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If you ask for a pre-purchase inspection and they give you a list of all the things wrong with a car is it usual for that to be all there is or should they be giving you a general ballpark estimate of what it costs to fix things too? I very much assumed the latter but certainly not what I got from this mechanic! I'm wanting to sell this 1995 Jeep YJ Sport (or Sahara?) I have that is barely driven and has basically just been sitting around for most of a year. I decided to take it to a mechanic, been around for decades, very reputable on google at least for essentially a pre-purchase inspection so that: * I know all the things wrong with the car to tell to a potential buyer. * I'm not accidentally selling someone a car that is fundamentally unsafe to drive. * I can get a feel for how much to price the car at, with my thinking being vaguely "what folks are selling similar ones for, less the cost for all the major things that need to be fixed" So I get this laundry list of problems back, many of these things I know about, and some of them unsurprising given that they're essentially "this part is rusted out" and that doesn't seem terribly surprising given the car has been sitting on the side of the road for months in a very rainy place. The guy reads over the phone to me all the problems, like "Radiator rusted needs replacing", etc, but no numbers. Weird? normal? So here's the slightly surprising and maybe weird thing, is that he says, "so you were looking to sell this right? well it just so happens I have this cabin up north, and [story about how he has a suzuki sidekick that doesn't work something something] and so your car might be a good fix to replace it. How much are you thinking of selling it for?" Well damnit I mean, ok possibly good that someone wants to buy this heap of junk, but I was coming to you for the help in objectively valuing the thing! So I just sort of dodge the question around the price because I'm like well I need to know what it costs to replace all this stuff in order to value the car, and he says well he can assemble that, but he's heading off for a long weekend break and will be back on Tuesday. It occurs the next to me the next day like, "wait what did I just pay for? an inspection with only the most vaguest of information?" and I decide to call the next day and talk with his colleague and see if his collague can get me numbers and details for this stuff and he says he'll look into it, but he didn't do the inspection and I haven't heard back. Who on earth schedules an inspection, then runs out on it because they have holiday? wth. Anyway the mild weirdness of all this certainly made me think a bit "wait is this some scam?" but I don't know if this is actually just the typical thing, that asking for more concrete price information of repairs is An Extra Step and requires more work, as if I'm absolutely supposed to implicitly know the implications and cost of replacing a radiator in a 1995 jeep. As I said before this is a place that's been operating for decades and with great reviews so it would be surprising to me if there are any shenanigans here where the guy is pitching me some false list in hopes of scooping up a jeep for nothing. The thing does have rust and so that there are many problems is not too surprising at all. I suppose today I can get under the jeep and have a look for myself to confirm some things. Reason I posted this here in this thread was beyond just the general ask of whether the actions of this mechanic are normal, is whether anyone had either 1) ideas around the effort/price of certain things or better yet 2) how I should go about checking this guys' work when he gets back to me. I suppose I can at the very least source what the parts cost? Some of the more significant underlined issues cited here (either because of cost or safety/severity/importance) are: * radiator bad (rusted fins) * shocks should be replaced * brake fluid flush (more than 4% water) * brake lines rusted * front axel u joint rusted * body mounts rusted driver side * water pump leak starting * oil leak in steering Many of these points are like literally just like one line points with no explanation lol. Just so bad man it's wild the lack of detail and effort here. Again not sure if like he was going to do more work here in writing something up, or all an inspection gets you is a conversation over the phone around a high level hit list of problems and its expected that I need to do all the leg work to figure out what this all means. Femtosecond fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Jun 2, 2023 |
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Jun 2, 2023 19:20
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| # ¿ May 11, 2024 22:01 |
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ugh you're right so sorry I wasn't reading closely enough and posted in the wrong thread. ugh. Thx for the advice tho
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Jun 2, 2023 22:53
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