Well call me stupid. After all these years of buying trucks I let my gaurd down and trusted the seller.... Atleast on the good side all it's cost me was 3/4 tank of diesel and a few hour drive.
I was bidding on a 79 F250 on Ebay. I'm sure some of you may have looked at it, auction number: 2462111563 The pics looked pretty good. Every time I emailed to ask specific questions about the frame, the body, I got the normal answers.. "Oh it's a good solid truck. No holes, cracks, etc" hehe well turned out to be the high bidder, went down to pick her up. All i can say is WOW
Ok his description is: turned out to be:

New $900 5" stainless stacks.......... Used chrome stacks
New $450 Velneck mirrors.................Used $50 mirrors
Good 35x12.50 16.5 50% tread.........10% tread
Solid frame.........................................Hole the size of a quarter above the rear axle...pin holes the size of a pencil all around

Magnaflow mufflers "new"..................24" glass packs very used
tilt wheel............................................. .uhh...sorry bub no tilt
new paint job.......................................WOW :-staun I think my boy coulda done a better job...he's 4 3/4 years old

Nope, I never put any bondo or know of any bondo in the truck since I've had it..................bondo..what's bondo.....

Dents will be professionally fixed..........."was told the truck couldn't get into the shop for 3+ weeks, so too bad me no fixy"
New clutch............................................ ..Spring shackels were being held together with 1/8" of rust...I was afraid to jump on it let alone drive it.
Gas tank was held on with 1/2 of a strap, rest was rubbing on the ground.......
When asked about the holes in the frame, the busted shackles, the missing interior parts, the cab that rocks (lift bushing were shot) I was told..."well he told you to the best of his ability" What do you expect for a 30 year old truck!?


Sorry for the long post but I just wanted to share the experience and remind all not to trust anyone when buying a car/truck!! Go inspect yourself or have a compitent person look at it.
Good luck with your future purchases!!!!!

Oh..hehehe guess he really feels like an for denying my deposit thru Pay Pal!!!!!

 

So....you didn't get it? Yes, ebay is a shady place, I recently heard of the horrors of ebay. Such as: kidneys for sale, the auction where someone put up 26 Chinese children, cocaine, crack and anything else you wouldn't expect to find. I only heard of these from a guy whose college statisics class did a survey about ebay, so I can't confirm these. I think it is horrible. -William

 

I just stay away from that place unless going there for a laugh. I would never buy anything from there!!! IMHO tho!!

 

Ebay is great, I've bought things there probably 500 times. Everything from clothes to tools to music and dvds. Of course these were all low cost items.

Even though my expirences have been good, my advise to anyone looking at ebay is - caveat emptor. Check every sellers history before buying...if they have lots of complaints then don't buy. It's nothing more than common sense.

Any you can place an auction for anything...kidneys, children, drugs, etc... and it will last for about 12 hours before they find it and take it down.

 

At least you had the common sense to look at the truck.
I am amazed at the number of eBay people that bid $10-$15,000+ for a vehicle and don't bother to check them out, or have someone inspect it for them. The vehicle gets delivered and they find what you did.

They come on the eBay boards crying because they got taken. Then they wonder why the sellers won't refund their money! Some people just have more money than common sense.

 

It really is unbelivable how people try to put anything and everything on Ebay. I've bought and sold over 400 items from ebay, some of which I have travled a pretty good distance to pick them up. Allmost all of the biddings were good but I guess it just goes to show ya you'll deal with all kinds.

 

I empathize but it doesn't really come as a surpise.

Something as complex as a machinery, you must go there and check it out first. No way around that.

Your one alternative was to offer him some $100 payment if you wanted it. But then again, engine probably has bad compression, etc.

Or maybe it was the case of --- quite frequently, sellers in love with their vehicles put a much higher price tag on them than the market value. The price makes all the difference.


P.S. The closest I've come to this was when I got an engine, a 350 from ebay, and had it installed. It was from a wrecked cop car. With 100K miles, which is not that much for it.

Well, it turns out that the real mileage is probably higher due to cops idling all the time. Not sure how much higher since the hours are not measured.
Second, it has some annoying head gasket problem. I get an airlock during the first 5 mins of driving, and then the coolant starts circulating. Replaced all parts until was told it is the head gasket. Now the idiot mechanic replaced one head gasket but not the other, when the engine was out and it was easiest. So I had a few things go wrong like that.

I dont' think I will buy an engine with more than 50K miles on it to ensure no problems -- and even that can be problematic, you don't know what the last owner did with it.