Ad on Autotrader that showed up about a week ago. Listed as manual trans. Called and talked to the dealer and got some details about the car. Didn't ask to confirm the trans (are you seeing where this is going?). Nice sunny day. Drove 2 hours and 15 minutes. Looked at the car for approx 30 seconds. Saw the shifter, dropped the key on the roof, turned around and started the 2:15 drive back home.
Anyone care to top that?
I had a doorknob drive 300Km to buy my corolla.
We agreed on $1000 cash over the phone , he said he was bringing it with him.
He showed up with $700 and ended up driving home without my car.
After dealing with him, I'm keeping the car. I don't want to sell it, I don't -need- to sell it and I need more seat time anyway. I'd rather not track my daily driver nowadays.
Too many idiots on craigslist.
Shawn
Trans_Maro wrote: I had a doorknob drive 300Km to buy my corolla. We agreed on $1000 cash over the phone , he said he was bringing it with him. He showed up with $700 and ended up driving home without my car. After dealing with him, I'm keeping the car. I don't want to sell it, I don't -need- to sell it and I need more seat time anyway. I'd rather not track my daily driver nowadays. Too many idiots on craigslist. Shawn
Must of spent the rest on gas lol
Trans_Maro wrote: I had a doorknob drive 300Km to buy my corolla. We agreed on $1000 cash over the phone , he said he was bringing it with him. He showed up with $700 and ended up driving home without my car. After dealing with him, I'm keeping the car. I don't want to sell it, I don't -need- to sell it and I need more seat time anyway. I'd rather not track my daily driver nowadays. Too many idiots on craigslist. Shawn
Glad that you stood your ground!
Your last sentence - so true - Kijiji is the same!
Pre Internet. Rust-free '59 El Camino. Owner sent crappy photos.
Drove from Houston to Grand Junction. Saw the hidden rust and mis-matched parts. Drove 1200+ miles back to Houston.
What chaps my ass about the guy buying the Corolla, he begged me to hold it for him until the weekend and kept telling me how bad he wanted it because he had one for his first car.
I would have thought that since he was in his 30's like me, he would have grown up a bit by then.
I just can't believe there are folks out there who are that stupid.
Fit_Is_Slo wrote: Must of spent the rest on gas lol
Nope, his girlfriend drove him out in her......
PRIUS
Bet they had plenty of smug to get them all the way home again!
1400 miles. Los Angeles to Hobbs, NM.
The story turns out well, though. The car was grossly misrepresented in a GOOD way and I ended up buying it and driving it home.
Southern PA to deep SC to not buy a truck that looked good in the photos but had no brakes (that could be a problem on the drive home, huh?), bald tires, a broken shift collar on the column and a fuel leak. The wife was thrilled we drove a day and a half for nothing.
Repeated 2 months later to not-quite-as-far NC and bought that one.
When I was 17 my father and I drove 6 hours to Tampa to look at a 88 Scirocco. We get there to discover it was a 78 with a 16V engine poorly swapped in. My Dad not so nicely explained that an 88 engine does not make it a 88 Scirocco! Good experience though as we had a great day together and what I wouldn't give for more of those.
I live in Cleveland Ohio.
Asked my buddy to borrow a trailer from his buddy and we set off in his big honkin dodge ram and huge trailer to NY for a saturn.
The details are getting hazy, but we left at like 5AM after a night downtown and did not come back till late in the day.
Saturn was a mess. Lies.
Live and learn eh?
I got nothing on you guys. Worst I did was drive from Delaware into the North Philly ghetto to look at an Outback Sport. Car was cosmetically a little rougher than pictured but drove well. Checked the VIN - not the same as in the ad. The idiot actually let me use his computer to run the new VIN (just for kicks; I had already decided to walk) and the new VIN turned up a car with about 5 owners and 190,000 miles, even though the dash showed about 75k.
Oh, and did I mention PA plates and a New Jersey title? Right.
I drove six hours to look at a Vehicross. They decided to take a hard line on the price, the interest rate, and my trade, which had developed a new, and expensive sounding noise on the drive up. No deal was made, the car made it home fine, but I had to spring for a hotel.
I drove 11 hours from Ann Arbor to Raleigh,NC to look at a van that was grossly underrepresented. I had 140+ pictures from the seller before I left home to judge by. It's been a good van. Good morning, Ashleigh. 
I drove an hour the other day, only to find out that "not much rust" means "not much rust left, cause most of the body is gone"
Joey
Let's see.. Drove from a car club forum get together in Cincy to Cocoa Beach for a 92 Mustang roller. Was a decent car except for the fact is the cage was bent out of used scraps of tubing and painted in a god awful spray bomb silver flake. The black interior was really red under the cheap paint. Dash wasn't even correct for the car. And so on and so on. Oh did I mention I never got a title for it? Eventually did a get a MI title for it and got it sold for much less then what I paid for it and what I sold to buy that car with. 
I drove from Chicago to Atlantic city nj to buy two e28s. I bought both but the one was about to break in half. Oh well a guy bought the m5 off of my trailer before I got home, and I drove the rusty 528e for two winters in Chicago before I sold it with 435k on the clock.
I'm leery now of driving very far at all.
My brother and I towed a trailer just over 2 hours to look at and buy a diesel Golf. Even phoned the guy as we left to tell him we were on our way. We get to his house and nobody was home, and there was no car. We phoned his cell phone. He was on a test drive with another buyer who just bought it.
I drove 120 miles to a dealership in northeastern Ohio and the car I had called to inquire on, an '89 Prelude Si, sold "just a bit ago." Yeah right, it sold before I left, they just thought that while I was there I would buy something. They tried to put me in the other Prelude on the lot but it was an auto. The sad thing is the ploy worked because my wife (girlfriend at the time) talked me into test driving and buying the [gag] Chevy Celebrity they had on the lot. To be honest it was very comfortable and I kind of did need something that got better than the 9-10 mpg my '66 Pontiac was getting, but the Celebrity kept stranding me and then threw a rod within a year. After that she said "I'm never telling you what car to buy again." That's been cheap insurance as it was only an $800 car. For a lifetime of automobile autonomy I would say that's pretty cheap.
Drove an empty trailer from London, Ontario to Shiprock, New Mexico - 2900 km each way... for a $1500 Starion. Had some photos in all of 600x400 resolution, a fairly detailed description from a forum, and I talked to the guy on the phone. He wasn't anywhere near the car so I also talked to his girlfriend's parents who were storing it for him.
It was a little misrepresented... biggest thing being the "brand new" front airdam, which was on the car in the photos, had "somehow" gotten smashed and was taken off. It also didn't run but I full well knew that.
Argued him down to $900 and got what I wanted - a completely rust free, straight, stock example with a very good interior & nothing major missing. I still haven't done anything with it.
I also did a fly and drive to pick up my Lotus, again on the strength of some (much better, thankfully) photos and a couple conversations. Landed in the NW of England, drove home across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. Only 1500 km that time. It lost an ignition coil early on so I had to do 75% of the trip on two cylinders. I also figured out later that the insurance I thought I'd had was never valid.
Part of this though was that once there I looked for less than a minute and was done. I've gone distances and come home empty, but this set my record for the ratio of longest drive to shortest time looking.
Well, it could have so easily gone pear shaped both times... It just didn't because I'm both absurdly lucky and an idiot. 
90 minutes one way to look at a "twin cam" neon. Single cam. We decided right away that it wasn't the car for us. But we don't mind tearing apart a car in front of the owner so we pointed out the tail light lens bonded to the body by copious amounts of silicon sealer. Asked where the door cards were. At least they got the five speed part right. They kept the gas for the cars in a tank in the back. If you wanted to start it up the would pump out 2 gallons and pour it in. The drive home was extended by stopping at every car we thought was interesting on the way home. Ended up being about a 6 hour round trip for nothing.
Trans_Maro wrote: We agreed on $1000 cash over the phone , he said he was bringing it with him. He showed up with $700 and ended up driving home without my car.
I was on receiving end of one of these full-retard transactions. Had a guy call about my Nissan Frontier 4x4 5spd extended cab pickup--pretty marketable vehicle and I was asking a fair price. He asked 20 questions and then started negotiating on the phone. I told him I would save him some time and my bottom price was $xxxx and if he wanted the truck bring the cash and drive it home, but get here before 11am on Saturday because I had things to do. He drove over an hour to my house.
His wife brings him by 30min late. He pokes around the truck for 20min and takes if for a test drive. Says he'll take it and tried to pay me $500 less than the price I told him.
Told him no. He's like 'this is cash...right here.' Starts laying down hundreds on the hood. No. "How are you going to turn this down?" He started getting pissed. Told you what the deal was on the phone. Him, furious: "I can't believe you wasted my time like this. You're an shiny happy person."
Sold the truck two days later for $300 more than that.
My worst was 200 miles to Chicago to pick up an Alfa GTV6 I won on eBay. I had confirmed it had minimal rust prior to bidding.
Despite multiple calls en route, I get there and am told to wait in the factory parking lot it is sitting in for 90 minutes for this guy to meet me. I drove 4 hours on his schedule and then have to wait for him.
So the car is parked outside and is accessible, despite the pics the first sign of problems is a fist sized hole in the top of the passenger fender, I bent down to look underneath it and find no floors at all.
.I just left, guy was pissed at me when he finally decided to go to the car's location.
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