I won this on eBay, advertised as having a Full engine rebuild 3 months ago,

I went to collect today, Zero oil pressure @ idle, 1bar driving!

Although the car purred, I wasn't happy obviously, I asked to speak to engine rebuild company there and then, they confirmed they only did a head gasket,,, seller claimed he thought that is what he thought a rebuild was!!!

Lastly the photos on eBay clearly show 3bar oil pressure @ idle, so clearly he has googled a dash shot of a coop,

Also its had 3 owners in 3 months,

Car located in Western Supermare.

£40fuel later....

TBH I wouldn't touch any performance car 3 months after an engine rebuild, no matter who had done the work.

Why?

What did it go for on ebay? Is it me or have you been looking at some right nails recently? Ive bought lots from ebay but purchasing cars is fraught with danger. Few people from here have flogged complete dogs of cars on the 'bay

What the hell does that mean? How would you know what I have, or have not been looking at?

It was a supposed lovely example,

That's why I bid on it.

At the risk of not sounding sympathetic I'm very surprised you did not try before you bye routine!

Obviously not good, but could have been avoided easily. Not what you want to hear but.........

My post is to warn others.

I'm not worried about the drive there, or the fuel, I generally trust a seller with 100% feedback etc...

I'd be questioning why somebody would be putting out big bucks and then selling such aa short time later.

True, he said circumstances had forced the sale.

No drama, I've forgotten about it already.

When buying a car, any car, the way forward is to see it in the flesh & try. This routine should be adhered to in any circumstances, a simple but effective measure.

Again I don't want to sound too obvious & rude but......

I was in bed, 10:30 at night, the Coupe popped up with 5 mins left,.. I bid & won,

A chance I took that failed.

'Spontaneous'
'Wild side'
'Crazy'

You're young & should learn easily from this experience....

You've all missed the point.

Thank you for the warning! It's always nice when these posts come up, stops lots of newbie "why is my car doings x" style questions.

To be honest anyone purchasing any vehicle on ebay or not, should not enter into this lightly if you really don't want to be "stung" kind of obvious in my book, then again some may interpenetrate things differently.

Chrissy. pm me your number
Give me a call tomorrow.
Some people on her are aresholes who don't remember how hard it is to fell let down!!

thanks for the info chrissy, i was also bidding on it

however, without joining the rude crowd, i was worried about the sellers lack of buys/sales on ebay. i therefore bidded accordingly.

i would also say i have bought several ebay cars from the mainland and drove them back to n.ireland, with no issues. i have also sold several to the mainland.

ebay... to those that have been using it well over a decade, is a community as much as a place to make or spend money. therefore as long as you research the user, dont be scared to buy anything you wish. you can meet some interesting people as well as get bargains

Thing is - you can still walk away from any ebay purchase if the vehicle is not as described. You can walk away if there's as much as a hair on the back seat that wasn't in the original particulars.

So, no risk as far as I'm concerned.

Like Big Muzzie said, always good to have the point raised, rather than any methods of buying shot down, which is not what the thread was ever about

One of the benefits from forums like these, looking out for others!

I've spent my twopence worth on this & I think I've been civil OK you sow your seeds I accept that, but I think this is a forum that is 99% of the time is pretty well fair. Being honest & open on my part fail to see how I'm an , or am I reading this wrong?

It's not a thread asking for 'I told you so' comments.

did you decide to leave negative feed back?

Hovedan I agree with you

I've not left any feedback.

will you? im just nosey

Thanks for the warning to others chrissy and it'll hopefully prove useful to anyone interested in the car.

linky?

Is there no route back via Ebay as the item is not as described ?

Are you going to break it chrissy

I was looking at this one too, decided not to go for it as the receipts in the ad only showed head gasket etc. nothing denoting a rebuild. I feel bad that i never said anything at the time, could have saved you the trip, chrissy.

I didn't buy it, I walked away.

Am I the only person who understood that in your first post?

Why else would Chrissy have called it 'buyer beware' and listed the plate if it were not still available?

Ah my bad....you did not purchase the car..

This car was at the Welsh meet with it's previous owner.

And as if by magic, here he is.



I'm with Chrissy on this one. With ebay, you often take a punt based on gut feeling and the information you have. It is an auction at the end of the day. The advert wasn't great, but there were receipts and it looked reasonably genuine.

The other thing with ebay (which you don't get with other types of ad) is you have more protection via ebay and paypal. Plus you have the added benefit of feedback ratings.

Don't get me wrong. If I was spending £10k on a car, I'd want to drive it and take it apart before I bid, but for £1k it is often worth a punt.

PS - I'm not trying to being holier than thou, because my Coupe was an ebay classifed ad (the worst kind if you ask me...) and while mine is in good nick, it did need £1k+ spending on it after I'd bought it. So I got stung with the best of 'em.

Great to hear you didn't get tourqued into keeping it Chrissy

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

First, the heads-up is always appreciated.

Second

I clearly didn't put 2+2 together and understood from chrissy's first post that he had bought it after winning the bid.

A wild goose chase and the associated expense/inconvenience is do-without-able.

'Cause I've been on here and other car forums long enough to see waaaay too many horror stories of dead engines within weeks or months (or days!) of a rebuild, even when the work was carried out by a reputable dealer.

I'd want to see at least 6 months and 5K miles and preferably a year and 10K miles on a rebuilt performance engine, unless the car was so cheap that you could afford to scrap it and walk away.

My first coupe had a new engine fitted by Fiat (not a rebuild, a brand new engine) and I was still finding problems upto 18 months later due to missing brackets/bolts, hose clamps not tightened etc., so even just removing and refitting an engine can easily cause problems that you'd never imagine.

Also, I'd be wary of why a car is being sold so soon after having such a large chunk of cash thrown at it. 6 months or a year later, OK maybe they didn't like the end result, but a few weeks or months later would be ringing alarm bells for me.

I'd have been more concerned with the k seal on the receipt

The heads up is appreciated. Learning of that Sprint blue one with what was deemed low mileage that was for sale with a trader in Devon to end up in Ulster that was known here to have serious issues was an eye opener has it had caught my eye when it was advertised.

Regarding the comment about the oil pressure gauge photo that would be something I'd have put store in too, though the mileage on the odometer isn't that far out from that on one of the receipts. I didn't spot K-Seal though.

Regarding your wasted time and mileage I was doing a site job in W-s-M years ago and a colleague was travelling from South Wales. He was driving a CVH engined Ford and had disconnected the speedo drive to keep the mileage down. Trouble was he'd forgotten when he'd disconnected it and was getting a bit jumpy about when the cambelt service was due.

On the upside at least you didn't buy it. I've bought loads of lemons, you sidestepped that one.

Hi Chrissy, I went to look at this car. To be fair on the guy he had been totally ripped off by the person that sold it to him. I did trust him, he had no qualms about letting me drive it before the auction finished.

You definitely did the right thing by walking away.

He was genuinely gutted when I showed him the clutch was slipping as well as the poor oil pressure and the howling rear wheel bearing!
Regards, Robin

I've just noticed that I saved three images of this car from when it was previously for sale on the PH classifieds a while back. I think it was then being sold by a chap in the Bath area that was also running an Alfa GTV.

I didn't even drive it, At idle with ZERO oil pressure, Coupled with the fact it had just had a head gasket and NOT a FULL engine rebuid as claimed, was for me perfect reason to tell him to sod off! Yes I was very sympathetic to him being stitched up, but the guy knew what he was doing when he failed to mention critical points in his ad.