NOT the Art of the Flip - Third Time's the Charm(er) Edition

"Green Mountain Car Guy" (williamleedy) 01/30/2017 at 15:00 • Filed to: None

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I know it’s out of order, but, here it is: the third car I bought for the purpose of driving for a short period of time and then selling - preferably for a profit. If you recall with cars !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , I’ve been successful once. So, that’s a 33% success rate. After this, I’ll either be 50% successful or 25%. Care to guess which one?

This time around I wanted something all wheel drive for the winter months, but also something a little bit unique. After a month of waffling and indecision, finally a car popped up that could work. My indecision was aided by the fact we were nearing October’s border with November and if I didn’t want to put winter tires on the RX-8, something needed to be done soon. There was only one little problem. The car in question was in Connecticut.

After reaching out to the dealer and learning what work they did to the car and some additional pictures, we made a deal. Pending the test drive, I would be the owner of another car! My wife and I drove down and saw the car for the first time. It looked great. It’d spent it’s entire life in CT - which is much less harsh on the underside of a car than Vermont is. After a couple of signatures I handed over a check and we were off. I was now the proud owner of a Volvo. That’s right, the unique and interesting car I chose was a Volvo. The boxiest, most safety obsessed cars around. But this wasn’t just any old Volvo. It was a V50! An All-Wheel-Drive V50 with a 220hp turbocharged 5-cylinder engine. Not only that, but it was a 6-speed manual transmission! There was a point where there were fewer of these for sale on cars.com than the Saab 9-4x, which is saying something.

Strangely, I started to enjoy driving the car. I mean, it’s not like it had sharp handling or was particularly quick, but it was extremely comfortable and reasonably powerful. While shifting couldn’t be done quickly or with force, the feel and travel of the shifter was actually very nice. A problem was clearly brewing. It was one of those inexplicable moments. I am, at heart, a car guy. Car guys are all about one thing: performance. Whether it’s on the road or off, we all want a car that’s faster, handles better, and makes us quiver in anticipation of that next drive. I am that guy! But, despite that, here I was falling in love with a damn Volvo wagon. I did consult my doctor, but he couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me!

As a result of that I ended up breaking one of my rules about buying cars to hopefully resell. I became attached to it. Which meant I didn’t want to sell it. Which meant that I held onto it, and held onto it, and held onto it...for very nearly 2 years. The other reason that doesn’t bode well for profit making is that I add miles like they’re going out of style. In the end, despite owning both the Volvo and my !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! for most of the first year and not driving it at all for the last few months of ownership, I added 40k miles to its odometer, which already read 111k when I brought it home.

I know what you’re thinking...“You put 40k miles on a European car? It must’ve cost a fortune to keep it on the road!” It certainly could’ve been worse, but, it does fool you. It always started and it never missed a beat, but, that doesn’t mean that things weren’t reaching the end of their life. Perhaps earlier in it’s life and now that all this is done, it’ll be better off. I got the impression though that it was my patient. It may have come in feeling fine, but, it wasn’t without fault and it kept having little illnesses here and there. All of those little “a couple hundred here and a couple hundred there” to keep things going along add up over time. It’s hell getting old.

On top of the normal oil changes I added a few maintenance items: New winter tires when I bought the car, new summer tires just before it sold, filters, plugs, a couple vermont inspections, timing belt, and idler pulleys.

It wasn’t all fun and games though, on top of the regular stuff, a few other things popped up here and there (in no particular order):

At some point the parking brake stopped working. One of the cables had broken. Replacing this cable also required replacing the caliper it was attached to.

The fuel cap once came apart in my hand. Fortunately it broke in such a way that still allowed me to put fuel in the car, but, had to be replaced nonetheless

Three of the four wheel bearings and one of the sway bars had reached the end of their natural lives.

The rear screws which hold up the plastic shield under the engine bay had stopped doing their job. New self tapping screws fixed that. Some time later in the car’s life, the screws at the front gave up as well...this time while at highway speed and with an alarming noise. New screws for the front as well then.

One day on a shift from first to second, a small clunk noise occurred followed by some other distressing sounds. Shortly thereafter all the extraneous noises went away. I quickly learned that the car was now front wheel drive. A stripped angle gear sleeve leading to the rearward driveshaft turned out to be the culprit.

One day, while on my way home, the car decided it no longer wanted to have any power. No boost for me! On top of that, a loud whining noise was coming from the engine bay at low speeds and when I pulled it into the garage that night. It was found that the boost solenoid and vacuum hose switch had had enough

Then it came time to take care of the brakes. When I purchased the car, it came with new pads and rotors throughout. But a sticky rear caliper had worn them down to nothing without any thought! That meant replacing them again as well as another caliper.

And to top it all off, like an old Saab, the headliner was coming apart. Perhaps this is a swedish car issue? I wonder if the Koenigsegg’s have shitty headliners too? I had it locally reupholstered and it was good as new!

Keeping it running added up pretty quickly, but, I’ve owned many aging European cars before, so, this wasn’t overly surprising.

There isn’t much, really, that I didn’t like about the car. It was nice to drive on the highway but it was numb and too softly sprung to be fun in the corners. The shifter’s motion was nice but it made naughty noises when you tried to rush it. The dash, with its pass-through center console, was nicely laid out except that it was a mess of small buttons that required looking to make sure you were pushing the right ones. The exterior design was practical and Volvo boxy but it was also weirdly rounded around the bumpers, giving it a bit of an awkward shape overall. Larger wheels and the R-design body kit’s small front and rear lip spoilers make a big difference. Mine didn’t have those things. The radio provided good quality sound in old-folks mode, but, when you have it at “turn that shit down” mode, it falls apart quite quickly. Also, while it sends enough power to the rear axle to aid in winter traction, it doesn’t send enough to make it very good at wintry fun things. Not being able to turn off the stability control didn’t help with that either.

In the end, a new program with Mazda allows me a small stipend toward a lease as long as I am working as a sales consultant. Once my new Mazda3 arrived, I began searching for a buyer and eventually a friend of my boss came forward as he was looking for an inexpensive car to add to the fleet. We came to an agreement and with some waiting to get everything in order and for the title to arrive, it was done. The car had moved on to it’s new owner. I put a lot into it so it was in pretty nice condition when he picked it up. It stuck around far longer than a buying-and-selling-it-for-a-profit car should, but, even tough it wasn’t overly exciting, it was surprisingly nice and I enjoyed my time with the car.

Purchase Price: $6,758.00 (Including taxes, reg.)

VT Inspections: $30 (Two inspection)

Timing Belt, Idler and tensioner pulleys: $281.97

Winter Tires: $439.40

Oil Changes: $573.67

E-brake/Caliper/Gas Cap: $418.35

FL Wheel bearing/Spark Plugs/Filters: $400.43

FR Wheel Bearing: $247.98

Hanging Shield: $23.85

Sway Bar: $100.28

Angle Gear Sleeve: $329.71

Random Cooling Hose: $154.19 (not in an easy location)

Rear brakes/Caliper: $325.88

Boost Solenoid/Vacuum Hose Switch/Oil: $366.05

Summer Tires: $406.07

Headliner Repaired: $350.00

Misc: $97.90

Total Cost: $11,288.73 (not including interest or insurance)

Mileage Accumulated: 39,081

Sold For: $3,300

Profit/Loss: ($7,988.73)

Cost per mile: $0.20 (not including fuel/insurance)

In the end, twenty cents per mile in depreciation and repairs probably isn’t THAT bad for a European car, but, looking at that final number still stings. Over 2 years of ownership, this works out to $333/mo - which is usually considered a decent car payment. I’m going to stick with the cost per mile, it hurts less.

Unfortunately, those of you who guessed “25%” at the beginning are the winners. Perhaps I’m not very good at flipping cars but, that’s okay, I’ll totally have better luck next time.

Arrivederci > Green Mountain Car Guy 01/30/2017 at 16:04

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Hate to say it, but I think your problem on this one was buying something too nice - meaning that, as far as depreciation goes, it still had quite a way to fall.

Green Mountain Car Guy > Arrivederci 01/30/2017 at 16:07

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Well - depreciation is less of an issue if you buy/sell a car within a couple months and put maybe a few thousand miles on it. My problem with this one, really, was that I kept it for nearly 2 years so depreciation had plenty of time to take hold! 40k miles makes a difference too, haha.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Green Mountain Car Guy 01/30/2017 at 16:09

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Holy moly that is a ton of oil changes!

Arrivederci > Green Mountain Car Guy 01/30/2017 at 16:23

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True, of course, but if you had a $2000 car and put the same number of miles on it, you’d probably be able to get close to the $2000 back out of it :).

You could possibly come close to leasing a BMW 320i for $333/mo.

Your experiments aren’t giving me much ammo to try and convince my wife of doing the same, lol.

Green Mountain Car Guy > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) 01/30/2017 at 16:33

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Haha, yeah, it ended up getting 8 of them (every 5k miles)!

Green Mountain Car Guy > Arrivederci 01/30/2017 at 16:39

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Haha - plenty of people have much better luck at it than I do!!

This car and the RX-8 were my biggest losers. Both of those cars I kept too long, put a bunch of miles on and I didn’t buy right (I bought for a little less than retail instead of wholesale). The first car I broke even on because I bought it right and it absorbed the costly mistake I made. The forth one is the one you want to use for your argument: http://oppositelock.kinja.com/not-the-art-of-the-flip-fourth-time-lucky-edition-1789681842

It’s very difficult, as car guys, to keep emotion out of this process - and when you let it in, it’ll bite you in the ass every time. Be patient and wait for the right deal.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Green Mountain Car Guy 01/30/2017 at 16:42

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well those are some expensive oil changes then but I guess it makes sense if you pay someone to do it and its full synthetic.

Green Mountain Car Guy > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) 01/30/2017 at 16:58

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Yeah - they were full synthetic. And they always seemed to coincide nicely with the other stuff, so, I ended up with a “just do it while you have it on the lift” attitude....which certainly didn’t help the bottom line!

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Green Mountain Car Guy 01/30/2017 at 17:05

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My first assumption while reading a “flip” article was that maintenance would be done DIY to maximize profits. So in my head I was like at ~$30 for a jug and $10 for a filter that has to be like at least a dozen oil changes which came out to a ridiculous 3k mile oil change schedule. So it sounded crazy to me lol.

Green Mountain Car Guy > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) 01/30/2017 at 17:10

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haha, that’s why it says “NOT” in front of it! It’s funny, I’m fully capable of doing my own oil changes, I’ve just gotten stupid lazy in the last couple years and just let the service guys do it when they have the car in for something else.

KeedyT > Green Mountain Car Guy 01/31/2017 at 12:51

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Great write-up! I followed the links to read about all 4. I must say I started out thinking “this guy’s nuts, how can one flip cars and be taking them to others for all of the service”. But by the end I think it’s a nice counter-argument for what I understand to be the multitude of folks that really DON’T want to work on cars.

You have still enjoyed 4 separate cars over the last couple/few years with varying success in the financial aspect and an interesting read with your honesty on how it worked out.

Green Mountain Car Guy > KeedyT 01/31/2017 at 14:07

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Thank you very much for the kind words and for reading! I’m sorry I made you go to my personal blog for the other three - I had meant to change the links in the Oppo article to the corresponding Oppo articles because I post the same stories in both places. But, ohh well, the blog got a whole lot more traffic than it ever has, so, that can’t be bad, right!?

It’s funny, I have two ways of looking at what I’ve done: first is my way: In the case of the Volvo and the RX-8, I enjoyed a car for two years for about the price of enjoying a car for two years. I drove an Audi for basically free and I wholesaled a WRX for more than I had into it. It’s not a business model I would recommend if you are counting on income from the cars, but, it’s money that I would probably have spent on another car anyway...so why not get a story out of it. The second is my wife’s way: This has not been a profitable venture.

Now, to be fair on her viewpoint, I did pitch it as an idea to have a little extra income. She didn’t like it, but, let me do it anyway - so now I hear a pretty consistent string of “I told you so”

I’m hopeful that something new will come about this spring. Not sure what to get yet though. Kinda leaning toward a 1-series BMW, or perhaps 1st gen CTS-V or GTO, though, my wife would like it to be just about anything with a Porsche badge on it. We’ll see what happens.

KeedyT > Green Mountain Car Guy 01/31/2017 at 15:15

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re: personal blog, please don’t apologize. I too brought in some of my old stuff to Oppo once given privileges to post, just nature of the place :-)

I can really relate to where you are since I’m of a similar mindset and have written about my own attempts at automotive bliss and discovery. All of my “car flipping” thus far has really been with my toy cars, usually piles of absolute crap that I sometimes literally drug home to the (smiling) shaking of my wife’s head. I’ve had a few successes, some break-evens and some monumental losses. All of those situations I use my own time working on them as my therapy time and free to me so really I’m almost always only in it for parts .

What I’ve thought for many years is that I’d prefer my daily driver to be interesting and paid for, that I can turn around in 6 months to a year and sell off for something else. The loop I find myself stuck in however is that my daily driver is always new-ish with a 5 or 6 year loan on it, which I still trade in at 1-3 years (because I’m bored and my inner magpie sees something else new and shiny). I usually don’t have to invest more than oil and tires (sometimes not even tires) into these but obviously I’m losing my ass in finance payments. I understand the answer here but..... I digress.... :-)

Oh, and as far as the badge your wife wants, as Ferris once said, “if you have the means I highly recommend picking one up”. I’ve had a ‘75 911 that I loved dearly, a 2010 Boxster that is just a downright brilliant machine, driven several 996s/997's and currently am tinkering on an ‘85 944. Porsche just plain makes some fantastic cars.

Green Mountain Car Guy > KeedyT 01/31/2017 at 16:42

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I have enjoyed writing more and more, it’s a new challenge. My current career is starting to get a little stale, so it’s been a nice escape. It’s one of those things that I feel like I wouldn’t mind getting paid to do some day.

I struggle with whether to get a Porsche or not at this point. If I don’t, my wife won’t be happy, but, I’ll be able to buy/sell more freely. If I do actually buy a Porsche, it will instantly become hers no matter who’s name is on the paperwork. She will not be interested in selling it - so, if it’s going to hang around a long time, I would be a lot more picky on what I get...which would stretch the budget more than would be prudent at this point in our lives!

Also it doesn’t help that I’m probably the most indecisive person you’ll ever meet...