Buyer Beware!

[sleepyzzz]

my '88 300ZX was purchased after finding it on auto trader. after several phone calls with the seller and emails with lots of pictures, i flew out with an agreement that if it was not as represented, he would refund my money that i had given him to hold it. the inside door handle was broken, and the windshield had a crack in it, which he forgot to mention. i had purchased a one way plane ticket, and went ahead with the purchase, but i should have asked for my deposit back to cover the repairs.

when i sold this car on EBay, i listed every little knick and scratch, along with problems i was having with the ac at the time. the buyer wanted it worse than me, and everyone else, because he paid my buy it now price, which i had set, based on my cost of the vehicle and and all up grades that i had done. the buyer was very happy with the purchase, and has even emailed me with up dates and pictures of the car.

[nwcubsman]

...snip... I now have my Z on the road. ...snip...

Congrats. Your Z looks great. Can't wait till my project looks so good.

[geezer]

Wow Dean! It sure turned out to be a beaut! I didn't realize you had finished it until I spotted your gallery pics. Love the color scheme you picked. It just plain works! I've been wondering about the Raptorliner Sound Deadener. Now that you are driving it, what are your opinions on this material? Have fun with it!

[=Enigma=]

The car looks great Dean. How much of this work did you do yourself, or did you farm the whole thing out? Let's see some engine compartment and interior pics when you get a chance.

[Mr Camouflage]

my '88 300ZX was purchased after finding it on auto trader. .....

.......the buyer wanted it worse than me, and everyone else, because he paid my buy it now price......

.... the buyer was very happy with the purchase, and has even emailed me with up dates and pictures of the car.

The SS's are sought after, so i'm not surprised. They're fairly rare aren't they?

[Vintage]

There were only 3000 built.

[daddz]

The SS's are sought after, so i'm not surprised. They're fairly rare aren't they?

To contradict what Vintage stated there were only 1000 "SS" models built. The correct title is actually "1988 Nissan 300ZX Turbo SE" as pritned on the window sticker from Nissan. They were only built from January 1988 through March 1988 and there were no specific VIN# sequence; rather they were randomly selected chassis numbers.

The rarity of these cars is only to increase over time and our member '240ztt' used to own a very nice one. At one point another friend had two Shiro's (another name for this car) and sold them both before being PCS'd to Germany.

Now back to the thread and by the way Dean that is one great looking 240Z and the driveway shot is very impressive witht he Cobra replica sitting in front of the Z.

[bigoak]

Dean,

The car looks great. We should get together and have a beer to commiserate. Bought a "rust free, ready to go" '71 Z out of Michigan (should have been first watch out).

Got it back here (I'm just north of Toronto) and needed to patch frame rails, battery. Bottom of both door are rotted out (passenger side can be fixed), and the bottom of the floors have surface rust (but no rot yet...). Also needed to redo (brace yourself): complete front end, brakes (master cylinder, brake booster), cooling system (water pump, rad), clutch (master cylinder, slave culinder), u-joint, horns. Bought for $4,300 US. Put in almost another $5k to date in the work above. Still have to paint and do the doors.

I didn't get anywhere going after the guy who sold the vehicle. Still not sure if he mis-represented the car intentionally or was just an idiot (or both...a distinct possibility).

But I have a car that drives, goes straight and pulls strong. (Picking up some cool vintage JDM racing wheels tomorrow ).

I'm still schizophrenic about the car. When I take it out, it gets noticed and people genuinely like it. I love driving it, but when I find something that was misrepresented, ugh...

As an aside, are you a member of the Ontario Z Car Owner's Association. You should come check out one of the events or meetings. (Big tour of Z's up to Huntsville and back this Saturday).

PM me and we'll grab that beer.

Mike A.

[Walter Moore]

All the horror stories make me feel better about the $250 that I spent on my car. (Ignoring the thousands that I have spent since...)

[daddz]

I keep reading the posts and the common theme seems to be that everyone starts out by purchasing a "bargain" and then is disappointed to commit to a much larger budget than was originally planned for? I have made this mistake a few times in my past but over the years I have adjusted my expectations and while I try to stay away from rusty pigs when I do buy a less than stellar Z car I know that over time the cheap bargain will end up costing as much as a much more expensive purchase in the long run.

Along the way the car becomes not original anymore and most collectors don't like to hear such things. The problem with Z cars is that if you can stomach the visible rust the lack of available sheet metal for the strange areas (i.e. inner rocker panels, toe boards, battery tray etc..) are not available. There comes a time when it is not worth trying to restore such a car regardless of whether it is a Z or not.

It is a steep learning curve and hopefully there are newer members to this hobby that will read this thread and think twice before buying that "great deal" before fully understanding what they are getting themselves into. When I was in my early twenties I wouldn't have listened to any of this advice either but maybe there are some who will heed this advice.

My solution is to invest in plane tickets to the west coast and at least there is a better chance of finding a fairly rust free car with which to start with.

[KDMatt]

I keep reading the posts and the common theme seems to be that everyone starts out by purchasing a "bargain" and then is disappointed to commit to a much larger budget than was originally planned for?

On an off-note, I sort of had the opposite happen. Over the phone the seller made it sound like the car was way rustier and in a lot worse shape than it was. When I went to go see it in person I was so surprised to see it in such great shape and drove it home two weeks later!... granted the condition of some components has deteriorated a bit since then, but I'm working!

[/hijack]

Dean, your car is gorgeous. I'm sorry to hear you had such lousy luck with the infamous echo-bay, but I suppose in the end everything turned out allright.

Oh, and that picture is truly amazing, you must be that guy in your neighborhood.

I must also chime in and say I'd love to see some more pics of this fabulous vehicle!

[71ZZZZZ]

Just a quick note that I now have my Z on the road.. Took it for a spin this eve..Wow this car is fun.. just a few bugs to work out - trouble with the fuel pump, and a few wiring issues, but Wow!

Here is a few pics..

Cheers, Dean

Looks great! How did you black out the bumpers? I had mine powdercoated in the late 80s...the treatment held up well but the current cost to redo is higher than I recall paying back in the day...