Best car sales pitch: Used 2003 Dodge Neon. 3000 miles. Private seller listed it in autotrader "perfect condition, only owned a few months, blah blah blah."
Go look at it at like 6:00 at night as it is getting dark. (we had looked at about a dozen others and since that was the most suspect, waited till last) Even in the bad light, you could see that it has been so badly damaged that the roof had been repainted. The passenger door didn't close right. The trunk floor was buckled upward. There was RUST on some of the outer panels. I think one of the side mirrors was missing. The odometer did, in fact, read 3000 miles.
The bizarre thing was, the seller kept repeating over and over how it was brand new and he just decided he needed a bigger car.
Best story at a dealer:
Me: "The sticker says this jeep has A/C"
Dealer: "Yup, ice cold, works great." (note that this was winter in D.C., it was about 50 degrees out)
Me: "It doesn't have A/C."
Dealer: "Sure it does, look right there on the knob, it goes from blue to red"
Me: <looking under the hood> "How does it have A/C without an air conditioning compressor?"
Dealer: "Does it need one of those?"
Second best story at the same dealer, 2 weeks later: (I bought the Jeep with no A/C)
Me: "You guys sold me this Jeep with a 30 day warranty on these components <holding sheet up>"
Dealer: "Oh, well, let me look at that .... ok... wait, is this the sheet we use? That's not our sheet"
Me: <walks outside> "it is on every car on your lot!"
Dealer: "Oh, oh, ok, that sheet"
Me: "The exhaust manifold needs to be replaced. Please replace it."
Dealer: "Oh, well we don't cover that, we only cover the components listed." (which of course are all almost impossible to break, things like "driveshaft" and "engine block" and "oil pan")
Me: "Item #4 on the list says "manifolds""
Dealer: "Oh, well, that doesn't mean exhaust manifold, that means manifolds"
Me: "How many manifolds are there on an engine?"
Dealer: <blank look>
Me: "Two. There is an intake manifold, and an exhaust manifold."
Dealer: "Oh. Well, we don't cover that."
3 days of arguing later, they replaced the exhaust manifold. Not with the stainless steel replacement that I went out and bought (I just wanted them to pay for labor) but with a brand new $600 Jeep part, as they got reamed out by the service manager of one of their sister dealerships... All I was asking for was $200 in labor, they ended up coughing up $950 in parts and labor instead. (On a $10,000 purchase) ... of course, I knew the manifold was cracked when I bought it.
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