Assessment of Damage, I need your help...

Man, that sucks. That car looked to have such a nice body.

I have a rust free drivers door that is actually on a '76. By time you pay to ship it, it may not even be worth it though.

If your interested, send me a PM.

 

It's like this, if you were going to paint it anyway (since Stallions don't come gold ) then you can take the painting out of the equation. I run a body shop and I know a good body man could fix those dents in about 10 hours or so. Ten hours labor at full retail ($38 per hour) in my shop would cost someone $380 plus tax. I'm sure you can find a shop or a body man to fix it for about $400 or less if he just puts it in primer. Don't worry about the painting right now. Of course I would try to get it for $400 also but if the car is pretty nice I wouldn't hesitate to spend $800-900 for it. If you buy a car with quite a bit of rust in it, you'll spend WAY more than that fixing rust holes. I'd rather have dents to fix ANY time over rust. No rust saves a LOT of money!!!

 

Myself, I would bail. In my experience the damage is more than the purchase price. Who on earth would continue driving a car that has been sold? An idiot is who, and doing business with idiots is usually not worth it.
jmo
Dan

 

My .02...

The car was sold and should not have been driven, especially by the owner's children.
You can imagine that the son may have even been beating the car pretty hard because he knew it was essentially gone. The whole "girl backed into me" story may have just been a cover for the true "doin' donuts and hit a light pole" story.

$400, take it or leave it.
I would approach it like 'your son did it, let him pay the difference'.
I would also go in like it's a done deal, rather than 'asking if he'll take 400 now'.
Take the lead and assume that is what you are paying, like it or not for him.
You could actually go after him on eBay for breach of contract.
He had a contract to sell it to you in the condition it was in, maybe he needs to fix it before you take delivery...
The damage is in a lot of body lines, it won't be easy.
Good luck
Dave

 

yeah....that makes more sense.....heck....let him have his insurance fix it and then pay the full price for it...after its fixed....


the guy was selling it for 1250 and then they wrecked it...as far as he is concerned...he will still want that much money for it.... i would bet he wont go down very far....


you can offer him 400 ....im not good at betting...but i bet he wont see it for that little...he might... but i doubt it....

if i were you i would say....: "look i bid on a straight car, and it isnt straight anymore. i was willing to spend 1250 for it...and in fact i won the bid. but now that you conitnued to drive the car i was about to buy and wrecked it, my offer is now 400. the body work alone to fix it will be over 1000. i should say take that 1000 off the price, but i will give you the 400 for it. take it or leave it. but i am not lookig for a wrecked car, sorry"


if he wont work with you....then thank the lucky stars no money changed hands

 

just a thought. if you paid on this with paypal you could use the buyer protection and get a free maverick.if not they would offer you the car at a greatly reduced price i think 250.00 sounds better.you will spend a grand getting this back in shape.

 

Save all the pics and wording from the original auction.
Give 'em heck.
Turn him into ebay...
If he relists the car after not resolving the issue to your liking, turn him into ebay for auctioning a car that you had already won...
Tell him you are still both contractually bound, but the whole deal will just be delayed while he returns the car to it's previous state. Then you will pay him in full.
Etc...
Dave

 

I would also offer then $400 for the car. As the others have said, allowing the car to be driven and then damaged after it was sold was stupid. You agreed to pay $1250 for the car in the condition it was advertised in. Now that car is no longer in the shape it was origionaly advertised in, you should not be expected to pay the agreed amount. It is now damaged goods. The repairs to the car will not be cheap. The sellers could offer to have the car repaired, but then they could just take the car to some fly-by-night bodyshop and have the dents loaded with filler just so they could say they got it fixed. Offer them $400 for the car, and if they turn it down, bail out and walk away. To be on the safe side, inform Ebay of what has happened, especially if you bail out.

 

Take a road trip ... Since you are creating a Stallion Clone and want to make sure there is never any confusion or possibility of a scandal in the future use a 1977 ... I'd grab this car which is much nicer ....

It has the proper LDO buckets seats that would have been in a Stallion and the correct Door Panels that you could paint black. Also notice the nice smooth chrome big bumpers with no ugly strips or bumper guards. Also has the correct Sport Mirrors a Stallion would have.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=6057&item=4560688811&rd=1

 

Thanks!

Hey everyone, thanks for all you concerns and great advice. I'm going to sleep on this and see how I feel in the morning. I believe the "best" I would do is offer $400, and like a few said, I don't think they will want to go for that amount, but they screwed up. It still really disappoints me though, I thought I had a good piece of metal to work with, and things were falling into place for me to make the trip down, as well as attend the Roundup at the same time. We'll see what another day brings I guess. Thank you all for your input, this is a great place and it's cool to have friends like you!

Art

 

One other thing, a few people mentioned to have "them" fix it first, let their insurance take care of it. Well, I'm not so sure they even have insurance on it, and I don't think I would want them to have it fixed. I would not be able to monitor it, nor would I know what kind of place they took it to. Some teenages could work on it and fill it with bondo and it "might" look ok for now, but later? The car I end up with I want to keep for the rest of my life, so if I still buy this car, I would want to know "who" fixed it and that it was done right, with as little body filler as possible. If I could find an excellent rust free door, that would make the decision a little easier, then only the rear fender would have to be fixed. Anyway, everyone's advice was greatly appreciated. I'm going on vacation next week, camping with the family. Wish I had a computer at the campground so I could keep up on the "Maverick world" with all of you, lol. I'll check back in on the 19th.

Take care everyone!
Art

 

not to throw more fuel on the fire here, but that quarter panel looks like it was hit more then a few weeks ago..

i agree $400 would be what i would offer.. if i wouldnt have seen it before it was hit i would probably give no more then $600 for it to use as a good driver

 

Yea, it looks like rust is already setting in...

 

I would have to agree with the general consensus, $400 or walk away. I would not agree to have them fix the damage. You have no control on how well the work is done. I feel badly that this has happened to you, but this is one of the risks of buying something 'long distance'. I also agree that the owner had no business using the car if it is for sale by auction. It's not like someone that has a daily driver and hangs a "For Sale" sign in the window. This sort of behavior would make me suspicious to his credability altogether.

 

$400-500 or nothing, if you feel like dealing with the headache of finding someone to fix it (a maverick.to member sounds good).

As said, you don't know who they'd get to fix it, odds are they'd get the cheapest bozo they could find, otherwise they wouldn't make a dollar on the sale.

Also, I tend to agree, the rust is dark, not light like surface rust on a new dent. Unless the car was orignally a dark color... uh, sounds a bit dishonest to me.

The ridge down the middle is bent in (fun), the hole for the light is bent (oh joy), the door is bent (oh what fun those are, right in the middle of replacing rusted sheetmetal on mine)...

You need a door and a replacement quarter or a good body man... none of which are free.