We got scammed. Policeman & car nut reveals tips as buyer or seller. Take it to the Limit.
Cars The Podcast
We got scammed. Policeman & car nut reveals tips as buyer or seller. Take it to the Limit.
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Concept
American muscle cars
American muscle cars are fast and strong cars made in the USA, famous for their loud engines and cool looks.
Concept
JDM
JDM means cars made in Japan for people living there, and some people really like these cars because they're special.
Car
Ford Mustang
The Ford Mustang is a famous sports car from America that many people love because it looks cool and goes fast. The Fox body version is an older model that lots of car fans like to fix up and drive. People talk about it a lot because it’s a classic and fun car.
Car
Ford Pinto
The Ford Pinto is a small and cheap car made in the 1970s. It had some safety problems but some people like it because it's simple and easy to fix.
Brand
Tesla
Tesla makes electric cars that run on batteries instead of gas. They are famous for being very high-tech and having cool features like self-driving.
Term
head gasket
The head gasket is like a seal inside the engine that keeps oil and coolant separate and stops leaks. If it breaks, the car can leak fluids and have engine problems.
Term
VIN
A VIN is like a car's fingerprint, a special number that tells you exactly which car it is. People use it to check if the car has any problems or if it's the real deal.
Concept
rust
Rust happens when metal parts of a car get wet and start to break down, making the car look bad and sometimes unsafe. It often happens in places where it snows a lot or where salt is used on roads.
Part
rear quarters
The rear quarters are the back side parts of a car near the wheels. These parts can get rusty or damaged because they are close to the road and get dirty or wet.
Part
sheet metal
Sheet metal is thin metal used to fix or replace parts of a car's body that are broken or rusty. Mechanics cut and shape it to fit where it's needed.
Term
paint thickness meter
A paint thickness meter is a tool that tells you how thick the paint is on a car. This helps you see if the car has been fixed or painted over before.
Term
door jams
Door jams are the parts of a car where the doors shut. Looking there can help you see if the car has been repainted or fixed up because you might notice paint or patches that look different.
Term
fender
The fender is the part of the car around the wheel. It keeps dirt and rocks from hitting the car and makes the car look good.
Car
Dodge Challenger
The Dodge Challenger is a strong and fast car from America that looks like the cars from old movies. The 1970 model with a big engine is special because it can go really fast and is popular with people who love old cool cars.
Term
383
The 383 is a type of big engine that makes the car go really fast and strong.
Car
Toyota Celica
The Toyota Celica is a small sporty car made by Toyota starting in 1970. It was light and fun to drive, which made it popular with people who like cars.
Car
Toyota A1970 Toyota
The Toyota Supra is a fast and fun car that many people like because it can go really quickly and doesn’t break easily. It’s famous among car fans for being both strong and sporty.
Term
rubberized coating
Rubberized coating is like a thick paint that protects the bottom and other parts of a car from rusting by keeping water and dirt away.
Term
unibody
Unibody means the car's body and frame are built as one piece, making the car lighter and stronger than older cars that had separate frames.
Term
frame
The frame is like the car's skeleton that holds everything together. If it gets damaged or rusty, the car might not be safe to drive.
Company
Z-Bart
Z-Bart is a company that puts special stuff on cars to stop rust from forming and keep them in good shape longer.
Term
faded headlights
Faded headlights mean the front lights on the car look cloudy or yellow instead of clear. This happens when the plastic gets old and sun-damaged.
Term
cold start
A cold start means turning on a car that has been off for a while and is not warm. Checking a car when it is cold can help find problems that only happen before the engine warms up.
Term
check engine light
The check engine light is a warning light on your car's dashboard that tells you something might be wrong with the engine or emissions. When it comes on, it's a good idea to get the car checked to find out what the problem is.
Car
Toyota 4Runner
The Toyota 4Runner is a tough car that can drive on rough roads and in snow. Many people like it because it doesn’t break easily and works well when the weather is bad.
Term
title
A title is a paper that shows who owns a car. Without it, you can't legally sell or register the car.
Term
refrigerant
Refrigerant is a special fluid that helps your car's air conditioner cool the air inside. It moves around inside the system to take heat out and make the car feel cold.
Term
recharge
Recharging means putting more cooling fluid into your car's air conditioner when it stops blowing cold air. This helps the system work properly again.
Term
AC
AC means air conditioning, which cools the inside of your car so you feel comfortable when it's hot outside.
Term
bill of sale
A bill of sale is a paper that shows you bought the car from someone. It has important details like the price and that you accept the car as it is.
Car
Ford Taurus
The Ford Taurus is a regular family car that many people used to buy. The 2020 version has new features but sometimes can get too hot and cause problems.
Part
water pump
The water pump is a part that moves water around the engine to keep it cool so it doesn't get too hot and break.
Car
Ford Ranger
The Ford Ranger is a small truck that many people use to carry things and drive every day. It’s not too big, so it’s easy to drive but still useful for work or fun.
LIVE
From the shadows of Mount Rainier, this is cars, the podcast with your host Don Swearer
and I'm Joe black. Joe black. You're the perfect person for this today. Car buyer and seller
scams. I can only give you experience. That's a scam. Hey, what isn't a scam? Let's get to
this. Hey, you Joe here has a prolific series of websites. So I am on I am fast cars and
freedom with the number two. All one word. I am on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. And
you want to see videos with music, some shenanigans, some live racing, things like that for you
to follow. I enjoy going to your videos, but it's mostly featuring. So American muscle
cars and classics is what I'm pretty much that's how I've grown up. And I have nothing
against the European. You know, you're not being held under duress blink twice. Exactly.
Nothing against the other types of cars, you know, JDM, European, you know, imports. It's
I respect the cars. But on my other page, I'm going to start posting these because I
have a lot of people really ask for these all the time. So like I said, you'll be seeing
a lot more on that is on my take it to the limit page on TikTok. Take it. Is that a take
off of the Eagles? That's exactly what it is. It took us a while. It took us a while,
believe it or not. I have a manager and that's Gina and I and so it was a bunch of us one
night. I'm trying to come up with a name. I said, Hey, I want to do some different things
on this channel, which is anything from music to live events. And you know, it's all about
cars still. So like, Hey, and like the Eagles and it just came into play.
Well, like I said, we Joe here is the perfect person for this this topic. We're going to
go over a car dealer, a car buyer and seller scams. You can get you can get rocked as a
buyer. You can get rocked as a seller. And these are some things we have learned from
hard knocks. I got some recent experience. So I thought, Well, this is going to be great.
And Joe has bought and sold a lot of cars. We've recently talked about how he's he's
managing in his short little life to go through 17 Fox body Mustangs. And that's just a small
part of what he's bought and sold privately. 29 Mustangs total. Oh my God. Does that include
Mustang twos? I have never had a Mustang to believe it or not. I have not had one. You
haven't lived the dream. They're coming into the, you know, those glorified pentos are coming back.
Yeah, they were all crushed though. Unfortunately. Hey, I would take a Ford Pinto in condition to
have seen some of those going for crazy. Isn't it cool to get one of those cruising? What was
it cruising wagon? Yeah, the little porthole windows. Yeah, I was just thinking the exact same
thing. Put a little V8 in there. You got the little aluminum brushed aluminum wheels. I guess
it would fit a 302, which I've seen them. See a lot of wild ones. Can't be many left. But anyhow,
yeah, like I said, I had some, I can laugh about it now, but I was trying to sell a
a really nice Toyota forerunner. Of course, it was 19 years old. And we had 200 and well over
200,000 miles on it. Just broken. Just broke. Yeah, for Toyota, those will run half a million
easy. But it was, we really wanted to see what these Teslas are all about. And so we got that
Tesla Joe got to not drive it. It drove me around. Exactly. I enjoyed it. I was just like,
just sit back and relax. It was hilarious when it was, you're trying to go to the gas pumps at
Costco and it was the car was confused because it's like gas pumps. What's that? And the people
were confused too. They're like, what the hell is this car doing? Going the wrong way. Yeah.
Yeah. Anyway, and I'm, I'm a huge teamscape. Huge teamscape. I've never bought or I've never
sold a car like a trade in. I always privately sell my cars. Never trade in. It's just, I can't
walk away from $4,000. It's just the easy way that people do things and they try to make it sound
like you're getting such a great deal. Oh, we're going to give you $5,000 for this car. And yeah,
guess what? But we just lifted it $7,000 that you're going to pay for it. And I see why people do
that. It's just, you know, they don't have the experience. They just don't want to get caught
up in it all. And it seems confusing, but there's a lot of, you know, you can just google a lot of
times what to do or you can go watch a YouTube video about, you know, making a, making a receipt
and, you know, you're going to need your title. You're going to need, you know, basic stuff.
God bless the internet. You know, and again, I'm a cheapskate. I never,
I always own the car outright. I don't lease or make payments or anything. I just,
I don't like to do that. That's un-American. It's un-American to do this. It's just like
credit cards. So when I go and pay cash, I'm like, yeah, I'll be un-American today. I'm going to pay
cash. Crazy. Crazy. So anyway, so you don't have to deal with the bank that way. But,
you know, Joe's going to be a big help here because he's been in law enforcement too. So he's seen,
he's seen the other side of people, you know, having issues. I'm just going to relate the car,
the forerunner that I sold recently. I sold through, you know, just online, just your basic
websites and Facebook, Facebook marketplace and Craigslist and AutoTrack.
They still have, have that? They still have Craigslist?
I know. I don't know why. That's where you get the wild ones.
You're right. You're absolutely right. But you know what?
Facebook has become the Craigslist. It is. And there's more,
you can check people's background a little more with Facebook.
You can look to see what they look like.
Yeah. I don't know why Craigslist, I guess.
Where they're coming from.
Yeah. I don't know why I chose Craigslist. I pulled it down as soon as I found out some of the
stuff I was dealing with.
I remember the day when they started trying to say they're going to charge for Craigslist ads
or for using it.
Oh, okay.
They're going to charge like $5.00.
Oh, you're right. Yeah.
I think that's just to weed out, you know, there's people, if you just put a little barrier there,
it weeds out the people who just leave stuff on permanently.
Well, you get a newspaper.
I mean, I could put everything in my house here on Craigslist permanently.
And oh, somebody's offering me $5.00 for this old picture frame, you know.
Right.
Otherwise, you're just dealing with just a bunch of garbage.
Pitch, pick it up on the sidewalk.
Yeah.
It'll be out in front of my house.
So eventually sold the car to a exactly what I thought would be perfect for.
It was a young man who's his senior year in school.
This is going to be his transportation to get to college and wherever he's going in the future.
Absolutely ideal.
Here's this very reliable Toyota could be fixed anywhere.
It was no two-wheel drive.
It was a rare.
That's rare.
I bought it because I knew it hadn't been hooned off-road.
So it's going to the ideal home.
The young guy is actually his mom helped pay for it.
And they were both, you know, the sun came by.
They drove quite a ways all the way from the coast.
And the sun brought two friends of his.
They were just giddy seeing this.
You know, it's just a well cared for 19 year old.
He's like, we can all fit in.
This is cool.
I know.
Shocking.
Exactly.
Let's go up in the let's go party in the hills.
And the sun was a big guy.
And he's like a like a wrestler, really, you know, state level wrestler.
So I wasn't going to mess with him.
Right.
We're not wrestling over the price.
Now he's taller than me and like, I don't know, 240 pounds or something.
Like now it's okay.
You don't need to you don't need to hit me over the head or anything.
Anyway, before that, though, I had some characters get ahold of me, a character.
And I should have been suspicious.
When they arrived, he had not just a passenger to drive the other vehicle,
but there was somebody who was hiding out in their in their vehicle.
And when we were distracted, somebody who was just like the mafia out of my sight.
No, I don't know.
I was kind of, uh, yeah, it was just a shady deal.
Not not totally a marriage.
Oh, you're doing what?
What you selling here?
I'm trying to buy with me and my buddies here.
We want to buy a guy the Jersey Shore mafia.
Yeah.
Exactly.
So anyhow, so somebody obviously sprayed some oil.
They reached underneath the fender well and sprayed oil on my exhaust manifold.
And this is a car that has never dropped a leak of oil.
I mean, you could, you could crawl into that foreigner.
I did every 5,000 miles to change the oil.
It was spotless.
How did you not see this guy do this?
I was distracted.
They obviously purposely distracted me because I would be like, you know,
I see three guys trying to look at my vehicle.
I'm kind of like, you know what?
I'm suspicious already.
I'm like, really takes three to come over here and look at my vehicle.
I know.
I know.
My red flag should have been up, but thank God we have security cameras here.
Yeah, you got it.
That the Tesla part right next to it has, I know, six or eight cameras on it
that record everything.
Right.
Maybe these guys didn't know that.
Not too bright.
Anyhow, we, you know, we went for a short test drive.
In fact, I drove the car.
I thought it was kind of weird that the guy who wanted to buy it didn't want to drive it.
So say, would you just, you know, if you don't mind driving it for me,
I can assess the vehicle from the passenger seat.
We went down a steep hill.
Same when you and I drove down and then back up to the top of the hill.
We got back up to the neighborhood.
It's like, what's that smell?
There's a kind of a burning smell.
What?
This thing's never made any kind of smell like that before.
And we got back into the driveway and there was a bit of smoke coming out
of the engine compartment.
We popped the hood and there was, there was oil, you know, dirty motor oil on the white,
you know, inner fender liners and on some of the components under the hood.
Oh, this must be a head gasket.
What do you have?
I'm like a head gasket.
I'm like, that's that tip me opposite.
Head gaskets don't squirt oil under your hood.
I'm picturing in my head for whatever reason, the Wizard of Oz.
I'm picturing the Tin Man and you're breaking out the little squeaky oil thing.
And I think that's exactly what happened.
I'm kind of like, what?
Yeah.
And it was dirtier oil.
I could sense because I, you know, the oil hadn't been changed that long ago
and it was dirtier oil than was in our engine.
And the guy popped the lid of the fuel, the oil filler off and he said, oh, look at this stuff.
You know, like, it's like, it's oil.
It's oil.
I've seen when I was a head gasket issue, this congealed.
It looks like, it looks like a bunch of snot.
Yeah, like that congealed black milk.
Yeah.
So I thought, I thought to myself, these guys had come a long way to come look at this.
And I, and I knew, you know, he initially talked about, I'm going to pay full price with this.
And then he was like, oh, this, this thing has some serious issues.
It's going to need new head gaskets or something, you know, and I thought to myself, oh, you know,
sir, there's absolutely no way I could in good conscience sell this vehicle to you.
Smart back out, right?
You.
Yeah.
You woke up real quick.
Yes, exactly.
I told them, I said, why don't you take your little game and go somewhere else.
You'll be like, you're right.
I've got another sucker to buy this.
Don't worry about it.
That would be like, don't do me a favor.
Good response.
And then, and then when they were taking off in their Jeep, I thought, oh,
just in case the other cameras didn't record on using my phone to get a snap their license plate.
And as soon as they could run that for you.
Yeah.
Well, hey, you know, now I know your background, you probably could.
I can.
So but they sped off as soon as they saw me try to, you know, get behind and see what their
license plate was.
So that was a pretty good clue that these guys were.
I thought you were going to say you took an oil can and you sprayed on their exhaust.
Hey, what was wrong?
What is wrong with your own car?
Yeah, that's just and I went in and looked up, you know, scams and sure enough, that was,
that was one of the many that go on.
And that's car buyer scams.
Yeah, that's that's that's cool.
That's interesting.
Yeah.
So I thought, well, this would be a good, you know, of course, I had to spend the
the rest of the night with a few rags underneath cleaning the oil residue off my exhaust manifold
and the fender liners and right.
Yeah.
But it was worth it was worth getting a lesson.
He signed up defenders for you.
Don't worry.
Yeah.
Now those guys are worried that they've been the scammers of this game.
They've been found out another car buyer scam.
And when I experienced but I didn't fall for is as soon as you post your ad within a few minutes,
like shockingly quickly, you get emails back.
Oh, that sounds perfect.
You know, I hope to see the car soon.
Can you, you know, before we agree, can you enter your VIN into this car check website?
Wrong.
Yeah.
So so I had to look up.
What's this all about?
Because I I've sold cars in the past where I got the same thing that's shockingly quick
and they want to pay full price.
They don't even describe what the car is.
And apparently you enter your VIN and then you're supposed to use your car to pay for.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Yeah.
Well, it's because you're thinking, OK, the buyer is desperate to sell.
Usually if you're selling something like, I'm going to get rid of this, you know,
$5,000, $10,000 worth the car.
And I'll be like, you're welcome to come look at the car.
But no, not doing it, pal.
Yeah.
See you when you get here.
It's a it's a it's a well-known scam.
But we it wasn't all that known to me till I started selling cars, you know.
And what they do is they take your your credit card number, your debit card number and start
spending like all over the place.
So college seller scams.
Now, you since you've bought so many used cars and usually pretty well used, right?
Yes.
What so we've got a list here.
But what of these have you gone through?
So you talked about earlier about this back east thing.
Let me use some of this back east stuff that like like I told you about.
Because this relates to rust, right?
Yeah.
And so back east, a car might look beautiful.
So what you would do is you would have rusty rear quarters.
And so what you do is you get some sheet metal.
And some of the sheet metal I could tell you.
I'll tell you about a little trick that we did one time.
And this was on my own car.
So you take the sheet metal and basically you put rivets in it and you put it on the
rear quarter and you custom cut it to the way you want it.
And then slap some bond over it, smooth it out.
And then when you paint the car, there you go.
So it's all metal, more or less.
But that sheet metal will not hold a magnet.
So what you do is you get those little magnets that you had.
Or it's like if you had any children that you had little letters.
Yeah, yeah.
And you put them in the refrigerator.
Yeah.
Just take one of those with you that are strong enough that will stick to the car.
And you just go through the car and you put that magnet on the car.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Where they would rust out.
But let me give you the.
So that's like those like a paint.
They sell a thing called like a paint thickness meter.
Yeah, they sell something that you can do.
How many times cars have been painted this and that.
And you can always look through the door jams.
It's like examples.
But it would also point out Bondo, right?
Because you're so far.
Oh, yeah.
The thickness is so far from the true metal.
Yeah.
You can.
So for example, for like a Fox body.
So when you go by like say a 1990 Fox body.
Well, all those fenders are those body parts.
They'll have the VIN number on the fender.
And it'll be it's not it's not printed.
It's just a piece of paper that's stuck onto it.
Yeah.
So if you don't see that.
Guess what?
It's been painted over or the fender's been replaced.
Because it doesn't have that VIN number on it on those all
those different fenders and things.
They're just little things.
But this other car is the same thing that you can do that with.
Yeah.
So back when I graduated high school before I went in the army.
I had a 70 Challenger RT.
383 all done up.
And it was a rush bucket.
It was about for my buddy Charlie vanishing point car.
Yeah.
Charlie young.
Okay.
And so he had built the engine in shop class.
And but he had an electric problem.
He never did anything with it.
But the car, beautiful car if you looked at it,
but the rear quarters were Bondo.
Which I knew this.
But that's how I grew up.
So while I was fixing that car up,
I needed something to drive in the winter time.
So I bought, I think it was a 1970 Toyota Celica.
Oh.
One of those little tiny ones.
Yeah.
I thought you were going to see an 80 Dodge Challenger,
which was a Mitsubishi.
And so guess what?
This car basically had no floors in it.
Oh.
So you know what we did is?
Japanese weren't that big on rush proofing back.
No.
And so growing up back east.
Cool car.
I was just a kid.
So, you know, they used to do real estate signs
and they'd be on people's front lawns.
I can imagine.
So you'd be selling your house and I was like,
Hey, look at that from young's house.
They're selling their house and it's got a real estate sign.
Well, guess what?
They were made of metal.
So we went took the signs off people's lawns.
And then we did.
We just custom cut them and I stuck them in there
and used them for my floors in my car.
Oh, that's kind of cool.
I wasn't trying to make no money off.
I know.
I was just telling you how it works.
But yeah, you have all kinds of little things like that
that happen with, you know, cars that rust out back there.
They used to also have a rubberized coating that you would buy
because you got to think of up to a certain part.
A lot of cars don't have frames anymore.
They're all unibody cars.
Back then you have a car.
Yeah.
And if it's older, guess what?
That car has rust on the frame.
You can't just go buy a frame for that car.
Car might look beautiful.
But if that frame is rusty, you're in a lot of trouble.
So what they used to do is this is rubberized coating
that you would spray out of a can.
It was black, right?
Because I had some I put on my Apollo on the inside fender wells.
And you spray it on there.
So it's like it's to prevent rusting.
But it's like shooting a bunch of goop all over it.
And then it's just black.
So they would sell that.
So they had stuff like Rusty Jones and Z-Bart
and all these different places that they would just skirt
like this stuff to make it sound like your car is not
going to rust out.
But if you went to the dealership or you put it up on a lift,
you're like, what in the world is going on here?
So you know, and I've seen that people act like they're doing
a favor by all we rust.
You know, we rust proof the bottom or we undercoat.
It's like, no, show me what it show it to me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
In fact, that's one of the reasons almost a decade ago,
we got that forerunner because when it came in,
they had just taken it in and it was faded.
Every body panel was faded white.
Right.
And I said, oh, this is perfect.
I can tell that all the body panels are original.
Yes.
You know, the headlights are faded.
So I knew that I hadn't been in a front end collision.
And you actually want to see cars in their original form.
It gives you a good idea of what the condition is.
And you know, here's the thing.
People try to people try to make stuff look pretty
and it ended up makes the car less valuable to.
Here's the disbelief with rust.
That people like, oh, that car's from Florida
or that car's from California.
There's no rust.
That car's from Seattle.
No rust.
Here's the deal.
If you live on the coast, the car has rust underneath that car.
If you live like literally near the beach, things like that,
you will see the rust underneath the car and on body parts.
It doesn't matter what state you're in on East Coast or West Coast.
So you have to be aware of that because a friend of mine,
she told me that she bought when she was married,
she had a vehicle that she had a forerunner.
Same thing, beautiful forerunner that they had bought
her and her husband at the time.
And she loved that thing.
But guess what?
They put that thing up on the lift.
They got robbed.
The whole frame and the thing was rusty underneath.
And they had already owned it for like a year or two
and they didn't realize because they'd never been underneath the vehicle.
Yeah.
So you can run into that kind of things.
Things that I would do is I'm looking at the list here.
Things that I would do when I'm going to buy a car.
Always bring cash.
I mean, of course, you're not going to bring $10,000 cash
or anything else depending on what you're buying.
Bring cash.
Know what you're going to pay in your mind,
your mindset, what you're going to pay.
Look around and see what those other prices are running at.
And what you want to do is you want to take,
like I said, if you're taking cash,
like for me, one of these Fox bodies,
well, guess what?
I would take like three envelopes.
I would have them all with me and I would have the cash in my pocket.
Right.
And so I would have it in one envelope.
And I knew which one was marked to what.
They never saw the envelopes.
But what you do is,
I see Joe carrying around like $25,000 of cash.
No, no, no, no.
And it's like, you know, but I would,
I've, I've carried $7,000 to $10,000 cash before,
but I wasn't going to pay $10,000.
So what you do is you have them broken down
and you know what you're going to pay
after looking at that car to your head.
You want to get it as cheap as you can.
Go to buy a car on a Saturday.
You've got this cash in your pocket.
Right.
Yeah.
And I can tell you 95% of the time when I bought a car,
I've done that and this trick has worked for me.
And so I'm not coming back to look at your car.
No disrespect to you.
But it's like, I'm here now.
I'm not leaving.
I'm not coming back on Monday.
I'm not coming back another day
when you said you might have three other people coming to look at it.
And that's exactly what I'm going to say to you.
Hey, I respect this and that.
I said, but I meant you might have more people coming to look at the car.
I said, this is what I'm willing to pay.
Here's the cash if you want to take it or not.
I said, but I'm not coming back.
So they see that cash in your hand just like that.
And I can tell you what, I've done that for 95% of the vehicles I've owned.
And I can tell you what, I've got a lot of good deals.
And also, I think it helps that you don't act like an a-hole.
No, no, you'd be respectful to the person.
Because there's times, I don't want to buy,
even if somebody's offering more money,
if they're going to be a jerk about it,
I really don't want to sell it to them.
I want to sell to somebody I like.
You know, like we did our 400, this mom and her son,
were just the nicest people ever.
Exactly.
They took their precautions.
You know, they check things out.
Some of these people are arrogant.
You know what I mean?
I mean, these young guys that think that they have something
that's worth way more than it is,
and they'll give you an attitude.
It's like, hey, I'm not here for you.
I know what I have.
Let's be, you know, so you just have to step in your mind to be respectful about it.
But some of the things that you want to also remember
when you're going to look at that car,
don't start the car before I get there.
I don't want that car warmed up before I get there.
I want that car cold.
And if it's in the garage, whatever it is,
and you can tell if it's been started up or anything like that,
I don't want that car running.
You take that car, you go, never go look at a car at night,
or when it's going to start to get dark.
You can, your best bet is to bring somebody with you.
If they might see something you might miss.
And that would have to be, you know, from an exhaust system,
like driving behind you, anything like that.
You want to...
Boy, these are some mistakes I made in the past.
Yeah. And it's just, it just happens.
Don't go look at a car in the rain.
Don't be turning on that stereo system of the car.
Like, oh, listen to the stereo system in this car.
I don't care about the stereo system.
You know how many Mustangs that I've bought
that have the boom and banging stereo systems in them?
Oh, I've got this $2,000 stereo system.
I'm like, it was to hide.
It was to hide a problem.
No, it is, but it's like, that's the thing for their price.
I'm kind of like, bro, I don't care about your stereo system.
You can take out the system completely.
I don't want the stereo system.
Most of the time, they don't want to bother taking it out.
And, you know, so you get that stealing of a good system.
Guess what?
I take that stereo system and I put it on Facebook marketplace
and I sell it.
And so I'm getting like 300 to 500 bucks back
for the stereo systems.
It's because I'm not buying a car for a stereo system.
If I want that, you know,
you know, I want it depending on what the car is.
Exhaust system, you're looking for exhaust leaks,
electrical problems, which is the biggest is electrical problems.
I'm not an electric guy.
I'm not messing with anything.
It's electrical.
You know, of course, you're going to expect the tires wheels,
all that kind of stuff.
I assume most of our most of our listeners are informed,
but when you do start up that car,
make sure that all the lights,
especially the check engine is on and then that it goes out.
Correct.
And here's the big, this is also on the buyer's side.
If it does have a check engine light, well, guess what?
You can go to AutoZone or Riley's and a lot of times,
believe it or not.
Oh, it might be the Cadillac converters.
And since, well, guess what?
You could say that to them.
You know, you don't know what it is.
Right.
But guess what?
You've just knocked the price down a few thousand.
And guess what?
You know how many times it's just a gas cap?
It needs a new gas cap because it has that sealer on it.
So there's other ways of saving yourself money.
Yeah.
And that's how you start knocking people down more or less
on the money of a car.
Like, hey, I'm not looking for this.
You know, I'm willing to play this price,
but I'm not willing to do this.
So there's all kinds of ways.
Speaking of tips, you know, this goes to when I was selling cars.
Like I always have, you know, like snow tires.
I had snow tires for that 4Runner mounted on some factory wheels.
And if somebody wanted to bargain with me,
you know, bargain the price down and I'd say,
well, you know, I was going to sell these separately.
But this, you know, how about we sell it for the original price,
but I'll throw in this stuff that I was going to sell separately.
Right, right.
And so you can use things as bargaining chips.
Oh, yeah.
And there's other things like I can tell you right now,
I've got a car cover worth $400 sitting in my garage
right now from my Cobra, which when I bought it,
I'm kind of like, I'm not going to sell that with it.
Or if I, if you've changed out the stairs,
I'm always a stock stereo guy.
Yeah.
I throw the stock stereos in them.
So I sell all the other stereos,
but there's different things that you can,
you know what I mean?
It's like, and you can sell on the afterwards.
You know what I mean?
So it's like, you can work the deal in
extra wheels and tires, you know, there's all kinds of things.
You know, some of what you were talking about earlier made me think,
you know, talk about at night in a dirty car.
I did, I bought a, this is over 30 years ago,
I bought a little Mazda pickup black and it was dirty
and it was in the middle of the night.
It was just, you know, it was a week night in the middle of winter.
I didn't have time to go in the middle of the day or
anyway, it was just a whole series of issues.
I got it and it had aftermarket wheels on it,
which I didn't really want.
And I always, I don't know, for some reason,
it seemed a little sketchy to me because to me,
aftermarket wheels always seem to be driven by,
if somebody's driving a car like an asshole,
they usually have aftermarket wheels.
That's a AA.
Aftermarket assholes.
Yes.
I don't know why there's certain things.
I'm sure you in law enforcement, you've seen this,
you tend to see things.
You have those identifiers.
I'm not, the word would be, I'm not discriminating,
but it's out there for cars.
Okay, everybody.
I'm profiling just step on your car.
Exactly.
The loud exhaust, whatever it is.
The way you drive.
Yeah.
It just happens to appeal to me even more.
Yeah.
So there's other things too that's very important to you.
Well, can I continue with this?
Oh, yeah.
Well, I just, this pickup, before I forget,
the wheels were replaced for a reason
because it had been in a wreck.
Oh, great.
Wreck so bad that it damaged one of the wheels.
So they just, well, let's just replace them
with these cheap, chromey, less Schwab.
Make it look better.
Yeah, in their idea.
So anyhow, and I was, I needed the title.
Oh, my uncle's got the title.
And so I started getting this like broken English kind of thing.
And oh, we will send it to you.
Wrong.
And yeah.
So two months later, I got the title.
And guess what it said on it?
Rebuilt.
Rebuilt title.
So the whole thing was just the whole meeting at night,
having the car kind of dirty.
Because of course, when I washed it and in the sunshine later,
I go, wait, this color black is not the same as this color black.
Right.
There's, and there's also different types of rebuilt titles too.
So don't get that confused everybody.
Because that could be a great thing.
Yeah, it could be a great thing.
Because it could be the littlest thing,
you know, five mile per hour bumper.
Yeah.
You know, because that's basically what they're
protecting for.
But if it's all rubber mounted and you can replace that bumper,
well guess what, people think that's major damage and it's not.
And I've heard hail damage.
Oh, hail.
Hail.
No, that's some of the best.
If you have a classic car, that is something that you really want to get.
A hail damage.
Hail damage.
I'm telling you.
Yeah.
Because I mean, that's, I'm saying if it's like a valuable car to whatever,
because that does some insane damage.
All I can say is go find your nearest overpass and park underneath it.
Yeah.
But that's, you know, we don't get hail around here,
but, you know, I've been to Colorado, I've been to Texas,
and I've seen hail damage cars.
I would drive that.
Oh, no.
Yeah, it looks like there's nothing wrong.
There's mechanically nothing wrong with it,
but it devalued the car so much that it's impossible to repair it.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
It's it's it's worthless.
You're talking about the Mazda I had the mistake with.
Yeah.
That was that was an early lesson.
And I really should have just got a hold of the attorney general or something there,
but I ended up selling that Mazda.
You know, probably it was a clue that the thing was so darn cheap.
So sometimes it also depends on what time of year you buy a car also.
So what do you mean by that?
So weather wise, depending on where you live,
you don't want to go buy some.
So some of the easiest indicators of engine issues,
say overheating, things like that, when you go and buy this car,
you know what you do is like Donald St.
You we used to have a thing back east called inspection stickers.
Yeah.
So when I was a kid working at Snowcoe every October,
actually twice a year, then you had to bring your car in and gets inspected.
Costs 10 bucks or $15 depend.
Right.
And it's mostly for rust.
It is for rust, but not some of the states were big on rust like Pennsylvania,
like your car so rusty.
I'm sorry.
You ain't driving that car no more.
Yeah.
It's not safe.
You see basically just some Swiss cheese driving down the road.
Tires with that kind of stuff.
So yeah.
So like you would pull up into the bay and so you would stop.
It's like, oh, hey, sir.
I said, turn on your headlights.
High beam, low beam, left blinker, right blinker.
Then I would walk to the back of the car.
Same thing.
Make sure those are all working.
You can see the tires.
Tires are bad.
Guess what?
You're not passing.
Cracks in the windshield.
Not passing.
Hit the horn.
Boom.
Everything's good to go breaks.
Everything else back on out.
If you see anything like total crazy rust, guess what?
Like underneath, it's not going to pass.
We don't put the cars on the lift.
But that's where you would go with it.
But also with a running car example.
You probably had some car owners who were pretty mad.
They know.
They know.
They would try to go to one inspection stick.
Place to another one.
He'd say like, well, hey.
Slip you at 20.
There you go.
Hey, you don't see that.
This and this.
Well, guess what?
You lose your license.
You'll be a lot of trouble.
OK.
So I never passed a car that wouldn't pass.
I was like, I said, I was only a kid doing inspection stickers.
You would drive up.
And so you're going to check out a car.
What you want to do is do all those things to it.
You start to drive it around.
Guess what?
Turn that AC on.
See if the AC is working.
Because you know there's different types of air conditioner now.
And in the Washington state example,
you can't do your own AC anymore.
You can't refill it anymore because it passed some crazy law.
The green zone, whatever you want to call it,
where you could go into a Riley's or auto zone
and you could buy your own refrigerant
and you could do it yourself.
Right.
Recharge.
And you only pay for the refrigerant, which was like 20 bucks, 25 bucks.
Well, now you have to take it to a dealer,
where it's going to cost you hundreds of dollars to do it.
Shocking.
Yeah.
Go figure, right?
But you can go guess what?
We can still go down to Oregon and get somebody to come do it.
Hey, lobbyists make good money for a reason.
That's right.
We could go down to Oregon and buy some down there
and bring it up here and do it ourselves on our own car.
Right.
But what you want to do is you want to make sure that AC is working.
And the reason why is because it's going to be expensive for that.
But also on the flip side of that is you want to do it because,
guess what?
If you run that AC, guess what?
You know how many cars will overheat with an AC running?
A lot of vehicles will overheat.
Oh, yeah.
Because the compressor attacks us.
Yep.
Everything.
It just, and so guess what?
That car might overheat.
So guess what?
You also want to make sure the heating and air conditioning
is for the heaters working also because guess what?
The temperature.
So you want to turn all those things on when you're driving.
People like, why you got the heat cranked on?
And why you got the AC cranked on in the winter time?
Yeah.
Because those are issues that will come right up.
I mean, 10 miles down the road after you leave buying that car.
It's easy from buyer to buyer, you know, it's easy for the seller to buyer.
They're only responsible so much.
As is, you're buying that car is.
As is, as is.
And so you can also give them a bill of sale.
I'm just giving an example for Washington.
You can put as is or you can just fill it out.
You know what I mean?
But you want to also make sure you sign that if you have the title for it.
As is.
It's not a loan.
No, but you want to make sure you sign the title the day
that you sell that car.
Oh, yeah.
You have 15 days to do it.
And they've changed it a little bit again.
So you can go online and make sure you report it to the DMB.
Because if not, you're responsible for that car.
And I'll give you an example.
So 2020.
You too, huh?
Yeah, I'll give you a 2020 example.
Had a Ford Taurus.
Well, what happened was is my ex, it overheated.
It was having issues, right?
Don't ever buy a Ford Taurus that body style because it Ford has that V6 motor,
which is ridiculous.
The water pump is actually behind the engine.
So that you have to basically take to get to the water pump.
It's not good.
I've heard this.
Yeah.
Is this the one where the water pump runs off the,
it doesn't run off a separate belt.
It's built into the.
Yes.
So you have to.
Yeah.
Yeah.
To remove the water pump.
So you can't you can't do like an old car and just come on.
They've only been making cars for 120 years.
They put the way they built this motor.
And so it's like, you can't just take off the water pump and replace it.
So guess what?
You're talking basically, you're not going to do it yourself unless you're
you're mechanically inclined.
It's going to be thousands of dollars for this car.
So anyways, in short, the car, the water pump was bad.
So I took it to the dealership.
They go, oh, it'd be this money.
I'm like, I said, for $3,000, I can put a new motor in the car.
Why would I do that?
And they're like, so I'll pick up the car.
Well, what I did was, like I said, it was a 2000 and I think 1215 Taurus.
I put it on Facebook marketplace.
I wrote in there needs a water pump.
Do you know how many people don't read the ads?
Oh, they don't read that far.
I put it on there and the price that I put it on there,
which was paid for the car, I think it was $7,000.
I was like, I put it on there.
And I was like, I had, I literally the next day,
I had like 100 people that responded to me.
I'm like, you realize this.
I said this, I said the water pump and this is what you have to do.
And some of these guys say, I'm a mechanic.
I can do that.
This and this, all these people around like, okay.
So guess what?
Dmitry.
Don't want to go rushing, but we're going to go rushing right now, everybody.
So Dmitry, should you not?
This guy, I talked to him.
He went and looked at, you know, he's going to look to the car.
This and that.
He goes, okay, I'm interested in the car.
He goes, I'll give you the cash for it, right?
So we go to the DM.
I meet him at the DMV.
This is during COVID.
Okay.
I hit road all this.
I got back, I scammed basically the state of Washington back over
because I did not sign the title to the car,
which I made my mistake, but this was during COVID.
So I had to get a letter later on from the state of Washington.
And I said, I went and I sold it at this place.
Like a release, right?
Yes.
Yes.
It's a release.
It's a release.
But guess what?
I didn't do the release the right way.
So can I tell you, how many times that car got tickets?
Went across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.
The car ended up in Sacramento, California,
on the side of the freeway on I-5.
With my name still in it and my plates.
Because what happened was,
I was going to go back to the dealership and take the plates off the car.
The guy got there before I did and he took the car.
So he took the car.
I was like, I said, ah, no big deal.
So I was getting all these letters and then I got a bill from a company
in Sacramento, California.
They say, hey, we have your car.
I said, you ain't got my car.
And so they're like, yeah, we have your car here.
It's your name.
This is this.
You owe us, you know, $1,700.
Yeah, you owe us $1,700.
I'm like, no, I don't.
And I said, it's not my car.
They said, yes, it is.
So I had this little argument.
So I finally got some other people on their phone.
I said, here's what happened with that car.
And so they said, well, you owe us the money.
I said, I said, you're just chasing a dream.
But the fact is, they probably believed you that you'd sold the car.
Oh, they just want their money.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And then we're going to go.
Well, here's the next thing they go.
Oh, we're going to auction the car off.
I'm like, good luck to you.
Go ahead and auction it.
It's not mine.
And so, like I said, $1,700 in towing fees and everything else and sitting on this
highway by CHP, they gave it a ticket one night.
So Dmitri, who I didn't ever had his last name or anything else filled out on my
paperwork.
Yeah.
So I went back to the DMV.
And so the DMV, so I had to get a letter to send Sacramento.
So I said, hey, I said, so Washington State was saying that I owned the car still.
I said, no, I went to the little mom and pops one during COVID.
And I signed all the paperwork the right way.
I wrote Dmitri Johnson or whatever I wrote on it.
And this is his name.
I made up a fake everything on it.
Guess what?
They accepted it.
And so they didn't look into it.
So they released me from the vehicle.
Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah, you just faked it back.
I'm like, I made up the fake name.
I mean, his name was Dmitri.
Yeah.
I made up all the fake stuff on there.
And guess what?
The car stayed in Sacramento, I imagine.
Dmitri ended up back in wherever he was from.
Yeah.
But either or make sure you sign that release on the form and you go into the DMV.
And you do that because same thing if the car gets in an accident, they can sue you.
That sounds almost as good as my story.
I saw the sob in Oregon.
Bobby was over again over 30 years ago.
And I didn't think much of it.
Young guy came by to get the car.
And he said, I need to leave for a little bit to get some money for it.
And he came back in like 10 minutes.
He had whatever it was, $2,000, $3,000 in cash.
Anyway, I went on vacation the next week to Montana.
This is the era before cell phones.
And I didn't have a cell phone.
I didn't have a page or nothing.
I came back to my workplace and the whole office was like, hey, Don,
the police were looking for you.
They were in here at the office, a few police officers.
They wondered where you were.
I said, I was in Montana, sure.
Where were you?
My co-workers and my supervisors knew.
They knew I was off on my own.
Where were you last night?
And they knew I'd sold the car.
Apparently this guy who bought the sob, he was using it for robberies around Portland.
That's great.
And I had, young and dumb, I had never signed the release.
I hadn't contacted the state to let them know.
I didn't know about this, but I was a quick lesson.
And let the authorities know you've sold your car,
because you never know what somebody's going to be doing with it.
And cancel your insurance.
But it was worth a good laugh.
I had a good dull time at work.
Living experience.
Talking down the fact that I was, when you're in Montana on hiking trails,
what is a bear or a moose going to do?
I was just going to say that.
Be your alibi.
Yeah, you can just check in with Ranger Rick at the station.
He told me.
Right.
And I saw Yogi and Boo Boo out there.
My brother and my friend, they didn't probably make good alibis either.
Exactly.
Anyhow, fun stuff.
It's funny how bad times lead to interesting topics,
but hopefully it can ward off people.
A lot of people know all this stuff, but if you don't, I hope this helps you out.
If you have any questions, feel free to please leave a comment on the page.
And we can be reached at carsthepodcast at gmail.com.
You can check out Joe's work at Fast Tours and Freedom 2.
And I am on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
And you will have plenty of videos on all types of muscle cars and music you'll love.
Awesome, awesome.
Signing out for this week, Don Swear and Joe Black.
About this episode
A seasoned car buyer and seller shares firsthand experiences with scams in private vehicle transactions, highlighting red flags and tactics used by dishonest buyers. Drawing from a background in law enforcement and extensive Mustang ownership, the guest recounts a recent incident involving a staged oil leak to devalue a well-maintained Toyota Forerunner. The conversation covers tips for safely navigating private sales, the pitfalls of trade-ins, and the evolving landscape of online marketplaces like Facebook and Craigslist. Humor and personal stories make this a practical guide for anyone looking to buy or sell cars privately.
Original notes
We reveal personal stories falling for scams as both buyers and sellers. Tips for getting the best deal negotiating. Private sales can often save you $4,000.
Youtube at FastCarsandFreedom2
We LOVE to hear from you! [email protected]
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