further adventures in vehicle aquisition

[nibot]

Ryan and I went to test drive a 1996 VW Golf this evening. This particular car has been bugging me, because I wondered how this car could remain on the market for as long as it has without being sold, with the asking price just $1400.

I gave Ryan the directions.

"Left or Right on Ford," he asked.

"Left."

"Ahh.. the Bad Part Of Town."

"Rochester has a 'Bad Part of Town'?"

The seller had wanted to know exactly when we would arrive, so that he could meet us, and when we drove up he came up to us immediately. "Tobin? Tobin?"

He lead us to a parking lot behind a boarded-up house.

The car was in excellent shape, without any rust. Except for a few details. Obviously a small collision to the driver's door.

And some small, circular holes that had been filled in on the hood and the right rear quarter-panel. Bullet holes.

Weirdly the shifter-knob was missing (otherwise the interior was flawless), so it was difficult to put it into reverse. Instead the seller directed me to drive across some grass, down the sidewalk, over the curb, and onto the street.

"By the way, those are just dummy plates. So keep it around here..." On my illegal test-drive, I was to avoid cops.

The metal VIN sticker was missing, but the NYS Inspection certificate (a year out of date and potentially bogus in any case) gave a VIN of 3VWFA81H3TM056328.

Comments

[pbrane.livejournal.com]

woohoo! stolen car! take it!

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

I'm sure Rochester has a bad side of town - it's one of the rust belt cities, like Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Detroit. Of course, Detroit seems to have taken it a bit farther than the others...

[fanlain.livejournal.com]

you can look up the VIN and see if it matches?

Why so cheap?

[ucbfumbler.livejournal.com]

Even if it's not stolen. The 1996 VW Golf/Jetta has serious reliability problems. Mostly fixed by the 2000 model year.