When I was a teenager, I LOVED to pick up any newsprint auto trader publications I found. Some were free, and some charged. My dad would bring them home for me if he saw them out somewhere. But they all crammed in page after page of used cars. Some were great, some not so much.
My dad also subscribed to Hemmings for years, which would entertain me for DAYS with each new issue. I still remember the feel of the pages, almost tissue paper thin. I still like HMN and their daily email newsletter/ad sampling is a treat. Fast forward 30 years, and we now have a variety of online marketplaces.
One of my favorites here lately is the marketplace feature on Facebook. If you are not familiar with it, it does not appear on a computer browser version of Facebook as far as I can determine. This is a feature unique to the mobile edition/app version of Facebook, so I can only see it on my iPhone when I open Facebook.
It has become something of an addiction to me, because of the random nature of what appears there. You can search by name of vehicle or any other term, of course, and you can set what the search radius is. I have mine set at 50 miles, and somehow that makes it all the more interesting to know this bizarre stuff is near me. I have to force myself not to search up Mercedes rescue COALs in my spare moments.
Here’s some actual samples from the past couple of days, the names and locations have been cropped out to protect the innocent. Enjoy! And tell us if you would go look at or test drive any of these. I’m interested in more than a couple:
Is this the electric version of the Beetle?
After going on in glowing terms of how wonderfully this Ford Fusion is equipped, the post did state “has minor damage on the driver side front quarter panel”. You think?
The rare MG Convent.
This person gets points for being very honest and thorough with their Grand Caravan listing!
I don’t know what in the world is going on here. Maybe one of you know how to explain this? Is that strap aft of the front wheel holding it all together?
I want this, very badly. They claim it runs and drives fine.
You see a lot of misspelled words here. May be the local populace, or it may be autocorrect, but I tend to think it is the former.
One of my favorites I have seen was “ottermeter” for odometer. I tried to find that ad for you but it’s gone. It was for a 560SEL like my recent COAL, coincidentally. It’s important to keep count of your otters, after all.
This ad recounts the reliability and great gas mileage of this Scion, and ends with “Does need a little TLC”.
This is tempting. Says there is a broken tie rod that must be fixed and it needs tires before it can be driven, but otherwise everything works. That’s a lot of road rash on the front end, but it’s not a deal breaker at that price.
This speaks to me for some reason. Giving the headlights an “angry” look with spray paint is not my thing, but some Goof Off would clean them up.
This is probably worth going to see in person! I am not sure how I feel knowing someone who would do this lives within 50 miles of me.
This could be very interesting! The ad admits it is nowhere near finished, but they’ve got it started for you.
Now we’re talking. Maybe this is my next rescue COAL. Ad claims it drives and runs well, everything works. A two decade old BMW 7 Series sadly is worth about this much. A 3 Series would have a larger audience and probably command a little more.
This is a V8 too! Looks very original and unmolested in the other pictures.
Not really my thing, but it would be a nice basis for a weekend cruiser if you’re handy. Ad claims it’s been sitting under a carport for 10 years and lot drives.
I have no idea what this is, and I’m not sure the seller does either.
This seller thoughtfully explains of this $250, 25 year old Accord, “This is not going to be a car you can drive to work, it’s for parts only”.
This seller is from the less said, the better school of thought. “Runs great” is the only caption!
Wonderful stuff! And as I age, the temptation factor fades. (Even for that very nice Ford F700). Not wisdom, you understand, just tiredness.
My favourite ad dates from ’86 in the classifieds here in Melbourne, Aus, when I was 17 and looking for my cheap car No.1. The ad was from a dealer at some cheap price, presumably a trade they didn’t want, and just may have been lodged with the paper after a drink. It read:
Falcon, manual, 1966. One careful owner. All the rest were maniacs. Not bad condition. $650 OBO.
It still makes me laugh.
That reminds me of two of my favorite ads from the early 1990s:
’72 Ford LTD, old, ugly, will run forever, $250.
’71 Pontiac, must have sense of humor, $150.
“Not wisdom, you understand, just tiredness.”
I understand. I just don’t have the energy or enthusiasm to work on an old, tired beater now. I see the attraction of paying more for something that would be a reliable daily or at least weekend driver without having gaping holes and a trashed interior.
That Monte Carlo sorta kinda looks cream puffy…until I remember the 43 year old rat’s nest of vacuum hoses and emissions tubing under that beautiful long hood. Then I get tired again.
Ad from a local used car dealer circa 1998.
Nissan pickup runs good body has more holes then Clinton’s testimony.
Neighbour was selling their four wheel drive a few years ago. Big sales sign on the back window stating “wench on the front”. They had no idea how to spell winch.
Perhaps the owner was offering a “2 for the price of 1” deal.
Buy the car, get the wench for free.
I see wench all the time on craigslist-it generally seems to mean either winch or wrench. It can be difficult to determine which if the wording is cryptic and there is no picture. For all I know, some of them really mean it, though that would violate the terms of service.
Haha, some excellent ads. I appreciate the honesty in some of them.
I’m always suspicious of the ads where the reason for selling isn’t obvious. I’ve found there’s often some hidden failure that was the last straw that prompted that “For Sale ” sign to go up. On about a half -dozen of my purchases it’s been a bad ignition coil. The vehicle runs fine when cold, (ie the length of the test drive) but poorly when fully warmed up (ie your first drive after putting it on the road.)
I suspect the sellers were unable to diagnose this mysterious malady and sold their bag of trouble to some unsuspecting rube (me). Of course they never said anything, they left it for me to find out.
This is an annoyance in a car, but was a serious problem with my boat, that left me stranded in the middle of the lake with a dead engine on my first time out.
I tend to be overly honest in ads not the best for getting the most on a sale but saves a lot of wasted time.
Not even a humourous one but worked out well for me.
Saw an ad in 2008 that simply had a picture of a late first gen Mercedes c class wagon and a figure – £400.
Usually no information is a big turn off but it was a ten minute walk from my work so took a look. The guy explained it was a non runner, car would then over but not start, he’d had fuel and ignition systems checked and still nothing. So i returned an hour later with £400 (couldn’t bring myself to haggle) and a MAF and drove away.
That Ruckus is essentially a chopper scooter. You can buy brackets that will move the motor back 4-8″. There’s quite a subculture on these bikes currently, I can count on seeing 1-2 a day in the shop parking lot. Those brackets secure the engine quite well, and the resultant modification is stable, but the extended wheelbase ruins the bike’s ability to cut thru traffic and maneuver quickly.
This is totally a millennial thing. Strip the scooter down, aftermarket exhaust, remove all the bodywork, move the engine back to lengthen the wheelbase (is this starting to sound awful familiar?) – and it can all be done on a very tight budget, considering you’re starting with a scooter that retails for about $3000.00 new and will do an honest 35mph on the flats, thus pushing the Virginia limits for mopeds.
From the description in the ad, this guy has swapped the 49cc stock engine with something 125cc. I’m not sure what, though. Current Honda scooters are 150’s, they did do an Elite 125 about thirty years ago. Yamaha’s Zuma come in a 125cc version (that’s what I’m riding), and I can’t see someone actually putting a Chinese engine in one of these.
“I can’t see someone actually putting a Chinese engine in one of these”
They’re doing it. They are doing all kinds of crazy swaps. From 2 strokes to complete back halves from Yamaha Rivas.
I’ve just recently “discovered” Facebook’s Marketplace classifieds as a source for both buying and selling cars. Overall I think it is slightly less saturated with curb-stoners and auction flippers disguising themselves as private owners like on Craigslist. On the selling side of things, I got a lot more hits selling my Ranger, but a higher proportion of them were low ballers and just not serious buyers in general. I think the facebook interface lowers the barrier of entry of contacting someone about a car.
Sold the old family truckster MPV for $2200 (solid mechanically, starting to rust pretty significantly), and before that, my weekend hauler Ranger for $2500. The simple act of thoroughly cleaning and polishing up the cars and taking good photos with a thorough description does wonders as far as level of interest and attracting good buyers that aren’t total mouth breathers.
I found one of these MPVs on Craigslist just last night. It was a 99, and didn’t look quite as nice as the one pictured, as the maroon paint was badly dulled.
Price was the same and I considered calling this morning but remembered that these were (supposedly?) notorious for cracked heads after reaching 6 digit mileages. Also, that they are not great fuel misers. Still, yesterday’s feature about those 2 vans had me thinking I really couldn’t go wrong with an MPV as a 2nd/vacation vehicle.
The Ranger in particular really ‘popped’ after some orbital buffing and removing the old cracked pinstripe. I had a line 6 deep on it within a day of listing. I had done quite a bit of catch up maintenance/repairs on it, and it had low miles (also some insidious rust).
https://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/-/222698338096?roken=cUgayN&_mwBanner=1
I then see this
Will the turret rotate and is the cannon functional? ?
If so, it’s a deal ??
I too look at those ads frequently and I’m often tempted to message the sellers with nothing more than “1-877-KARS-4-KIDS.” My favorite recent one was a first-gen Geo Prizm that ran well, it just had A HOLE IN THE ENGINE BLOCK.
That’s where the otters chewed their way out. The owner should’ve kept an eye on the meter.
You can put hamsters in to replace the otters. They’re much more likely to run on the wheel than the otters, so it’s a better deal.
I too get hooked on car ads. Back when the local newspaper was the place to advertise used cars I could spend a half hour poring over every ad. Then the little advertising papers (The Trader was our local one) became that place, an entire weekly booklet of ads with pictures. Then Ebay, then Craigslist, and now FB.
When I am actually looking to buy something it is incredible the dreck that must be sorted through. My heavens, how many true POS cars are out there? More than I could have imagined. Looking for a clean (my definition, not the definition of the guy with the opoid problem) well cared for older car is a tedious job. I have had more success just stumbling on a good used car for sale at the end of someone’s driveway.
My favorite today from FB: “Van. $1200. Need it gone.”
I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m seeing more than a few with the wording: NEED IT GONE. I’ve come up with a simple solution for those people: Leave The Keys In The Car!!! Along with the title, which you’ve signed. Really so easy, and you don’t have to even deal with other people. Or, the other solution for people who want to get some money out of the car, yet NEED IT GONE is to just cut the price by half.
I WANT THE PINTO WAGON!!!!!!!!
I love browsing through all the various car ads or the classifieds in general. What really drives me nuts is the really bad pictures people take. It’s almost like people can’t figure out that it would probably be a good thing to take pictures of the whole car or at least a get whole side in the picture instead of just the front 1/4. On the flip side, there’s the ads with one picture of the vehicle from 100′ away. Without decent pictures, I don’t waste my time going to looking at most things unless they are very close.
I absolutely cannot fathom selling a *car*, even a sub-$1000 one, without good photos. The ones that only show a portion of the vehicle drive me nuts–take five steps back for pete’s sake! If you can’t be bothered to snap 2 or 3 shots of the whole car, why can I be bothered to come look at it?
Considering that Craigslist does not charge for putting photos in your ad, I’m more than a little shocked that some people post no photos, or only one. Considering that some people try their best to let you know in advance exactly what they are selling and as much documentation as possible before you call or go visit by posting 10 to 20 pictures, even the people who only provided two or three pictures seem to not be trying very hard to sell their vehicle. For those times you are going to have to travel out-of-town some distance, six to twelve decent pictures lets you know in advance if you’re wasting your time or not.
Ha!. I’m looking at an old Recycler “Photobuys” from 1994 right now.
I kept it because there was an ad for my old 84 Citation II notchback coupe in it.
It was traded for the 86 Olds Calais and likely auctioned off by Century Olds in Van Nuys.
Love the rags and still pick them up.
When I was a 10 year old kid, I’d look at the car ads in the Sunday paper. I always started at the back.
The rest of that news stuff was just “filler”.
I forget what forum it was on, but about 10 or 12 years ago, some guy went to look at a Camry for sale where the owners sig other insisted the engine was shot because it wouldn’t turn over, hence a deep discount selling price. A firm shove of the shifter forward into P and guess what?
vrrrooooommmmm?
Re the “hybrid turbo”….might that be a turbo with a supercharger attached to it? IIRC, they tried that to reduce the ole turbo-lag.
or something….
Hybrid turbo usually means a mix and match of two different units. A lot of guys will run a T3 hot side with a T4 compressor to reduce lag on smaller displacement engines.
That Jeep ad could be a scam – the giveaway is the seemingly-random number price, which I see daily in Craigslist scam ads.
I am in love with FB Marketplace! It is available on the desktop version now too. Just in case you wanted to even less at work..
I just picked up a loaded 2 owner Suburban with a ton of work done to it for under $2000 delivered to my door. And selling things there is a pleasure. Light years better than any CL experience I’ve had.
The MGB convent caught my eye, I confess to assuming that nun of this model were built with automatic transmission, but when it comes to MG trivia I’m a novice.
If the rust isn’t a mother, it could be a superior project.
Don’t make a habit of these puns, you two. 😉
Importamation, I also began my love affair with cars at the ripe old age of 13. My cousin, who lived just two houses away from ours, bought a new 65 Pontiac Tempest LeMans coupe with a 326, buckets & a 4 speed. I was hooked from that day forward. In late 65, I purchased my 1st car magazine. It was the Nov. 65 issue of Motor Trend magazine. It was a buyers guide for all the 1966 cars. I still have it today along with buyers guides for every year since then, including 2018. Back in those days, they had a classified section in the magazine. People would sell their soul to the devil to be able to buy the cars listed at those prices. The cover is long gone, but here’s what it should look like.
The Facebook Marketplace is a cool place to find cars. Irritatingly, you’ll find that, just with Craigslist, it’s chock-full of dealers being disingenuous…listing their cars for something outrageously cheap, like $1, just to appear at the top of your search results. Or they’ll post something like a 2014 Silverado at $1,000, because you could buy it with just that much down.
These kind of practices are why I don’t really look at Craigslist anymore. Dealers do you really think people are looking for late model vehicles on Craigslist?
Weeellll…to be fair, I think the idea is that people with challenged credit who would otherwise be consigned to cash vehicles can instead put that money toward a downpayment with a subprime lender and finance something newer. It can also be used to prey upon people’s ignorance and irresponsibility (A 2008 750Li for only $199 down and $150 biweekly? Sign me up!).
I admit to trolling through the FB marketplace on my phone from time to time, just to see what turns up.
But in response to CJC, I DID find my latest late-model vehicle listed on Craigslist, from the local Chevy dealer (a 2008 HHR).
That Scion XD with half it’s face missing would not look super out of place in Oregon, I have seen worse moving under their own power.