What kind of descriptions or key phrases do you look for that tell you if a car is worth looking at? What tells you that an ad is sketchy or the car probably isn't worth the time?
For example, if I see "Just needs brake lines," I take that as a sign that the underbody is probably pretty rusty and I could find something better.
Obviously good pictures help.
Obviously "Doesn't run, just needs a fuel pump, $20 part" is often questionable.
What kind of things jump out to you when you're browsing car ads?
I look for unmolested, totally bone-stock cars with clean interiors. Chances are if the interior is trashed, the owner didn't bother to take care of the rest of the car either. Those that keep clean interiors, generally take care of maintenance too.
I also pay attention to grammar and spelling. If the owner didn't care enough about giving the car a decent presentation, chances are they didn't care about keeping the car in good shape either.
I want to buy a car from the most anal, detail-minded person possible. I may not want to be friends with folks like this.....but they are great people to buy cars from.
I look for signs of basic literacy in the ad, more than a couple spelling/grammar mistakes and its a pass. This is a surprisingly good method of weeding out the scumbags in my experience.
Next level of vetting is whether they answer all of the questions I ask in my email to them. I'll typically ask 5-6 questions on the condition based on what was pictured or written in the ad. If the response is generic or they only address one or two of my questions I typically don't take much additional effort to find the rest of the answers.
Good description, proper grammar/spelling, decent pictures.
Correct spelling of Camaro.
kazoospec wrote:
Correct spelling of Camaro.
Lol, "Camero" actually became a regular search term of mine when I was looking for mine. It accounted for a pretty significant percentage of the vehicles on the local market.
Double names I only search for the one distinctive name. Case in point: Grand Am, Grand Prix, Grand Cherokee, Grand Caravan.... I only search with the last name. Or search for the descriptive name for submodel of the same vehicle.
Puntuation and pictures. If the seller looks like they have at least a 8th grade education and grammar skills, it's a good first step. I like a little history, but not a life story. Pictures in the middle of the day are a good indicator that the seller gives a crap. No vasaline lense.
Wall-e wrote:
Post-Op.
I came here to post the same thing.
Well played.
