Sometimes, selling a car can be more trouble than it’s worth. We asked our readers earlier this week what was their worst experience selling a car. The responses ran an erratic gambit from the typically flaky buyers to drug dealers and desperate sociopaths. Without further ado, here are the anecdotes that I wouldn’t wish on the most obnoxious car-seller:
I sold my last car on FB Marketplace. Once you get passed all the “Is this available” nonsense, I got my first bite. He test drove it, wanted it, then flaked out when I wouldn’t drop another $500 after we agreed on a price.
Buyer #2 comes, went through the same lengthy negotiation and test drive process, and finally bought the car. The next day they send me a message saying the “exhaust fell off the car”. Now, I had just repaired the exhaust with clamps and did fear that it wouldn’t hold long. I sent them $200 back to cover the cost of repairs at a shop. 3 days later I got another message that the transmission blew up and the car is inoperable. At this point, I simply stopped communicating with them because I figured they’re just seeing how much money they can get back out of me. For all I knew, they were beating the crap out of the car and destroyed it. The car was sold. The title was signed over. Done. Never heard from them again.
The lesson learned though: Make sure you write up a Bill of Sale signed by both parties and a few witnesses. And make sure that Bill of Sale specifically states there is no warranty offered or implied. I was so catastrophically nervous they would try to take me to court over selling them a lemon.
Submitted by: Lotus2891
Back during COVID, I was trying to sell my E39 M5 and while I wasn’t particularly worried about COVID, I was trying to be somewhat smart about it (I had a 2-year-old and 8-month-old at home at the time). I was asking the high end of fair market value for an M5 at the time and not in a real rush to sell. After a month of low-ball offers a legitimate offer finally showed up. The guy was local and could actually hold an intelligible conversation.
After speaking for a while, we agreed to a time to meet for him to test drive the car solo with $1,000 in cash handed over and a photocopy of both his license and insurance. He came back from the test drive all smiles and said he’d take it. He did need to go get the rest of the cash though, which was at his house. This was during a work (from home) day and I was late to a meeting so said that was fine. He asked if he could take the M5 and without really thinking I said okay. After all, his Altima was parked at my house.
I knew from his address that he was about 15 minutes away so when 25 minutes passed, I started to get nervous. When 35 minutes passed I called him with no answer. When 45 minutes passed I essentially started calling him repeatedly every 5 minutes. Finally, after about an hour and 10 minutes he rolled up to my house.
He had gotten excited and taken the backroads to and from his house after picking up his buddy to drive his Altima home. He could see on my face that I was pretty stressed out, apologized profusely, and handed over the cash.
It all worked out, but that was the most stressful hour of waiting I’d had outside of the births of my children.
Submitted by: SantaCruzin6
Every time I sell a car on BringATrailer, it’s the worst week of my life.
Most of the comments are from people with hundreds or thousands of posts, and zero bid or purchase history. They’re using BaT like a forum to talk about cars, and are happy to scare your buyers and cost you money.
“That paint blemish the size of a dime? I talked to my detailer and he said the entire car’s clear coat is bad. It will need to be repainted.” (true story on a 6-figure sale)
So then you respond diplomatically...and they keep pushing. You know they aren’t going to bid on the car — they’ve never bid on any car — so how do you get them to go away without coming off to other buyers as angry?
Submitted by: jimmy-buffett
Wait, sell a car? You can do that? Basically, everything I’ve ever owned has been so worthless by the time I’m done with it it’s totalled, scrapped, or donated (I did trade my Mazda2 in, I asked for the BlackBook number, I got it with no protest).
I did sell an old Cavalier to an acquaintance of a coworker for $100 or something. Sale itself went smooth, but a couple months later I get called by the police because apparently the new owner was pulled over and the car was still in my name (although at least they already suspected I’d sold it, and just told me to go to the DMV to sign a declaration of sale or something).
Submitted by: Maymar
My Fiero was for sale, cheap. I had to teach the prospective buyer how to drive a manual transmission. He wasn’t very good at it but still wanted to buy it. A week after buying the car he showed up at my door complaining he had taken it to a service station to get the clutch replaced after it was fried, and the rear end was completely out of alignment afterwards. Like I’m responsible somehow? No. Plus he lived in the same neighborhood so I had to pass by my own car in front of someone else’s house every day until he finally traded it for a Camaro. I hope the Camaro was an automatic.
Submitted by: Nytmare
Not me personally, but let me tell you the recent tale of my co-worker Josh (A young, upbeat new salesperson and a great guy) and the awful time he’s been having with one particular customer. Let’s call the customer “Teddy.”
A few weeks ago Teddy shows up and picks out a truck he wants, an all-black Ram 1500. He trades in his truck, buys the new one, everything is smooth, leaves Josh a great review, textbook open-and-shut car deal.
Two days later, he calls in, completely distraught. He was not aware that the truck he purchased had 3:55 gears. He needed 3:92 gears. Which, honestly, is such a small difference in gear ratios that the common man would never know the difference between either, towing or otherwise.
BUT, somehow, that .37 of gear ratio is worth 3,100 POUNDS in towing capacity. Now, whether the blame lies on Josh for not clarifying, or Teddy for not mentioning anything about needing the higher tow capacity, an honest mistake is an honest mistake. After all, he called in literally 2 days later, with only 300-some miles on the truck.
So we swapped him out with another identical truck, this time with the proper gears. All was well in the kingdom.
Or so we thought. One week later, an all-black 1500 shows up on a rollback truck, with temp tags on it. That’s never a good sight. Josh recognizes the tag, and takes a big GULP as he dials up Teddy. Turns out with just under 1000 miles the transmission gave up the ghost. Now Teddy, despite not being happy at all, was a nice enough guy to tell Josh “Hey, not your fault. Just get it fixed.”
Josh then finds out a new transmission will be months away.
Next thing I know, Teddy is in the back office with the owner of my store. We ended up custom ordering him ANOTHER brand new Ram 1500. (one positive with all of Stellantis’ woes is that custom orders show up incredibly fast now.)
Fast forward now, to one week ago. The carrier shows up, with a load of glistening new Ram 1500s. I run and grab Josh and we head out to watch them unload. Hopefully, this will be the end of Teddy’s troubles.
Or, yet again, so we thought.
The Ram pulls up in front of us, and up the driver’s side is a 3-foot long sideswipe dent. Transit damage.
Of course, it has transit damage.
I think I literally saw some of the light leave Josh’s soul.
I put my hand on his shoulder and go “Welcome to the car biz, Joshy-boy.”
Submitted by: H4llelujah
Worst experience was selling an old beater E30 318i to a coworker for $500 then finding out 2 years later (well after he had been fired) that he never transferred title and it had been impounded and they were looking to me to pay the fees of close to a thousand dollars.
DMV said I had never submitted the release of liability but luckily I had a printout of me having done just that so after wasting half a day on the phone and in the DMV twice I was off the hook.
Runner up was a $1000 car I took a $200 deposit on with the understanding the balance would be paid when the car was picked up that weekend. That weekend came and went with nobody showing up. I put the car in the back for two weeks with nothing and resold it afterwards.
ELEVEN MONTHS LATER, I am at work and this guy shows up at my place wanting his car - turns out he’d been arrested and deported the day after placing the deposit. He demands the car or his money back which my now then feral wife tells him to pound sand and she’s calling the cops. He bails and is never to be seen/heard from again.
Submitted by: dustynnguyendood
Selling every damned one of my old projects.
‘74 Mustang II? I had it listed for $200, with an extra, running, 2.3L Ford included (the one in it ran as well). I finally stripped the parts I wanted for my ‘76 Mustang II from it, and sold it to a salvage yard for $275 and scrapped the extra 2.3 because even listed at “free” nobody bit.
‘76 Mustang II? Had it listed for $500 with no engine, but did include a working C4 automatic with the rare Mustang II specific V8 bellhousing, motor mounts, exhaust manifolds, and frame mounts (a set of those items is MORE than $500 on eBay). After six months of people “wanting to come see it” that never bothered to show up... I pulled what I could use for my ‘75 Mustang II drag car, and sold it to a salvage yard for... $275.
‘75 Chevrolet C10? It was a rust bucket, but it had a 1-year old TH350 in it, and a running 400 small block 2-bolt main. It even ran and drove. Not one person wanted to buy the whole thing for $700, but I parted it out and sold the remaining hulk to the salvage yard for $175 and in the end cleared more than $4000 parting it out.
‘75 Mustang II? A running, driving, titled, registered, 12-second drag car with dyno sheets, time slips, every parts receipt, and a 10x10 storage unit of spare parts (including the wheels with the drag radials and the good C4 from the ‘76). I started at $6000, eventually sold it for $2750 after 200+ “Is this item still available?” messages on Facebook, lowball offers, and moronic questions like “is it stock?”
I’m about to list a 2008 Kia Rondo, a 1996 Toyota Avalon, and possibly a couple of others, we’ll see how it goes.
Submitted by: Mustang2Matt
I mean... It wasn’t a BAD experience - just weird.
Trying to sell a motorcycle (2002 Aprilia Futura - uncommon 20+ year old Italian sport-tourer, absolute mint condition, lots of work done). Dropped the price to $3495, and got one bite. A tweaky-sounding guy says he’s interested, can he see the bike that night?
He shows up in a janky old Toyota driven by a HUGE Samoan dude. Guy looks at the bike (doesn’t even start it) pulls out a wad of Benjamins, peels off 35 and hands them over. No mess, no fuss. The Samoan dude just stands there, silently.
He’s forgotten his reading glasses, so I copy his DL info to the DMV doc, he gets on the bike, stalls it, restarts it and rides off.
The whole thing took, maybe, 10 mins.
Obviously, I immediately go upstairs and fill out the DMV release of liability. OBVIOUSLY.
And then I Google his name.
Turns out he’s a big-time meth dealer in a local county who, the previous month, got busted with A LOT of meth. While riding his motorcycle. Which had been impounded...
I was worried that he would return the bike (it was old, Italian and cranky) or that the Sheriff’s Dept would come by wanting the money because it came from illegal gains or something, but nope. All good.
The money was real (makes sense - meth dealers aren’t in the forging business) and didn’t smell of meth or coke (more than $100 bills normally do).
Actually, why am I even writing this - it was a GOOD experience...
But I am sad that the next time I see or hear of that bike it will no doubt be trashed. And probably full of meth.
Submitted by: senpai71
It came time to sell my WRX that I thought I was going to keep forever and modified as such. My life situation changed enough that I couldn’t keep it, a DD, my first project car, and a 2nd project car that fell into my lap. By this point I had owned the car for 13 years and there wasn’t really anything left stock on it. I never documented anything. Never kept maintenance logs, did all the work myself except for the airbag recall and building/installing the block. I would pay to get the odd alignment here and there when I didn’t want to deal with it myself.
I spent two long weekend combing over old receipts, scouring the car and making a list of everything it had done to it, made a 2nd list of things that would need to be done with estimates on how long until it needed them, resprayed the bumpers and hood to fix rock chips, spent hours cleaning the car. Doing everything I could to show just how much I loved and adored that car.
Parked it outside my house on the street to clean up the garage after it was all done.
My alcoholic neighbor rear-ended it doing 40+ mph down the sidewalk. Totaled it.
Submitted by: RattyDatsun
Two words. Wells Fargo.
I was selling my ‘99 Miata in 2004. It was paid for, title in hand, too small needed something bigger. Put an ad in craigslist. Got a guy who was interested, he wanted to meet up at a strip mall that was conveniently located. I arrived at the address, it’s a Wells Fargo loan place. Red flag #1. He comes out, is interested but doesn’t want to drive the car. Red flag #2. Wants me to come inside to discuss. Red flag #3. I go inside, come to find out he doesn’t want to buy the car, he wants to discuss refinancing the car and selling me a credit card, a home equity loan, and a million other products. Dude saw absolutely nothing wrong with what he was doing either.
I got the hell out of there. Fuck Wells Fargo.
Submitted by: caholla
Late to the game, but here’s a doozy.
Selling my dream car due to divorce; ‘98 Mustang GT manual. Priced to sell due to the situation. Have a guy from out of state (Guy 1) send me half of the asking price to hold it until he got there. Says can’t get down there for another month or so. All good, I’ll honor his hold.
I get a call at about 3am that same evening. Passerby (Guy 2) sees my for sale sign on the vehicle and calls me. I tell him I currently have it on hold for someone, but will let him know if first buyer falls through.
A month passes, Guy 2 texts me nearly every day asking if it’s available yet. Day before the Guy 1 is scheduled to come down, Guy 2 calls me late night again
“I don’t know what this guy is paying, but I’m outside your house with 5 grand cash”
Guy 1 is set to buy the car for $2500.
I tell him the car’s no longer for sale, and to please stop contacting me.
I get the whole spiel about wasting his time and he knows where I live.
Cops called, gun’s loaded. I barely slept for two weeks after selling that car.
Submitted by: i86hotdogs