Attempted scam by private car buyers

[Brycie]

So I'm just sharing this to make everyone aware of a scam someone tried to pull, to raise awareness. I mentioned in a previous post how I was looking to sell both mine and the Wife's cars to buy a shared car, as I now use my van for work.

I advertised both on Auto trader & on Friday at 5ish, I got a call from someone in Cambridge who wanted to look at the car, but he was going away the next day, so was going to do the 4.5 hour journey that night. Could be dodgy I thought, but it's his diesel, so his risk I thought.

Three Russian or Eastern European guys arrived at 23:30 (one was the size of a house). They asked me to pull it up under a street light to inspect the car. Asked me to pop the hood after a quick look over the bodywork & at the interior. The big guy asked me to explain the oil around the oil filler cap. Just spillage I said. Then the guy who made the appointment asked to check the spare wheel & inside the rear bumper for signs of accidents (meanwhile big guy is still under the bonnet).

Then they ask for a test drive, so, being very cautious not to let the key out of my possession, I get in & take them round the block. They ask me to test the brakes, so I haul the anchors on as we leave. Find somewhere to turn around, remove the key to keep it with me while I'm swapping places & the big guy drives it back to my place. They park it up, call me round the back & the main buyer pulls his fingers out of the exhaust, shows me all the oil on his fingers, saying "turbo, turbo". You always get oil deposits on an old diesel's exhaust don't you I questioned. Then big guy points out how much smoke is coming out of the exhaust, which was more than I'd ever seen it smoke. So he revs it up, waking the neighbours & I tell them, if they want to do that, they'll have to follow me to the garage at the top of the road.

Get to the garage & they get back under the bonnet. Big guy sticks fingers in coolant tank & his fingers are covered in oil. So their summary was that the head gasket was the issue. The main guy gets very animated, saying how far they'd travelled & how much it had cost them. However, they are prepared to take it for parts - obviously not for the agreed price.

At that point I politely but firmly declined, apologised for the wasted trip and said goodnight.

It was only after, while googling 'oil in the coolant tank' that I saw reports of a scam, where three Romanians (or similar) had turned up in threes, after dark, distracted the seller while oil is poured into the coolant tank & the head gasket is blamed, leading to an offer to buy for scrap/parts.

I'm waiting for the garage to look at the car, flush the system & test for head gasket damage, to see whether it definitely is them that put oil in the coolant, or whether I have misjudged these fine upstanding citizens & I actually do have a problem with the car (porous head gasket etc).

I'm furious though that I was so careful to check how to spot funny money, not to leave the keys in their possession etc to avoid being scammed & I fell for this instead. I'll now always have two people present when selling & I certainly won't leave the engine bay while the bonnet's up.

[FrenchAudi]

Have you checked they didn't do something under the bonnet to make it smoke?

[Brycie]

I suspect they may have poured oil in the coolant reservoir. Whether that would make it smoke after a spirited test drive with hard braking (to make oil mix with coolant), I'm not sure.

[fest0r]

I thought your post might have at least got a few thanks for taking the time to give us the info

Anyway, cheers for the heads up and fingers crossed there is no damage

[Brycie]

It's had a few views, so hopefully some more people will be wise to it in future, which is the main thing. I've not been on the forum in a while, so probably not the same old faces from when I was a regular.

Cheers fest0r. Car is waiting at the garage for diagnosis, so will post results once I have them.

[FrenchAudi]

Brycie, I think plenty of people will appreciate your warning, even if they haven't said anything. It will certainly make me more wary.

Thinking again about the smoke, is it possible they pulled off a pipe or a connector on the engine, or even stuffed something like an oily rag, or just some oil, into an inlet pipe or hose?

A very small amount of oil into the air intake makes a lot of smoke in the exhaust.

[Brycie]

Wow, that's a great point FrenchAudi, never considered that there may have been additional sabotage in addition to the oil.

Will call garage to ensure they do thorough check of the whole system for anything like that.

[HotDawg]

Thanks for the heads up. This should probably be pinned or at least shared with news agencies if this comes out as true. Some lovely people in this world eh

[Brycie]

Update on my car sale - so I decided to bite the bullet and re-list it on Auto trader, this time at the lower price of £1,895. After my last experience I was (and you can call me racist/xenophobic if you want, but I certainly am not) really hoping for British buyers. I must have received a good 15 calls in the two weeks it was listed - one sounded African, saying they were from Nottingham, but after several very keen calls they never called back after I said any cash would have to be paid at a bank; one I'm glad to say was a British Asian lad, but he wasn't going to offer more than £1,500. ALL of the other calls were from Eastern European or Russian callers. One was even living in Romania, but had friends in the UK he would send to look at the car. I'm afraid Auto trader now seems to be just a hotbed of scam artists these days, certainly for cars like mine. Think I'll just stick a sign in the window and see how I get on.