Last year I bought a 1994 RMW in anticipation of having a new driver in the family. I liked it much more than I thought I would, and was looking for something else for the teenager (especially after seeing what his license did for my insurance rates--much cheaper to put him into something disposable and just insure it for liability). As fate would have it, he wasn't the one who totaled it; rising floodwater did that.
As hard as I tried, the insurance company would not treat anything with wet carpet as anything other than a total loss, and any payout by them required a parts-only, nonrebuildable title. I did buy the car back, and ultimately tracked down and sold it to red280, who needed an interior donor for his car. Then I saw ramrod_mobile's thread about his wreck, and connected him with red280 for replacement crash parts. My old car is the same color and other than a few minor dings, pretty straight, so there was no need for him to spend money on paint or new woodgrain. You can see some of the pictures on this thread:
https://gmlongroof.4umer.com/t14056-new-car-one-owner-ldm-roadie-wagon-crashed-totalled-i-think-notBut there was a whale-sized hole in my driveway after the car left.
Everywhere I could think of, I searched the ads. I considered cheap beaters close to home, and nicer cars within a weekend's round trip for retreival.
One Friday night I found one 12 hours away that had just popped up on the seller's local Craigslist two hours earlier. After talking to the seller for a while, I told him it sounded perfect, and asked if I could paypal him a deposit until I could make arrangements to complete the transaction. He said he was an old guy who didn't do any types of electronic transaction, but he said if I mailed him a check, he would take it to the bank right away, and after the bank said it was good, he would consider the car mine. I went to the post office the next morning, mailed my check priority overnight, and texted him a picture of the check, the envelope with his name on it, and the postal receipt, and told him to check his mailbox Monday. He replied back that someone else already showed up with cash, and took the car.
There was another strong possibility on eBay. I asked the seller some questions that he answered to my satisfaction, placed a bid I thought was sure to get the car, and indeed I was the highest bidder--until the bidding frenzy that happened 20 minutes before the auction closed.
I had a business trip out of town. I thought it might be a good opportunity to expand the scope of my search. My reasoning was that I could look the car over in person, work the deal, and then arrange to ship it home. Except during the time I was there, nothing suitable was for sale. A likely prospect
did turn up about 4 days later, but by that point my window of opportunity had closed.
I found another one while searching a dealer's website, but that was after hours on a Saturday. Sunday they were closed. I called from work Monday afternoon. It had been sold on Saturday.
I'm sure there were a few other disappointments I've blocked out of my mind.
But I ultimately found the right RMW--pretty stock, pretty clean, LT1, and woodgrain. I overpaid for it, a little bit, but rationalized it as coming from insurance proceeds. No pics yet because it's still dirty from the road trip. I took a day trip to get it, the Saturday of Memorial weekend, and it rained as we approached home.
So I got back home, checked Craigslist (as had become my habit), and whaddaya know, a beater RMW showed up, about 20 miles from home. I called and left a message. In the morning, I called and left another message. A little later I texted. I got a response: SOLD.
A few days later, I saw another ad for what looked like the same car, but the pictures were in a different location and the phone number was different. The price was slightly higher. I called up and made arrangements to see it that evening. Turns out it was the same car, and the same seller, but the guy kept changing his mind on whether he wanted to sell. Another LT1 car, 215K miles, no woodgrain, not a tow package car but it does have a Class III hitch
. It has a bunch of stuff wrong with it, but seemed to go around the block OK. I handed over the cash, and since it was missing license plates and had a burned out headlight, I opted to call a wrecker to haul it home.
Strangely enough, although I had no problem cranking it up to take it on a test drive, the battery self-destructed by the time the wrecker arrived. It has a dead cell now. I wasn't all that concerned because I still have the battery that came out of the car I sold to red280, but now THAT battery also has a dead cell. Neither one will charge to more than about 10.7 volts.
Anyway, I'm thinking I'll keep the nice one stock, and if I can keep things budget friendly, turn the beater one into a sleeper.
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Fri Jun 08, 2018 1:39 am
