It’s simple really! You find a truck you want on Marketplace, Craigslist, whatever it may be, and you reach out.
Their listing will obviously say “No low balls, I know what I got” and you ask to see it knowing damn well you’re gonna short them $500 of their asking price just because you can.
For the meeting, here’s what you SHOULD do: Arrange to see the car in a neutral, public place, and ideally during the day. While I haven’t sold many cars, I’ve sold many cameras in my day, and I like to do it at a bank for two reasons:
- Banks are very public and covered in security cameras, meaning minimal risk to your physical safety.
- You can watch them pull out the cold hard cash, meaning you know there are no fraudulent bills (unless the bank is in on scamming you for some reason, indicating you have bigger problems afoot).
Taking these steps help to make sure you’ve protected both yourself and your wallet from any kind of external threat, and hey, I think that’s pretty rad!
If you don’t know what you’re looking at, maybe arrange for a mechanic to give it an inspection to confirm the car is good and worth your cash. They usually aren’t that expensive, and sometimes they are free!
From there, the ball is in your court to decide whether or not you want that pickup. It’s that simple.
Unless, of course, you’re friends with a car enthusiast like David.
The Inciting Event
Let me set the scene: I’m sitting in my room, hitting my head against the wall, wondering where it all went wrong when I get a text from David. Not too crazy considering the whole “he’s my boss” thing and bosses tend to talk to their workers, no matter how much we both hate the whole “speaking to others” thing. But here we are, speaking nonetheless.
The text reads plain and simple: “Wanna go on a road trip today?”
Sure! It’s not like I was doing anything today anyway (re: hitting my head against the wall, et cetera).
Details were sparse, but I was down because I’m always in the mood to make some content!
I meet him at the Galpin office, we do some work on our lil’ computers, do some wrenching on my ‘Vette (which we later discovered had a bad harmonic balancer that wanted to grenade the entire front end), loaded up into the Aztek, and we hit the road.
About Me
Growing up in Arizona, I’m no stranger to disparate communities.
To put it frankly without lingering on it more than I have to: Black kid in a mostly white, mostly conservative state, and growing up off-roading in small Wild West communities where our differences are amplified and the Stars and Bars are still waved and hung up on the bar’s walls.
I bring it up to say I’m familiar with these worlds and how to navigate the people within, no matter how at odds with each other we might seem on the surface. But sometimes, I still get a little uncomfortable.
This was one of those times. Let me give you context as to why. Here is, very approximately, where we were going:
See, we were going deep into the middle of nowhere, BFN/BFE if you will, and we were taking the half-running Aztek up to make it happen.
Now, in a perfect world, I’d be in my Jeep that I have kitted with rations, first aid, satellite GPS, compressors with external power, generators, solar, recovery gear, personal protection, anything you can think of. It’s all a “have and not need” way of thinking.
But we had nothing except for a rapidly setting sun, waning cell service, a creepy community, and a Facebook profile without a profile picture that DT neglected to mention he barely researched.
For all we knew, we were gonna be eaten, either by the coyotes or the cannibals in the hills. It didn’t matter which; I knew my mom would be very mad at me regardless of the specific predator that ate me.
Tehachapi and The Wondering Winds
Yeah, this kinda sucked.
It was pretty cold and we had a hard time navigating the unmarked dirt roads lit only by star and moonlight.
When we got close, we realized we might actually need an action plan here, so here’s what we decided:
We pull over and switch drivers so I can drop DT off to look at the truck as I quickly hoof it back to our meeting spot. If I don’t hear from him in 15 minutes, I high tail it and maybe call some cops.
As we both said, there’s no reason for both of us to die, right?!
Well, the first part of the plan goes well, I drop him off, I get to the waiting spot after making only one wrong turn, and I watch some YouTube videos.
And then 20 minutes go by.
A text from DT: “all is well.”
Then ten minutes. “See you out there.”
Ten minutes more and a text from me asking: “Status report?”
An instant reply: “See you in 8 minutes.”
And ANOTHER 10 minutes later: “Sorry for delay // All is well.”
No DT, all is not well, I’m cold, in a broken car, waiting for an hour in a tiny town that for all I know wants to SKIN ME. Let’s GOOOOO.
Mission Accomplished!
Well, as y’all know by now, DT secured the truck and has since found it actually has a couple of issues, scaring his media guy half to death notwithstanding.
It really is a beauty, something that made me a little jealous as my final desire for a three-car garage is an old-school truck, and this one damn near checks all the boxes.
This trip that was supposed to take only a couple of hours, that DT said we’d likely get back at 7:45 PM from, turned into a night’s long saga that saw me change no fewer than two sets of underwear and a timely return to the city of 12:24 AM, according to my last photo’s metadata.
So yeah. That’s how you buy a truck, and that’s why you should maybe think twice before quickly saying yes to a car enthusiast’s proposition to hang out.
Thanks for reading.
Topshot inset of “Pluto” from The Hills Have Eyes (1977) via the film’s poster/Vanguard Releasing
Hearing this story really makes me think considering the few times I’ve bought a car or used furniture around here it’s usually by doing it in some dude’s driveway in the woods with no cell reception. Because a pretty good chunk of people in this state live in the woods where there’s no cell reception. That’s just normal for me, but it must be terrifying for others. Or maybe I should stop agreeing to meet people at their house to buy things…
My rule when buying a car from a private seller, take the Volt that looks like a Cruze, leave it running on EV mode (very quiet), share live location with my spouse and text when all is good. The hard part is convincing my spouse why is a good purchase lol
Cool cool cool, so what I’m hearing is stick to actual car dealers and pay the few hundred more than private seller wants so you don’t get shanked, shot, or learn all the notes to dueling banjos in a very inappropriate way, check.
If it’s only a few hundred dollars, then absolutely go to a dealer
After a drunk killed my beloved ‘03 Suburban I was in the market for a new used Suburban in the fall of 2013 on the north side of Philly. I followed all of my usual instincts: meet in a neutral spot, do some research on the seller first, run a carfax, take any perspective candidates to my awesome mechanic (shoutout to Dave and staff at Tom Sawyer auto in Willow Grove!), etc.
But 40 days and over a dozen attempts later I still hadn’t found anything that wasn’t a piece of shit or a rip-off. My car rental insurance had run out so I was using my grandmother’s former ride – a well-kept but shitty from birth 4-cyl 92 Corsica – and I was getting dangerously frustrated.
One morning rhe clouds parted and a shining beacon stood out: a clean, 2 owner, low-ish miles 2004 Suburban with a clean Carfax and good pictures! Yes! The only hangup was it was across the border into New Jersey which could be a problem.
For those not acquainted with the bizarre Pennsylvania DMV laws, when buying or selling a vehicle *both* parties must be at the shady auto tags office when transferring the title. I’m guessing this is due to the outstanding amount of creative vehicular accounting on both sides of the Penn/NJ border. This is usually not a problem when buyers or sellers are local, but kind of a pain when a seller is an hour or more away and just wants rid of the thing.
But this guy didn’t mind coming over to me! And his price was right ($7500, IIRC)! And he could come over today after work! Double yes!!! In a fit of ignorance and desperation I forwent all of my usual safety moves and gave the SOB my home address and a time to meet. The plan was that he’d come to my house, I’d look the thing over, then we’d drive to the auto tags place, I’d give him the cash, we’d sign the title, I’d drive him back to his place in NJ, and finally I’d be back in a Suburban again!
After a call to my insurance folks to start coverage (I’m always insanely picky about that part, at least) and about 6 hours, the guy shows up at my house. And my heart drops – it ain’t the same Suburban. Without even looking at the VIN it was obvious that other than the color and year it wasn’t the same vehicle. I greet the guy, pop the hood, and am greeted with a mess under there, not the clean, shiny intake cover and new battery I’d been led to believe I’d see.
Now really pissed, I grab the keys and stomp around to the back to pop the hatch (noticing a lot of rear bumper damage) and the second thing I notice after the fact that the interior didn’t even come close to matching the pictures I’d been sent was the single thing lying on the cargo hold floor.
A tire iron.
The motherf*cker was going to get me in the car and smash my head in over $7500.
The red mist descended – as much at myself as at this unscrupulous POS – and I grabbed the tire iron and started screaming at the guy while simultaneously dialing 911. I chased him out of my driveway and into the road before I realized that he’s probably packing, so half screaming/half yelling I shout the plate number and guy’s supposed name off to the dispatcher, hands shaking, and run back into the house.
As UD’s finest arrived less than a minute later I realized I’ve got the keys in my hand. HA HA!!! He’s screwed!! A win for the good guys!
One hour, multiple statements, handing over all of the emails and pictures that had been exchanged, the first responder – young enough to be my son – kindly told me, “you do know it’s not safe to give people your home address or have them meet you there when buying or selling a car?”
“Yes officer. Thank you. I messed up.”
They towed the car and somehow the guy managed to walk his way out of there to either an accomplice’s car or to one of the two nearby train stations. I never got any follow up to an arrest or what the story was behind the car in which the guy showed up.
Lesson learned. I don’t ever want to do that again.
Follow-up: I found a clean, low-mileage 2005 that was perfect other than a dented fender and a ripped driver’s seat at a Mercedes dealer in VA the next day on auto trader. I paid a little more than I’d wanted to but wound up getting 120,000 trouble-free miles out of the thing so there was a semi-decent ending to the whole mess.
That shit is crazy. I am glad I never ran into that situation when selling/buying anything on Craigslist or Facebook. Only crazy story I have was when selling my the old rear end out my firebird the rural type kids that came to pick it up came in a early 2000s 2dr Honda Civic was funny watching them load it into the trunk. When I bought my old F350 or my Cummins both those transactions took place at the peoples homes with no issues. And when I sold my 73 Javelin they came and looked at it in person at my home but my house is in a wooded rural area in Indiana and I am always conceal carrying so I would hope that would deter away the types you ran into.
Glad you are safe though and did find a good suburban.
And, you moved to a new address immediately, right?
Hope you let Griffin write/post more frequently. That was a good story.
And well written to boot! Looking forward to more.
Too bad DT didn’t schedule some time in to see the Tehachapi Loop.
If only I’d known!
Reefer City sounds like fun
So, Tehatchapi sounds better in that Little Feat song than it turns out to actually be…
I understood that reference!
Lol, my southern-rock addled brain IMMEDIATELY went there!
Wow a whole lot of we went somewhere different where the people aren’t like us they want to kill us. Just saying
Y’know, my wife constantly tells me I have to accompany my 21 year old daughter to the store at night. It never occurs to me that it might be dangerous for her. I feel bad when my wife has to say “It’s dark. She’s tiny. GO WITH HER.”
I’m glad things worked out for Griffin and David, but man, we as a species have GOT to do better…
I was one of a handful of guys in a grad program in the late 2000’s. One night when a bunch of us were unwinding, I got asked what it was like being able to go get groceries after dark. That started opening my eyes about gender inequality. Agreed, we need to do better.
An exciting adventure
In my experience this can be a lot to ask when looking at a car that doesn’t run. Or isn’t registered and insured. Or doesn’t run and isn’t registered and insured. Or doesn’t run, isn’t registered and insured, and is in another country.
In that last case it turns out to be simpler just to buy sight-unseen and hope for the best.
Huge fan of anyone whose immediate response to vague shenanigans is ‘Fuck it, let’s roll’.
In my mind, every road trip with DT is basically like Kramer’s “Peterman Reality Tour” (it’s from Seinfeld, David. That was a TV show in the 90s) with a 30% higher chance of perishing in a ball of fire.
as long as I get some muffin stumps I’m in.
I was thinking Quantum Leap. You never sure where you are going, what will end up happening, or when you will return
It sounds like your Corvette would have been the more reliable vehicle to take out there, but if the goal was to not look like city boys to a bunch of cannibals the Aztek was the better choice. These close knit cannibal communities know that they have to get their food from the outside.
Apparently, you young folks have forgotten the fate of every Black man (or red shirt guy) on an Away Team in Star Trek. If somebody’s not coming home, it’s that guy. Also, if I wanted to allay your fears and set you up for a fall, I’d text “all is well” on David’s phone, too. Funny story, regardless.
I love the video and how you have to admit that you had no idea what you accidentaly signed up for haha. Great write up on a fun adventure that I am glad did not result in anyone getting skinned or organs harvested.
This sounds pretty much like par for the course. I plan 3 or 4 hours to look/retrieve vehicle, easily gonna take 9. Every time. I once took 5 hours to retrieve a ’69 Wagoneer I had purchased. The drive was 65 miles…
I like to think the lack of editor’s notes is david knowing what he did
I feel comfortable in rural communities, but I will admit that I forgot that I had someone else with me until we got close, and had the thought: Hold on, I can be reckless when it’s just me. But I can’t let Griffin potentially have his organs harvested. Hence the “you drop me off” plan.
The seller was nice! Even showed me his AR.
Hey, get off here and go back to honeymooning Mrs. Tracy!
Did he show you the AR before or after cash changed hands?