Test Drive Story

Colorado Bulldog

Colorado Bulldog

New member
Yes, I'm new here, but I thought I would share a test drive story from last weekend.

I was looking for a 4Runner for my wife via a private seller. I found a few in the Denver area and started making calls and emailing. There was a 2001 that I was interested in, but the price wasn't really in line. I decided to look at it anyway.

I meet the guy at a bank up the street from me to check it out. First red flag...the guy couldn't be bothered to even vacuum it out beforehand and the interior wasn't in great shape. I got a song and dance about how he needed tuition money as the reason for selling. He just bought it in November.

I get behind the wheel for a test drive. It's got a belt squeal that he couldn't bother to fix before selling as well. About a mile away, I click the 4WD to make sure it works. The indicator just blinks and it will not engage. At a stop, I shifted into 4W High to see if that makes a difference...no dice.

The final flag was the smell of coolant under the hood. At over 160k, it didn't appear the timing belt and water pump had ever been done. No sale.

An hour later I get a text from the guy telling me "I messed up his car" by shifting the 4WD.

Listen junior, if that's all it took...then your vehicle was in crap shape to begin with.

Anybody ever have a similar experience?
 
Register to hide this ad
you could have made the owner/seller shift it into 4WD himself so he could not blame you after the fact...
 
hrt4me said:
you could have made the owner/seller shift it into 4WD himself so he could not blame you after the fact...
Click to expand...

I could have I guess...it just didn't make too much sense at the time.

I asked him how many times he had pulled that scam, and I haven't heard from him since.
 
Burning coolant? Maybe it's leaking or the strawberry milkshake is about to happen. I'm pretty new to 4runners, but it's a good thing you didn't get it. Strawberry milkshakes are easy to fix, but if they go unnoticed for a while I head they can be extremely costly, since they ruin your transmission I believe. Sounds like the person didn't care at all. I just got mine in early January. 02 4Runner with just a few issues. The interior wasn't the greatest, the leathers cracked and split in some places. So I just purchased some seat covers. The radio was just really beat up, so I got myself an aftermarket(no biggie would've done it anyway). Brakes were terrible, there was a tremendous amount of air in the braking system. Literally had to FLOOR it to stop. And the rear axle seals were leaking so the back left brakes were basically useless. Uhhh.. Battery just died when I installed a remote starter. Wasn't because of that whatsoever, it was just a coincidence and made it apparent that the battery was dead. (voltage was dropping). Other than that it's been great. Just a little rough idle, so I just did a seafoam treatment to see what will help. But again, if you can get a 3rd gen for a good price(even if you have to put 300-500bucks into fixing it) it'll be worth your while. I've heard these babies last forever with good care. Well made trucks. Best of luck to you!
 
Amirocassar said:
Burning coolant? Maybe it's leaking or the strawberry milkshake is about to happen. I'm pretty new to 4runners, but it's a good thing you didn't get it. Strawberry milkshakes are easy to fix, but if they go unnoticed for a while I head they can be extremely costly, since they ruin your transmission I believe. Sounds like the person didn't care at all. I just got mine in early January. 02 4Runner with just a few issues. The interior wasn't the greatest, the leathers cracked and split in some places. So I just purchased some seat covers. The radio was just really beat up, so I got myself an aftermarket(no biggie would've done it anyway). Brakes were terrible, there was a tremendous amount of air in the braking system. Literally had to FLOOR it to stop. And the rear axle seals were leaking so the back left brakes were basically useless. Uhhh.. Battery just died when I installed a remote starter. Wasn't because of that whatsoever, it was just a coincidence and made it apparent that the battery was dead. (voltage was dropping). Other than that it's been great. Just a little rough idle, so I just did a seafoam treatment to see what will help. But again, if you can get a 3rd gen for a good price(even if you have to put 300-500bucks into fixing it) it'll be worth your while. I've heard these babies last forever with good care. Well made trucks. Best of luck to you!
Click to expand...


I should have added that I found a 2002 Limited later that day for a little more money, but with far less mileage on the clock. The leather is split on the side of the driver's seat, but that's an easy fix.

I slapped some new Cooper Discoverer ATPs on it yesterday and it's great.

Now I wonder how I can snag this away from my wife. :bluejump:
 
Colorado Bulldog said:
I should have added that I found a 2002 Limited later that day for a little more money, but with far less mileage on the clock. The leather is split on the side of the driver's seat, but that's an easy fix.

I slapped some new Cooper Discoverer ATPs on it yesterday and it's great.

Now I wonder how I can snag this away from my wife. :bluejump:
Click to expand...

pics
 
Hope these work, I'm not too inclined at posting pics to forums. The factory deck has already been replaced by an Alpine BT unit.
 

Attachments

  • photo 1.jpg
    photo 1.jpg
    133.1 KB · Views: 398
  • photo 2.jpg
    photo 2.jpg
    128.2 KB · Views: 407
  • photo 3.jpg
    photo 3.jpg
    122.1 KB · Views: 435
Google his phone number. I would bet he sells many cars on craigslist. There are so many red flags in your story. It sounds like a similar story I have from a craigslist seller.

I call and talk to a middle aged guy who sets up a meeting to see his Rav4. We dont meet at his home (first red flag) but okay, he is worried about bad people so we meet at Walgreens. Now when I get there, another buyer mysteriously shows up and just hangs around waiting for his turn. I brought my wife with me so a scumbag seller would be less likely to roll us both for the cash.

When we get there, who shows up? A 19 yo kid with a presigned title, signed by his mom who couldn't make the meeting. So I have three actors now. The man I spoke to, the kid who doesnt have the legal right to sell the car and a mysterious mom who owns the car. RED FLAGS all over the field. We take the car for a drive and all the seats were damp from rain, nothing worked right and we are stuck in a car with a strange kid. I kept him on the hook thinking we liked it until we got back to Walgreens and quickly told the other buyer he could have it. Got in our van and got the hell out of there. As we pulled out the other buyer shakes the kids hand and walks away. WTH! If he was a buyer why wasnt he looking at he car after us? RED FLAG.

I realized how stupid and dangerous that whole situation was and vowed never to look at craigslist to buy another car. Worse part, I put my wife in harms way. Dumb. Dumb, dumb.

Walk away and consider yourself lucky.
 
Last edited:
I once was looking at a buying a Toyota Celica and it reeked badly of burnt clutch.

The dealer told me that the smell was "from a chemical they used to clean it the day before".

"I guess that explains why the RPMs rise but the vehicle speed does not when accelerating hard too?" I had to ask shortly after.


there are some awful people in this here world.

anyway new rig looks awesome!
 
Drcoffee said:
Google his phone number. I would bet he sells many cars on craigslist. There are so many red flags in your story. It sounds like a similar story I have from a craigslist seller.

I call and talk to a middle aged guy who sets up a meeting to see his Rav4. We dont meet at his home (first red flag) but okay, he is worried about bad people so we meet at Walgreens. Now when I get there, another buyer mysteriously shows up and just hangs around waiting for his turn. I brought my wife with me so a scumbag seller would be less likely to roll us both for the cash.

When we get there, who shows up? A 19 yo kid with a presigned title, signed by his mom who couldn't make the meeting. So I have three actors now. The man I spoke to, the kid who doesnt have the legal right to sell the car and a mysterious mom who owns the car. RED FLAGS all over the field. We take the car for a drive and all the seats were damp from rain, nothing worked right and we are stuck in a car with a strange kid. I kept him on the hook thinking we liked it until we got back to Walgreens and quickly told the other buyer he could have it. Got in our van and got the hell out of there. As we pulled out the other buyer shakes the kids hand and walks away. WTH! If he was a buyer why wasnt he looking at he car after us? RED FLAG.

I realized how stupid and dangerous that whole situation was and vowed never to look at craigslist to buy another car. Worse part, I put my wife in harms way. Dumb. Dumb, dumb.

Walk away and consider yourself lucky.
Click to expand...

I did Google the number, and the only thing I found was an ad for a Gucci laptop bag. Nothing major, but it was obvious he was looking to pin something on me. I've owned my '03 Tacoma since it was new and I know what I'm looking at. He said there were just "maintenance issues" with it. I said yes, because it's never been maintained!
 
I had a 92 Subaru legacy turbo I was trying to sell. The transmission was being kind of weird so I wanted to sell it. Guy shows up to drive the car, drives it hard and the trans went out. I had been babying the car for quite a while.

What could I have done to the guy? Now he didn't want the car with a blown tranny. And I had to spend $2500 bucks to fix it. But that's the risk I ran letting someone else drive the car. I'm sure if he had bought it and blown the tranny the next day he would have come calling. Buyer beware and that means make sure everything works, even if it pisses off the seller.
 
There are some terrible experiences on craigslist, but out of pure luck I happened to find a 2007 civic with 25k miles on Craigslist for under blue book value when I was searching for a car for my wife. Although, I was searching for 3-4 months before this Civic popped up. The seller was 90 years old and he maintained all 25k miles at the dealer (Although as you can imagine, there aren't many maintenance items on 25k miles) -- he had receipts from the dealer for all the work.
 
EatonKyleH said:
I once was looking at a buying a Toyota Celica and it reeked badly of burnt clutch.

The dealer told me that the smell was "from a chemical they used to clean it the day before".

"I guess that explains why the RPMs rise but the vehicle speed does not when accelerating hard too?" I had to ask shortly after.


there are some awful people in this here world.

anyway new rig looks awesome!
Click to expand...

Now the expensive part starts...because now I'm looking at mods for it. I tried to get my wife to trade me for the Taco...no dice.
 
Drcoffee said:
Google his phone number. I would bet he sells many cars on craigslist. There are so many red flags in your story. It sounds like a similar story I have from a craigslist seller.

[Snip]
I realized how stupid and dangerous that whole situation was and vowed never to look at craigslist to buy another car. Worse part, I put my wife in harms way. Dumb. Dumb, dumb.
Click to expand...

I think we need to be careful here before blaming Craiglist. I buy and sell stuff on Craiglist -including my 4Runner- and have found that all the same rules and redflags that applied to "ye' old print classifieds of yore" apply to Craiglist as well.
From my POV Craiglist has been a digital godsend and has saved me a 4Runner full of cash over the years. ....you just need be cautions, which is true of any major transaction.

FWIW - GrossMan
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Members online

Total: 484 (members: 3, guests: 481)

Forum statistics

Threads
278,307
Messages
3,554,056
Members
248,016
Latest member
Advally Service

Share this page

Trending content

Back
Top