I’m sure anyone who likes both cars and writing as much as I do makes the decision to start writing about cars once every couple of months. Now I’m going to try to stick to it.When I worked for a dealership and got to drive a lot of cool cars I would write little one-page reviews every now and then, but I’ve never written an editorial style piece. So let’s talk about Craigslist.
Instead, I’m just going to rant for a while about purchasing a car on Craigslist. Sound good? Good. Because I think I’ve finally found the magic sauce.
I have been involved in the sale or purchase of nineteen different cars on craigslist in the last five years. Eight of those have been the purchase and sale of personal cars, the rest have been sales or finds for family members or friends. Like most of y’all, this is something that I genuinely enjoy doing. I could burn hours and hours on craigslist. Right now (this is no exaggeration), I have four ‘for sale’ tabs open for two Suzuki Samurai’s, a 300ZX TTTT (which is the acronym that I made up for Twin-Turbo-Targa-Twoseatsintheback) and a Unimog. I’ve never owned a four wheel drive vehicle or a truck, much less a massive, industrial truck. What is wrong with me?
Throughout my trials and tribulations of purchasing and selling cars on craigslist in Texas I have three pieces of advice that I can confidently relay. I want you to learn from my mistakes.
- Nine out of ten times, the other end of the transaction does not care about you. They will lie, make up excuses, try to make you meet in unsavory places, send you absurd lowball offers or tell you that you are stupid for the valuation of your car. Sometimes they will even send you a picture of their wiener. Before you ask, I have never been the wiener-sender. Only the wiener-receiver. And no, that is not a euphemism.
- “Price is firm,” does not necessarily mean that the price is firm. I’ve found primarily that it means that people don’t want to communicate with idiots. But if you really don’t want to communicate with idiots, you chose the wrong place to do business.
- You will be offered to trade cars. I’ve never even had a favorable offer before, much less a completed transaction. Most of the time, you’ll be offered a 2002 RSX with Type-S badges and “140.xxx miles,” by someone who is presumably 13-years-old and grew up exclusively watching The Fast and the Furious movies. If you ask them for pictures, they will send one of the angel-eye headlights and one of the dashboard. There’s a business opportunity for a Twitter or Facebook page cataloguing People of Craigslist. By the way, the RSX thing isn’t a joke, I have been offered an RSX on four separate occasions. One of them was to trade for a 2006 Toyota Avalon. Craigslist is a magical place.
Knowing these three things to be infallibly true, how have I managed to have made only one monumental mistake in a purchase? Simple: carefully prepare, and keep your guard up. This sounds counterproductive, but you must become one with Craigslist. You must become that from which you are trying to purchase. You must learn that “recently replaced engine,” is code for “this car has seen some serious shit.” You must remember that “all she needs is a new owner,” typically comes with an asterisk and that *raccoons might live in the glove box.
I’m tired of talking about this now. I hope you either learned something or chuckled. Stay tuned.
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