‘Yeah that’s Marketplace’: Mechanic shows how to spot the ‘worst’ problem he’s ever seen after someone buys a used car
Dave's Auto Center (@davesautocenter) based out of Centerville, Utah posts some highly trafficked TikTok videos featured Dave himself. He's gotten into back-and-forths with other mechanics online about the best way to go about specific repairs, and he's called out Nissan for a "looming" cost the company's drivers can look forward to addressing once they start putting some mileage on their vehicles.
In a recent clip Dave posted online, he answers a viewer's question about the biggest problem he's ever encountered with a used car a customer brought in.
He was quick to share his story, and there were several TikTok users on the application who said that they could sympathize with the customer who brought their whip into the shop.
The worst used car this mechanic has ever seen
Dave reads a query off of a phone. "What is the biggest problem you have seen from people buying used cars?" it asks.
"Oh my gosh. Guy brings me a car. The check engine light had been removed from the dash so the light wasn't on, but the car had a problem. And it wasn't running very good," he says. His clip cuts to an image still of someone using a hammer and chisel to smash out the check engine light on a vehicle's dashboard.
The customer told Dave he had just purchased the car.
"I start looking at it, and it's a four cylinder, and it's missing. It's not firing," he says. "I pull the spark plug off from one of the holes and it's just not hitting, it's not firing at all. And I'm starting to look at it, I run a compression test on it. I got zero compression and I noticed...I got a little bit of an oil leak on the floor. Just a little drip."
What's wrong with the used car?
Dave then realizes the issue: the motor.
"I'm not kidding you. Duct tape on the side of the motor, it had blown a connecting rod right through the motor, had a hole through the side of the block," he says. "So the piston, but it was still running, it blew the rod completely out of way. So the engine would keep on running—it didn't make any noise—but the piston wasn't going up and down cause it had blown the rod out the side of the motor."
"Somebody, I kid you not, sold the motor like that," he says.
One user who responded to Dave's story seemed to think that this type of experience is typical of what consumers would find while scouring for deals on Facebook. "Yeah that’s marketplace," they penned.
Another remarked: "That’s some good tape."
Others shared their own anecdotes that seemed to suggest folks should be extra careful when they're making purchases online: "Bought car in NE in winter, ac seemed fine-pulling cold air inside-moved to FL-no AC. Yep learned a lesson."
And then there were people who seemingly went above and beyond to try and screw over the folks that they were selling vehicles to online. "My cousin asked me to fix the 4 wheel drive on the pickup truck he bought. All the gears had been removed from the transfer case," one commenter said.
Other used car sale flops to be wary of
Another mechanic to responded to Dave's post who wrote that they got involved in a legal dispute with the purchase of a Jeep that had its odometer swapped out. "Had a odometer swapped jeep come in for a diagnostic. dash read 45k ecu showed 400k. trans was bad engine had major faults. Had to show findings to lawyers," they wrote.
It seems like there were several mechanics who caught folks engaging in grimy practices as a means of duping customers.
"Inspected a 2008 Grand Caravan that was pulling to the left. Found the motor was welded to a bent sub frame because it had been previously wrecked," one viewer said.
From this consumer's standpoint, they don't seem too picky when it comes to the condition of the jeep they're looking for, as they wrote: "I mainly buy the cheap disposable ones but they’re getting harder to come bye. Usually for 1200 bucks if I could get 40,000 out of them I’d be happy."
One TikTok user said they also experienced the same exact problem that Dave shared in his video, however, since they know how to work on cars, they were able to get everything up and running by themselves: "Literally the exact same thing happened to me with a 02 Jetta 1.8t but I was fortunate enough that I could change the engine myself."
Common used car scams
According to Go Banking Rates, there are several used car scams that are commonly employed by either shady dealers or unscrupulous private sellers.
The first one mentioned in its listicle is the "must buy now" con. By fomenting a sense of urgency, and maybe a convenient story to go along with it, the buyer might be prompted to buy the car immediately at a price that seems too good to be true.
Remember, if something is too good to be true, it always is. Other folks will often lie about having an affiliation with a third-party business, like eBay motors, in order to lead people to think that they have a legitimate business connection. Always call the business directly, not with the phone number or email provided to you by the seller, in order to verify whether or not these connections are valid.
@davesautocenter Used Car Nightmare story, what’s your worst one? #usedcars #usedcar #enginebuild #autoshop #carrepair ♬ original sound - Davesautocenter
Then there's "curbstoning" which is what seems like happened to the driver in Dave's video and several folks who responded to his clip. This practice involves dressing cars "up cosmetically to conceal dangerous flaws like missing airbags or unsafe frame welding, which would disqualify them from sale on the open market," according to the outlet.
Nerdwallet also mentions curbstoning, along with odometer rollbacks, title washing, and VIN number cloning, which are all duplicitous schemes used in order to deceive buyers from finding out any potential problems with a vehicle, including whether or not it's stolen.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Dave via email for further comment.
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