Greenfingers Posted February 24, 2023 Share Posted February 24, 2023 Having recently bought a G31 530d, the F07 that has served me so well for the last 6 years is finally up for sale (cheeky link to eBay advert):- https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/144945418971 I can't believe there are so many timewasters and scammers out there. In the first week , I've had four separate people arrange and agree a time to view the car and then fail to show up. But today was the worst: a guy who said he was fairly local, wanted to come and see the car in half an hour. He confirmed he was looking for a car for himself and his family and he had cash available, so I obliged. Around half an hour later, a pair of guys in their 20s show up. They said they had missed the turning and parked their car up the road. The first thing they asked to do was look at the engine and then as soon as I opened the bonnet, one of them asked to see the service history, which he took to the back of the car and started spreading out in the open boot. I had heard of scammers sabotaging cars to devalue them with the intention of buying them at knock down prices, so after showing one guy where he could find various receipts, I quickly went back to the front of the car to keep an eye on the other guy and became suspicious because he was tightening the expansion tank cap. He said he was just checking the level, but then I noticed some wet oil of one of his hands and asked why he had oil on his hand. He said 'oh I just checked the engine oil level', to which I asked 'where did you find the dipstick?'. He pointed to the front of the engine and I said 'no the dipstick is near the back of the engine; how did you get that oil on your hand?' to which he mumbled in a broken Asian tone and then his friend came round and said he would have got it from taking the oil filler cap off to have a look. Then they wanted a test drive, but neither could provide proof of insurance, so I offered to drive them down the road. They kept wanting me to floor the throttle and long story short, when I was reversing back into the drive, I noticed white smoke coming out of the exhaust (which has never ever happened before). I knew something was going on and got fairly short with them, at which they left saying they would get back to me. The first thing I did was check the expansion tank - and sure enough, there was a load of black oil in the top. Furthermore, I found a trail of what looked like oil on the block paving driveway, which I now believe was some of the oil they must have squirted into the exhaust to cause the smoke. Bastards! Anyway, a warning to anyone selling privately, this happened in less than 30 unsupervised seconds so beware! I've got some good CCTV footage showing their faces, so we'll see what happens...... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Percha Posted February 24, 2023 Share Posted February 24, 2023 Blimey sorry to hear you had such bad luck the car looks a very nice example, and it really annoys me to know people would make this much effort to try and scam people out of hard earned belongings... Good luck with the sale, its a good value luxury car! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greenfingers Posted February 24, 2023 Author Share Posted February 24, 2023 I can hardly bear to sell it, because it's actually in better condition than the car I just bought for double the price! But market value is what it is and that makes cars like this a fabulous bargain if you can find a good one. I think a lot of people are scared of buying older luxury cars with high mileage, because they are frightened of high maintenence costs, which most forum members here know does not need to be the case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve84N Posted February 25, 2023 Share Posted February 25, 2023 Where do you live? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobA Posted February 25, 2023 Share Posted February 25, 2023 That’s really shocking. Hard to believe anyone would try that sort of scam. Obviously a prelude to offering a knock-down price to cover the ‘engine overhaul’. 😞 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greenfingers Posted February 25, 2023 Author Share Posted February 25, 2023 2 hours ago, Steve84N said: Where do you live? Near Woodstock, just north of Oxford. Most of the timewaster calls have come from what sound like dealer types who say they're coming from London and the second question is 'what's the lowest you'll take'. The scammers yesterday were probably from Oxford, because they were here 30 minutes after phoning and there are plenty of bad apple Asians in East Oxford. I Googled 'scam car buyers' when they had gone and sure enough it's a well known ploy. In the end, it was easy enough to remove the oil from the coolant bottle, but I've just got back from a 40 minute drive and there was still a hint of smoke on full throttle, so I'm going to initiate a DPF regen and go for another run which will hopefully clear it completely. They had definitely squirted something into the exhaust, because there was a slimey yellow residue on the paper towel I wiped inside the tailpipe and the underside of the exhaust was dripping with oil. I think I saw them driving off in an old 1 series BMW, so it might be worth going to the local police station with the video footage, in case other people have had the same happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve84N Posted February 25, 2023 Share Posted February 25, 2023 Seems nowhere is safe from them. The police are probably a waste of time sadly, unless they have solid evidence they'll just ignore it as a civil matter. Well done for spotting it. Fingers crossed karma catches up with them at some point... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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