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would you trust someone with your 30k car for a whole day?

a workshop you don't know / never been to before?

seller is very reasonable i would want to wait as well and be present and check out what that specific workshop is doing .

also inspections should not take half a day or a day that's why the seller got a bit sus

When i bought my R33 i arranged with the seller to take it to Auto Workshop In Welshpool. We pre arranged a saturday morning and they took no more than 1 hour.

the seller and his mate and I sat outside chewing the fat while the inspection was done. Was a reasonable price (I paid) and a comprehensive report was provided. This report was presented to both the seller and buyer at the same time.

We moved to the side had a few discussions and a price was agreed. i paid and had my car.

Flexibility by both parties is required to make a smooth and succusful purchase/sale.

I was happy and the seller was happy, even though he had to drive 45 mins out of his way. this was agreed 1.5 weeks earlier. patience is a virtue!!!!!

When i bought my R33 i arranged with the seller to take it to Auto Workshop In Welshpool. We pre arranged a saturday morning and they took no more than 1 hour.

the seller and his mate and I sat outside chewing the fat while the inspection was done. Was a reasonable price (I paid) and a comprehensive report was provided. This report was presented to both the seller and buyer at the same time.

We moved to the side had a few discussions and a price was agreed. i paid and had my car.

Flexibility by both parties is required to make a smooth and succusful purchase/sale.

I was happy and the seller was happy, even though he had to drive 45 mins out of his way. this was agreed 1.5 weeks earlier. patience is a virtue!!!!!

That's what i would do exactly.

Try to offer him a higher deposit and tell him you're serious about purchasing the car. He wants to sell it as bad as you wanna buy it.

Ask him to come with you for the inspection.If necessary bring another car and have a beer or two ( The Foundry is just around the corner)

while the car is being inspected. It shouldn't take longer than 2 hours.

Simple :cool:

Ok an inspection would involve @ least these things

Now they may also do a compression test and a leak down test which would also show what the current plugs condition is like. This in itself would prob take an hour considoring its a bit of a pain in the ass to get to the VQ's plugs.

However with our cars being fairly new and non turbo I personaly think that as long as the cars engine is running fine and seems to have plenty of zest theres not much point, particually on an engine with less than 60k on the clock

If you believe that it really is 60k on the clock of course!

it's not about the km it's more to how the car is maintained...

any car you can judge by the condition whether it's done 30k or 60k or 100k... I'm used to buying used car at least 3-5 times now I know where to look... bring a friend who does if you don't know where to look.

unlike some 1989 R32 GTR which are still advertised with low 30k - 60k km now that is way too hard to believe considering it's a 20 year old car,

although there are still one or two examples that are really genuine...

a S1 V35 coupe with 30k-60k is average, they're not too suspiciously less for its age. S2 is average around 20k-30k on the clock...

a V35 sedan early 01-02 model will average close to 80-100k... although some cars can look better than the other but you could take a look

at the tell-tale sign of wear in interior particularly easier to spot the creases in leather seat, rubber wear in brake pedals, scratches on doors, etc.

as the interior parts are relatively still very expensive to replace due to the relatively new age of these cars, it is uneconomical to have the interiors

swapped out just to gain a few hundred extra worth of market value to make the car look a lot fresher...

plus you did mention you went through the service records and it is satisfactory, that should have given you a bit of reassurance as well...

when i was going to buy a CRX, had the bodykit and the fully sick sound system (i was young). I had no clue about cars but i called up RAC and they came out to his house (you gotta book it about a week in advance though) and did a full check up of it at his house. then they gave him a copy of the report and they mailed me my copy. i just paid over the phone when i booked it and it was simple as that!

by the way, the CRX was given a "very poor" rating lol, i didnt buy it.

the time it took for you to rant in this thread you could have been driving one by now...the buyer does not always have the upper hand. If the car is as good as you say it is and the seller knows this then he still holds most of the cards. you live and learn...move on there are other fish in the sea.

I went thru exactly the same scenario and ended up getting him to do an RAC driveway inspection. I was fairly confident the car was ok given the low 34000ks and pristine interior for an 03 model, and the report proved it so, but always better to be safe than sorry.

I thought you had paid a deposit tho, how can he take another deposit from someone else?

he withdrew his deposit after seller hesitated to get the car inspected for 'quoted half a day to a full day' from his mechanics...

no one wants to waste time to inspects car for half a day... I wouldn't waste my time as a seller sitting around at a garage for 6 hours...

1-2 hours is max I would do - that's what RACV here in VIC do as standard pre-purchase inspection with full report.

I think we can close off this discussion... the seller moved on, got his car to be sold which i believe the other buyer would be very happy,

and the thread starter better move on finding another car cos there's no use ranting about it now when the fish has now snap off his fishing

line and swam out to the sea...

i too am on the sellers side for this. while i can see where the buyer is coming from, i have been jerked around buy overly cautious buyers and i know mates who have been too. i had a guy want me to drive 45 mins (each way) for him to be able to put the car up on a hoist. then when he finally came and had a look at the car is was as dumb as a post. brought a heap of mates who all looked under the car, etc. the rear rocker cover was leaking a bit and he wanted to get a compression test, etc, done which on most cars i would've agreed to but this was on my magna which required the intake plenum to be removed (quoted as being about a 1.5 hour job each way from memory) to get to the rear 3 spark plugs and can't be done with them still in and then if the gasket gets damaged in the process then you are up for that as well. so i informed him that i would only get it done if he paid for it all even if he didn't buy the car, to which he then said that he was going to get some other tests done it to make sure the head gasket was ok. i was at a mates place at the time and he is a mechanic and he was trying to figure out what tests (other than pressurising the radiator) could test the head without having to remove the spark plugs so he said we could sneak it into his work and do it because he wanted to know what these mysterious tests were. although after i told the guy that a mechanic had offered to let me use his hoist because he was interested to see what the tests were i never heard back from the guy. about a week later i put a new rocker cover gasket on the car and sold it a few days later.

i also know someone selling his car where the buyer had a compression test done and the results came back saying it was low on 1 cylinder. then he got one done himself and the results showed it to be fine.

the other thing is that if the roadworthy was done at a reputable place then a lot of the things that an inspection looks at should've already been done and other things like oil leaks you can look for yourself. although if you don't know common issues with cars you can often be worried about oil leaks for no reason. and the professionals can also make more of a drama out of something from lack of knowledge of certain issues. for example it is pretty common for r33's to have a bit of oil coming out of the bottom of the power steering pump (seemed to be an option you could tick on the order form, LOL). a lot also have a leak from the rear of the rocker covers on the passenger side. early E series falcons always have oil around the base of the rocker cover as well. s13's pretty much all have dodgy washer bottles.

generally most issues will be evident when taking the car for a test drive. about the only real test worth doing is a compression test if you want. but again, if the car feels strong when you drive it then there is a good chance then the results will be good. a lot of things that go wrong with cars you can't test for. if the turbo is about to blow a seal or part ways with the exhaust wheel there isn't much way of knowing this in advance.

probably one of the best things you could do is take a consult cable and laptop with you. that way you can check for any fault codes as well as acurately keep an eye on things like temperature when going for a test drive since the stock gauge isn't very accurate. but then slightly higher temps can be caused by simple things or not so simple things, so it is sort of a double edged sword.

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