Picked up a beater to flip

[SirTanon]

How did I not know about this Copart place before??

I have to say that I love this idea, and I've been considering doing this kind of thing for a while. If you recall, I was looking at some "mechanic special" LeSabres on Craigslist for about a week now - pretty much since that thread was posted about the green LeSabre.

Looking on the Copart site, it seems they are located in Tucson - Do they happen to have a location in Phoenix?

I'm tempted to sign up and take a shot on a car or two. I'd love to do some 'rehab' on a beater and turn it around for a few bucks.

 

[nthach]

Copart used to be headquartered near me in Fairfield - they have a yard in Martinez or Benicia that a lot of insurance totals go to. I've always wanted to toy around with a beater or try out the 24 Hours of LeMons, looks like I have a source for a beater besides CL.

 

[Nick1994]

Originally Posted By: SirTanon
How did I not know about this Copart place before??

I have to say that I love this idea, and I've been considering doing this kind of thing for a while. If you recall, I was looking at some "mechanic special" LeSabres on Craigslist for about a week now - pretty much since that thread was posted about the green LeSabre.

Looking on the Copart site, it seems they are located in Tucson - Do they happen to have a location in Phoenix?

I'm tempted to sign up and take a shot on a car or two. I'd love to do some 'rehab' on a beater and turn it around for a few bucks.
They're on 51st Ave between Van Buren and Buckeye.

There's fees with the cars, I won my auction for $225 but after the fees it was like $475 or so

 

[SirTanon]

Still, that car for under $500, including fees.. not bad. As long as you go into it expecting the fees, you can bid accordingly.

BTW, you had mentioned about the fork lift, and that you were checking the undercarriage to see if it had made any damage/wear. Did you find any?

 

[Nick1994]

Originally Posted By: SirTanon
Still, that car for under $500, including fees.. not bad. As long as you go into it expecting the fees, you can bid accordingly.

BTW, you had mentioned about the fork lift, and that you were checking the undercarriage to see if it had made any damage/wear. Did you find any?
There's an exhaust shield that's a little loose, but I don't know that it's from the fork lift. No scratch marks on it so it might have been that way. Everything else looks good.

I had to put new control arms on it, the bushings were totally toast. Also the windshield was broken, couldn't see that in the pictures online.

 

[SirTanon]

So all in all, a very good purchase. Some cars listed on Craigslist aren't that clean... any in fact.

I've been browsing Copart, and I've found a few cars I think I may bid on. 2004 Mazda 6, 2012 Mazda 3, and 2006 Ford Taurus.. for starters.

 

[Nick1994]

Sold the Buick today for $1,200, I just wanted it gone. Once I lowered the price on Craigslist from $1,500 to $1,300 my phone lit up. So about $400 of profit. I probably won't do it again for a while, a bit of a hassle. I'll keep my eye on the lookout in a few months for something cool though.

 

[supton]

Not bad. Made a bit of profit. Did it come out to some decent amount of cash per hour spent on it? It's not that the "pay" has to be good, not if it's something you enjoy doing--most hobbies are complete money sinks. A great hobby would be one that breaks even.

 

[CKN]

Doesn't beg to be duplicated......

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted By: supton
Not bad. Made a bit of profit. Did it come out to some decent amount of cash per hour spent on it? It's not that the "pay" has to be good, not if it's something you enjoy doing--most hobbies are complete money sinks. A great hobby would be one that breaks even.


Yeah, I get the feeling that it was just sitting around waiting for a buyer. I suppose if he had driven it a few thousand miles and maybe did Uber or Turo maybe it would have added to the profits, but I think that type of car doesn't qualify for Uber or Turo.

 

[Nick1994]

It sat for sale for over a month. Didn't bother me, all it did was sit.

Apparently a check engine light came on after the girl bought it. I have no idea what it was for. She said she took it to a mechanic who looked it over and found out it needs some work.

Duh! I told her it's a 16 year old $1200 car with 250k miles, of course it needs some work. I showed her and her step dad all the things that are broken or needed work that I knew of.

She wanted to know if she could return it for her money back.

Sorry.

 

[CKN]

Another BITOG peer pressure disaster......

That's two that I know of.
There was the guy who bought the Crown Vic "for his wife". That was a disaster as well.

 

[Nick1994]

Originally Posted By: CKN
Another BITOG peer pressure disaster......

That's two that I know of.
There was the guy who bought the Crown Vic "for his wife". That was a disaster as well.
What here is a peer pressure disaster?

 

[supton]

Doah! hard lesson ahead for someone, methinks.

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted By: Nick1994
It sat for sale for over a month. Didn't bother me, all it did was sit.

Apparently a check engine light came on after the girl bought it. I have no idea what it was for. She said she took it to a mechanic who looked it over and found out it needs some work.

Duh! I told her it's a 16 year old $1200 car with 250k miles, of course it needs some work. I showed her and her step dad all the things that are broken or needed work that I knew of.

She wanted to know if she could return it for her money back.

Sorry.


It's a good thing there wasn't a law that required you to return her money. In my state, if it fails an inspection within 7 days, you can get your money back. However after 15 years, it's just a safety inspection, otherwise a CEL could cause it to fail depending how how many error codes you have, I think they just let you slide with one.

 

[SirTanon]

Originally Posted By: Wolf359
Originally Posted By: Nick1994
It sat for sale for over a month. Didn't bother me, all it did was sit.

Apparently a check engine light came on after the girl bought it. I have no idea what it was for. She said she took it to a mechanic who looked it over and found out it needs some work.

Duh! I told her it's a 16 year old $1200 car with 250k miles, of course it needs some work. I showed her and her step dad all the things that are broken or needed work that I knew of.

She wanted to know if she could return it for her money back.

Sorry.


It's a good thing there wasn't a law that required you to return her money. In my state, if it fails an inspection within 7 days, you can get your money back. However after 15 years, it's just a safety inspection, otherwise a CEL could cause it to fail depending how how many error codes you have, I think they just let you slide with one.


I would be surprised if she would really have been able to utilize that law in this case. Cars this old are generally sold 'as is'.. also, I seem to recall seeing that exact wording listed in his had on CL.

IMHO, if it's a used car, and is listed using the phrase "Car is sold in 'as-is' condition with no warranty" then it becomes a case of 'buyer beware.' He spelled out for the buyer that he knew it needed work, and she bought it knowing this.

As I see it, $1200 was a fair price for that car.

 

[CKN]

Originally Posted By: Wolf359
Originally Posted By: Nick1994
It sat for sale for over a month. Didn't bother me, all it did was sit.

Apparently a check engine light came on after the girl bought it. I have no idea what it was for. She said she took it to a mechanic who looked it over and found out it needs some work.

Duh! I told her it's a 16 year old $1200 car with 250k miles, of course it needs some work. I showed her and her step dad all the things that are broken or needed work that I knew of.

She wanted to know if she could return it for her money back.

Sorry.


It's a good thing there wasn't a law that required you to return her money. In my state, if it fails an inspection within 7 days, you can get your money back. However after 15 years, it's just a safety inspection, otherwise a CEL could cause it to fail depending how how many error codes you have, I think they just let you slide with one.



When you don't have a lot of money (evidenced by buying $1200.00 car) you still expect for it to be serviceable without spending a lot of money on it. So here we have the OP-who admitted the whole thing was a hassle-and an unsuspecting buyer who got a car that needs who-knows-what even after the OP soaked money in to it. No winners in this whole deal. As I said -a BITOG disaster.

 

[Nick1994]

I told her when she showed up that the "Security" light just came on and that it hadn't been on before. She didn't care. Told her gas gauge was broken and she saw the "low tire pressure" warning coming on.

Arizona cars are sold as is.

I have a bill of sale that I use when selling every car, it specifically states that the vehicle is sold in "AS-IS" condition. Her signature is on it and so is mine.

She didn't tell me what the mechanic found, but I'm guessing the CEL must have been for the gas cap, it was a generic one and didn't really fit well.

 

[CKN]

Originally Posted By: Nick1994
I told her when she showed up that the "Security" light just came on and that it hadn't been on before. She didn't care. Told her gas gauge was broken and she saw the "low tire pressure" warning coming on.

Arizona cars are sold as is.

I have a bill of sale that I use when selling every car, it specifically states that the vehicle is sold in "AS-IS" condition. Her signature is on it and so is mine.

She didn't tell me what the mechanic found, but I'm guessing the CEL must have been for the gas cap, it was a generic one and didn't really fit well.


It would seem if your theory is correct regarding the gas cap (causing the CEL)-she wouldn't of wanted to return the car to you for a refund, since a new gas cap is an easy fix. If I understand things correctly-her mechanic did read the CEL.

 

[Nick1994]

The mechanic probably found typical problems of 16 year old $1200 250,000 mile cars, like a little play in steering system, a seeping oil pan gasket, brake pads only at 1/2 pad, tires getting old, struts that are tired, etc. and then she doesn't want to keep the car.

I know I didn't sell some big lemon, it ran and drove great. I never had a CEL with it but I didn't put many miles on it. Maybe 30 miles total.