There use to be a "buy here, pay here" lot up the street from me that I would pass by every day on my way to and from work.
They always seemed a bit shady to me in the first place-they'd tend to get a lot of higher end/"luxury" cars(they were always stuffed to the gills with Cadillacs, Lincolns, Lexuses, Mercedes, BMWs) but they would always be older and/or high miles.
Ignoring my reservations about the lot, though, I stopped in one day to talk to them about a car I was potentially interested in on their lot-an e39 540i M-Sport, a moderately uncommon car and one that gives you a lot of the benefits of an E39 M5 without the price tag or the notoriously high strung engine. I stopped in and asked for a test drive, and was given what I thought was a bit of a lousy excuse but was promised that I could drive it if I came back the next day. I also asked for a cash OTD price, which they reluctantly gave me and I thought seemed reasonably.
I showed up the next day with the intent to test drive a car and also $1K in cash to leave a deposit if I liked the car(we hadn't previously discussed that, but I thought that was a reasonable amount given the ~$10K price I was quoted). They hemmed and hawed a bit, and finally told me that they don't allow test drives on manual transmissions. I pointed out that I had driven there in a car with a manual, and that I was fine with a ride-along, but that I wasn't going to buy ANYTHING, much less a manual, without a test drive. They said no. Given that the car had ~150K miles, I still wonder if the clutch was going out on it, and they didn't want me to test drive it because of that. Given what a BMW clutch will cost, even as a DIY, I wasn't about to buy a car without finding out about that. So, I walked on that one.
A year later, I saw a kind of beat up but still solid and rust-free 90s Ranger sitting on their lot. I figured I'd give them another chance and talked to them about it. It was a standard cab, 2 wheel drive, plus a 4 cylinder, manual, and basically no options-in other words just a plain old truck, which is exactly what I wanted. Their $1500 and some change OTD cash price sounded reasonable, and since it was close to closing time and the truck was buried at the back of their lot, I agreed to come back the next day for a test drive and told them that I'd have cash in hand and be ready to buy if I liked it. So, the next day, I showed up with $1550(more than what they'd told me) in a bank envelope in my pocket, and asked to test drive it. They gave me the same run-around about no test drives on manuals, so I showed them the cash and asked if that was enough to get a test drive. I then got "Oh, sorry, we made a mistake when we told you that price-it would take $1900 today to buy it." The $1500 price I was quoted(maybe like $1525 with taxes, etc) was not just an off-handed number they gave me-I watched them look it up in the system and spend a minute crunching numbers before giving me that price, so I don't think it was a case of simply telling me the wrong price(plus it was easily the least expensive vehicle on the lot). So, I walked out and never looked back.
That left me with a sour taste of any lot that advertised "Buy here-Pay here"