I test drove one of Jalopnik Car Buyings 10 Best 4-Doors for under 10K

"sellphones2493" (sellphones2493)
04/01/2015 at 22:42 • Filed to: Car Buying, S60R, 10 Best Under 10K

So, many of you may have seen how Jalopnik posted a list of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . I happened to be very close to one of them, so I went to check it out.

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This one happened to be the 2007 Volvo S60R with under 94k. Being the owner of a 2007 S60R myself, I could truly do a decent comparison.

So I called the number on the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! for the R, and was greeted by a salesperson. We confirmed they had the car and to come in whenever and ask for her.

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The dealer claims to be the biggest independent wholesale dealer in the Northeast, selling ~400 cars per month. I eventually got the dealer, to see a super small lot, a lot different from the aerial pictures on eBay.

They had a bunch of fresh-from-the-auction cars just sort of sitting around - all with issues. Firstly, there was a green Jaguar XF with four flat tires, a GL450 with a punched in window and sagging suspension, and then a ~2008 E63AMG with major quarter panel damage and various other damage. They all seemed to have come straight from a repossession.

Upon walking in to the dealer, I met with the salesperson who immediately asked whether I plan on paying cash or financing. Then she told me the dealer has a $600 processing fee added to all prices. After some finagling, she eventually went to get the R. I knew it was going to be rough, but not this rough...

Rear Emblems are misalaigned

Decent Quarter Panel/Rear Door Damage

Front Bumper ripped and barely hanging on

**The Money Shot

From what I noticed:

+$5,000 in cosmetics and paint correction

It has one of those clear bra's that is yellowing and destroyed

Intercooler completely warped

Whining noise coming from the right side of the engine

Cloudy headlamps

Curbed wheels

Rear bumper and trunklid replaced - major orange peel

Turn signals don’t work

S button on transmission doesn’t work

Behind the wheel nav buttons don’t work

Needs new struts, and 4C

Engine is tired and whiney

Wheels are bent and need alignment

Missing sunglass holder (last pic)

Center console doesn’t open

Rear View has like rusting on it or something

Outside mirror turn signal has condensation

The PO must have been pretty heavy set - the bolsters on the seat completely disappeared

Perhaps this R isn’t one of the 10 best 4-Doors Currently for sale on eBay for under 10K...
Although it makes me feel better that my R, albeit 10,000 miles newer is 10,000 times cleaner.

DISCUSSION (18)

Matthew Phillips > sellphones2493
04/01/2015 at 22:47

I alresy bought a car like that for under a grand....

OBDII's suck

Sn210 > sellphones2493
04/01/2015 at 22:59

10/10 would NOT buy

E92M3 > sellphones2493
04/01/2015 at 23:02

CP! That's a $2k car at BEST!

Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero > sellphones2493
04/01/2015 at 23:17

what? You mean tavarish's doesn't fact check his articles? That's crazy talk.../sarcasm

EL_ULY > sellphones2493
04/01/2015 at 23:33

i can easily see $12-16k in parts and labor. Fucking RUN FAST! Same thing with all of Tavarish's lists and theories. Total click bait for young and inexperienced enthusiasts. Recipe for disaster on every article.

GTRZILLAR32-Now saving for Godzilla and a condo > sellphones2493
04/02/2015 at 00:33

I recognize the lot, those guys are a bunch of fucking crooks. But other than being slimy used car salesmen, like you read about from Lehto, they do usually have some cool cars.

Clay Smith's Revenge > sellphones2493
04/02/2015 at 01:53

I can see the pics on ebay are taken at a distance that disguises the scrapes/scratches on the body quite a bit, hides the heads of the machine metal bolts holding the bumper cover in place and puts the rust/corrosion that's completely taken over the license plate frame to the point it won't actually hold a plate anymore (nice touch using God only knows what to sort of hang the plate loosely off the bumper, I'm sure the sound of it banging off the bumper as you drove was something wonderful)

I actually browsed through the pics on the ebay ad before going through your more detailed shots and I actually thought "I know the engine bay was not that dirty on the ebay ad" and only noticed those sneaky bastards left out any shots of the engine and I didn't even notice at first! I guess I'm so used to seeing at least one engine pic in every car ad (including cars on Craigslist "stored in the chicken coop near 3 moths because we needed space in the garage" ) that my mind just invented a very clean pic out of thin air.

One thing I don't get, though, is how/why they let the car get so incredibly filthy since the photo shoot for the ad? The camera can't magically hide that much dirt, and I might have imagined an engine pic but I double checked and even the side walls were shined up with Armor-All. Did someone have to drive it through the deepest puddles of standing rain water every day since the photos were taken because they lost a bet or something? That's just not something I'd expect to see. In all the years I worked with dealers of every shape and size I've never seen one that wasn't close to anal about keeping inventory clean. Even the ones with questionable business plans/devoid of the human soul that prevents the rest of from seeing every other human being as merely something to shake for money until empty, those guys kept their shoddy inventory disguised by regular cleanings along with a busy detail shop with a steam/high pressure engine cleaner handling all the new inventory intake.

How does a crooked/shady dealer expect to even come close enough to a sale with which to perform their crooked/shady methods to fleece naive people out of every last nickel if the car is so dirty that even the naive can tell something's up.

Now they're a crooked/shady/unprofessional dealership

Jobjoris > sellphones2493
04/02/2015 at 04:13

I'm so glad you did this. And not to be harsh on your hard labor but I guess this applies to at least 80% of these 'car buyings for under 10 grand'.

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > sellphones2493
04/02/2015 at 07:53

As a rule, if Tavarish recommends it, it's too good to be true.

sellphones2493 > GTRZILLAR32-Now saving for Godzilla and a condo
04/02/2015 at 08:00

It was easily the slimiest dealer I've ever been to - and I've been to a lot of dealers. They had a lot of nice cars that I'd usually like. However, based off what I saw, I wouldn't touch anything they had with a 10Ft pole.

sellphones2493 > Clay Smith's Revenge
04/02/2015 at 08:04

If it says anything, I got there on a Wednesday at around 1PM, and the dealer was completely packed. Being a wholesaler, they also sell to a lot of other dealers.

They said after a deposit is down, they'd clean the car up.

And as for the damage on the side, the salesperson said they'd repair it for me at cost! As soon as she said that, I looked directly at where they screwed the bumper into place...

sellphones2493 > EL_ULY
04/02/2015 at 08:05

That crazy thing about this one is that from what I could infer from service records, it's a 1-Owner...

I don't know how someone could originally buy a $47,000 car and watch it go to complete shit over 94K.

Freddy "Tavarish" Hernandez > EL_ULY
04/02/2015 at 08:11

What happens when you realize that I don't actually pick the selections, but they're reader suggested and voted on?

Freddy "Tavarish" Hernandez > sellphones2493
04/02/2015 at 08:11

Whoa! That's crazy rough.

EL_ULY > Freddy "Tavarish" Hernandez
04/02/2015 at 09:00

LOL, poor them. Keep the fire going though buddy :]

EL_ULY > sellphones2493
04/02/2015 at 09:05

oh dayum, that's lame sauce

sellphones2493 > Freddy "Tavarish" Hernandez
04/02/2015 at 11:52

Well, the suggestion of an R is a good one. You can generally get a decent R for under 10K. This one just so happens to not be one of them.

JasonStern911 > sellphones2493
04/02/2015 at 23:38

Thank you for this. Having recently been in the market for a sedan in the sub-$10k price range, I can vouch that cars like a dark era Mercedes with 160k of questionable, no service record miles is not a top ten sedan in the price range. By the time and money you get it back into semi-reliable daily driver shape, you're well past CTS-V plus go fast goodies territory and getting into E39 M5 territory (which would be just as bad reliability wise, but at least it's more likely to be worth it). :)