yeah, it’d be funny if I owned a white one because I always thought these were cars for lesbians”.

After that, I gave up on replacing the Geo via Craigslist.  Prayer shawl dude called me a week later saying rent was due and he really would sell the car now; I said “no”.  I still drive the Geo every day to work.  God will decide when I die, but if he decides it’s soon the Geo will be an easy way to pull the trigger.

So fast forward a couple months.

I sold my MGA, on Craigslist, listing every issue and a true MGA fanatic showed up and bought it after several months.  I'm proud that I even told her, during the sales process, "it's an MG, it's going to break but it's a fairly simple car and easy to fix".  I sleep well at night.

After selling the MGA I wanted a four seater, so I could take the family out on day trips, that I could also track day.  I considered Mustangs, but I’m sorry, to me they look kinda white trash with their garish body lines, colors, and stripes.  Now what’s funny is I said “white trash” and no one was offended.   But I erased the word Mexican I originally had there.  That would have been considered racist.  I think I’ll never run for President so I can tell you that I think a bunch of people out there are huge friggan hypocrites with double standards because I can write “white-trash” and no one cares, but they do if I write Mexican.

But back to the topic.  I’ve landed on the e46 M3 BMW.  They have four sears, but also 330 HP.  They can handle the kids in the back, but they can also attend a track day.  I’m not a big fan of BMW, again for the image reasons, but the M3 cars seem pretty solid.

So I find one in Canada that’s in great shape per Craigslist.  The ad pictures are gorgeous, and the car is painted the rare Laguna Seca Blue.

I'd put a pic here but he'd probably sue or something.

It's a Laguna Seca Blue M3 E46 convertible in Vancouver Canada

Can't say which one!

I get into lengthy emails with the owner about the car.  He tells me it has “no issues” and assures me repeatedly that it will be a great car for my family.

I counted tonight, over 30 emails passed between us.  I did my homework.  I called his “shop”.  They said they didn’t really remember it but it looked like it received regular service per their records.

That should have been a red flag as he just replaced a clutch at the shop.  If you replace a clutch in an M3 I’m pretty sure you would remember it.

I also checked his Vin number with one of the background check sites.  No accidents/liens/etc.

Well, two days before I’m set to head up to Canada he starts asking for a deposit to hold the car because he has pressing demand.  I agree and send him (via Paypal) $200.

Then, as I’m perusing the internet looking at all the other Laguna Seca Blue convertibles out there, I see a picture of the car I’m buying.  The same picture in the ad.  So I click on it expecting to be taken to the Canada car’s advertisement.

Instead I was directed to an add on the BMW forums from 2012.  And it couldn’t be the same car because the one in this add had a different transmission.

At this point I should have bailed but I want to be trusting of humanity.  This was/is an issue.  Do not ever operate on Craigslist in the mode “I want to be trusting”.

So I still go to Canada inventing my own innocent reasons why he may have used a different photo.

I get off the bus in Canada after an eight hour ride, and meet up with the BMW and owner next to the bus station.

Instantly I see grime in all the crevices of the interior.  I walked over to the driver’s side and I can see the entire center console’s factory paint had essentially peeled off. The buttons to release the seat belts were pink.  The steering wheel had holes in it’s leather.  The leather boot on the e-brake was severely worn.  The floormats were missing.  The leather seat, which he’ claimed had no “appreciable wear” looked like someone had taken sand paper to it, cracked, faded and broke down.

Now I may have overlooked all that for Laguna Seca Blue, but next I popped the hood and took a look at the oil.  There were literally little balls of chunky oil mixed in with the normal oil on the dipstick.  I wiped them off probably four times and each time I came up with more sludge.

At this point, because I’m so tactful, I told the owner I thought he was a liar and he should give me my deposit back.  Needless to say we both left in a huff.

It took me 24 hours to get back home via public-transit without ticket reservations.

I did experience Canada in neat ways.  In the train station I learned that there are different popular candies in Canada.  I feel very international now.

And I learned that border guards are very suspicious when you declare that you have $12,500 in cash in the soles of your shoes wrapped in seran wrap to keep the sweat off (I was worried I'd get robbed!).

And I learned that there are no buses from Seattle to Portland after 8:30 PM.

I also learned there is no such thing as a cheap motel in Seattle.  When I finally made it there the cheapest 1 star hotel on Priceline was $130.

Thankfully my father-in-law came up from Olympia and picked me up to let me crash at their house. Yes, I was rescued by my father-in-law.  That’s humbling.

I’ve opened a claim, via Paypal, to try and get my money back based on the car being “significantly not as-advertised”.  We’ll see if I get anything back.

Now the moral of all this is don’t make your cars sound too good on Craigslist.  Be open about the cars faults so you don’t get any moron’s from another country showing up to look at it expecting something better.  And be sure you want to sell.

Because when you’re not honest, or fake someone out on the sale, you become a complete jerk and exemplify what’s wrong in America… wait… actually Canada too!  People lack morals everywhere these days.  Don’t let it be you, be honest in your Craigslist ads. Please.  For the sake of my sanity.