kaushama

Definitely it will crash. Who is going to buy a car, which had been used for sometime for absurd prices? I was aiming for a secondhand one and now going to import one. One less person to buy wrecks sold by sale owners. So market will crash!

Yes I lessons I learned from this as follows No brokers and sale cars, unless they are very well known to you Never buy open paper vehicles never trust the seller Check it with agents Check all the documents including revenue license and taxes Never sell your car on open papers Never sell to a broker or sale owner and the list goes on! Still things can go wrong. For example, unless the agent knew the vehicle I wouldn't have got the CVT issue even when agents checked it. To my knowledge agents can not diagnose it if there are no issues coming up during driving which that particular car didn't have due to oil change. So still there is a risk. Shall we make a check list kind of thing and make it a sticky for AL members to go through? I think it would more productive.

Agreed! I never trust sale owners or brokers. But till up to now I respected and believed professionals and well educated people. Well! I did my research even I trusted the seller as I am very intelligent to see through some awkward happenings. I told this story as a part of my life experience and to build up a database for AL members to be aware of. I accepted the price of 2.7 mil when I knew the current price is too much. In fact when I see a car when the seller says give your offer, I feel very bad to depreciate as sale guys do. What I say is "rather than going back and forth tell me your best price!" But who manipulates the market price for a start? It is a very organized collective move with these sale owners! Can I say that I am going to sell my hatchback for 2.5 mil suddenly? Without any reason? I do not buy a similar car for 16-17 mil from poor domestic owners and sell it for 2.2mil! When I was in UK buying a secondhand car was not a problem unless you buy it from non-British brokers. They have MOTs and people are honest to tell the shortcomings. When I bought my Jag from an English gentleman he was so honest that I felt so comfortable with the deal. It never gave me trouble. As I told before bad social trends can become order of the day or business ethics, when majority follows unacceptable behaviors. For example what is the value of the rule that one can not walk on the rail track? So current way of thinking is that I do my nasty bit when I do business. Its business! If you are clever catch me or else I will get you! If you are honest to trust me hard luck and I am very successful in my business! If you catch me? Ok It is business! It is how we do business! Well I am alien to these kind of practices and many people are. We just make people; who can do these kind of tactics, very successful businessman with our hard earned money, not because we are less clever than them. Because we are honest and innocent than them!

Keeping the eyes open and looking for possible flaws in an apparent clean transaction, is paranoia by my standards. I never had to question the honesty of a transaction before like I do now. Coz I say what I mean and I do what I say. Cheating has become a common practice, even when you go to fish market now. Let alone buying cars!

There may be good brokers and honest sale owners. But I think they are difficult to be found than the good cars these days. More than that we have to be careful about domestic sellers too now. I started the thread not to humiliate a certain profession or person. It is just to shed some insight into nasty happenings in the market. It is always better to learn from first hand experiences of the others and be careful. I am very sad that I have to develop a paranoid attitude for every important transaction in everyday life. Our good learned parents never taught us to suspect people but to respect them. I guess we have to change that attitude now just to survive in this wilderness. And if I have come across a friend who has a tranny issue, I wouldn't have bought the car depreciating much further than the market value and sell as it is for a higher price. I would have told him the current market value and helped him to sort out the tranny issue and get a good price for the car. That was, how we were brought up. Now I realize that I loose the opportunity of earning some bucks by doing that. But I am sure according to Darwin's theory, we won't survive the evolutionary process and would be extinct soon. How sad! And end of story. I am outta here! And please post your experiences here for some of us to learn the facts of life!

Agreed! I am not an economist. But these rules apply when you have business communities who follow common business ethics. But drying out markets and setting new manipulative prices had been a common thing in this country. I do not want to recall some instances when this was done with a political initiative. It is very easy to be done when supply becomes low and manageable for a network of people of sizable proportion.

And, further, who needs the services of this parasitic occupation. We all can find our ways to the people who sells cars through paper adverts. We all can asses ourselves the condition of the car or get an independent opinion of a trustworthy expert. We can find genuine buyers through papers or other electronic media. Perhaps we need importers to get brand new or recons. But Knowing few people who dig for crap in Japanese yards I have serious doubt about that occupation as well. This is a common problem in our country. No monitoring or quality control of the services. Any body can say "I am running a business" and cheat honest hard working people.

I respectfully disagree. If you are referring to my story there had been a clear fraud. Lets first analyze that. (Because numbers match) The person brought the car from the professional saying the current market value is 2.2 when it is around 2.6/7. He was lying when he said he is selling it on behalf of the owner, who is busy on his personal matters He knew very well there was a gearbox issue when he behaved as if it was fine before the closure of the deal. He lied to the professional that he has replaced the gearbox or a valve inside. Only an oil change He lied to me that he is unaware of the gearbox issue when the professional has told him the whole history about the problem He was making money just for his oil change. What a service! Half a million He is using the good name of the professional, who already sold the car for a reasonable price allowing for its gearbox issues Lets turn to the scenario of selling it for a higher price than market price. Well most of the brokers say to sellers that market price is lesser than current ones. Then they dry out the market by buying all good cars. It is easier to do now because less people sell cars. They never tell the truth about the real condition of the car They nominate the new selling price at their will. A manipulation So ultimately the service they are offering is that drying out market by cheating less knowledgeable domestic Sellers and hide the flaws of the cars beautifully and raise the market value artificially. And threaten people when they resist these bastards psych ops I know there is a law that walking on rail track is an offense. Who follows the rule. None! I agree when exploitation, dishonesty and fraud becomes the way of life in the society, any thing can be considered as normalcy and order of the day. Mainly for people who daily see or practice such ways. Not for honest people like us!!!

Well guys! sanity! This was not the initial intention of the thread. If someone knows some details of fraudulent matters please post us your first hand experiences. It would be great help to us than learning it through experience and feeding these F####ng D###heads our hard earned money!

Well! Market prices will be having an impact very soon. Current upsurge of prices of secondhand cars can not be explained by simple logic. We know that people were not selling good secondhand vehicles for some time. But to have a price hike around 2-4 lakhs for each vehicle within two months is nothing but market manipulation. Who is going to buy a car for an absurd price right now, when there is a chance of a price reduction for both recons and brand new cars? If this tax reduction is not going to have an impact for the unregistered car market, what is the purpose of government's doing it? Government wants to open up the market and get more revenue out of it. That was the rationale behind and this is a brainchild of one top official in the treasury. I am sure those market manipulators will have to keep their wrecks at their sale places and stare at the empty roads these days. That will certainly bring down the prices. I am sure people will start selling their cars as well, when more light is shed to the tax reduction particulars as they would want to buy new cars. But it will take good two or three months. Till then market will be very slow and dull. There is a good possibility that government would start giving permits to doctors and other professionals again. That was on the cards when this tax reduction news leaked few months back. So market manipulators it is time to rethink your strategies!!!!

Valuation service is a good option. But value depends on simple economics and market. I think it is being set up by sale owners and brokers these days. I do not see a reason for vehicle prices suddenly upsurge within three months by 2-3 lakhs. The high taxes and scarcity of imports had been there for some time now. Why sudden surge? These parasites are more organized than mafia now. It is the same scenario for the rice and vegetables you eat! How much do you think poor farmer sweat a lot, gets at the end of the day? How much do you pay, when it comes to your door step? Who benefits? Middleman!!

Yes These parasites sniff their way through paper classified early morning. Some of them even get the details before papers printed through contacts in the papers. So the best way is to go to offices of the papers on Friday or Saturday and get the details of the good cars before they publish them. How ridiculous!!!! Parasites are all over the society! Funny part is they call themselves businessman and lead more exuberant lives than people, who really work and live honestly. Disgusting!

When my sister was selling her FB15 some time back, about 20 people came one after other and depreciated the value of the car significantly, demoralizing her. A good four or five lakhs below the real value. And suddenly a gentleman came and gave a bid 2 lakhs more. She was so depressed by that time and concluded the deal. They were very quick in closing the deal early Sunday morning. The gentleman crook came to conclude the deal with few people, who depreciated the car. My sis was furious and she said she is not selling the car. They almost threatened her but she stood her grounds and sold the car for a good price later

I should tell this story for the benefit of the members I think. I will not mention details or particulars of identity of the persons concerned apart from my identity. I went to see a vehicle advertised recently. It was a Honda and apparently the first owner, who was a certain professional was selling it. As I am in the same trade and a professional in the same rank, I trusted and went ahead to see the vehicle. A third person, who is a very nice polite gentleman, soft spoken showed me the vehicle and he seemed a very honest guy. He said that he is one of the best friends of the professional and selling it on behalf of him. He was very reasonable and showed some minor flaws of the vehicle. As I have done my homework regarding the particular 7th generation Honda sedan, I wanted to check CVT gear problems and steering rack problems. He also guided me to run the tests and everything was seems to be smooth except for few problems. As I am paranoid about CVT issues I wanted to check Staford records and he nicely evaded the topic. Car was in a very good shape and condition. We agreed on a price tag of 2.725 mil. He did not want to reduce the price to 2.7 mil as the current bloated value by sale owners for this vehicle swings around that value. He never mentioned a tranny issue when we closed the deal. Just mentioned that he has changed the oil. I gave him an advance but was clever enough to call my fellow professional although I have never spoken to him before. The professional have sold the car for mere 2.2 mil 2 days ago. The gentleman was told that the car has a CVT problems and the current market for that car is 2.2-2.3 mil. In fact the car was having some vibration, when it runs from idle position and Stafford has told the gent that it need a replacement of the CVT, when it dies soon. They have done the oil change several times and just after the change it runs smoothly only 1 or 2K before getting the issue again. So I contacted the seller. I confronted him bluntly and very directly and asked him whether he replaced the gearbox after buying the car. He was stunned and couldn't lie in that tight situation. He said no. He has only done a oil change. I said I would check Stafford before buying and he said OK. The car was well known to Stafford and it had CVT issues. The pathetic part was he got the car through one of the good friends of the professional. He trusted them fully and feared the imminent doom to the CVT. So he told the whole truth about the tranny to them. Later he was told that they replaced the CVT for 400000 and then will sell the car for 2.7 mil. Later again he was told they have done change of a valve inside the tranny. What a lie! he had done only an oil change. He is selling it for 2.7+ mil using the good name of the professional and milking money, while the honest professional has already sold it for lesser price considering the CVT issue.I have asked for a refund of the advance . He gave it without any hesitancy and was very polite. I am sure he will sell it either to a poor person who trust his conduct or another sale owner out of the few, who were lurking around when I was checking the car. Myself and other colleague checked the market price for that Honda (2003) from various sources. I checked with few sale owners, I met before, through phone, who quoted 2.7-2.8 mil for similar car (not a penny less). I acted as if I wanted sell my Honda. Surprise surprise! Market value was 2.3-2.2 mil. They pointed out the difficulties of selling vehicles in current market. Imminent price drop! And yet wanted to see the car. Another car sale owner has a white Honda 2003 sedan around kohuwala junction. 2.85 mil He said he can not reduce the price even a penny as he bought it for almost 2.7 plus few days ago. I know it was overpriced but set it as the benchmark price for this week. When asked the price again on Sunday suddenly the price was 3.0 mil. So who make that price hike? The seller himself! Well the moral of the story! Decide yourselves! We are honest people, who earns our money honestly. not by fraudulent manners. I think it is high time to come out with similar stories. And it is high time for us to have auction or garage sale type of places to sell secondhand vehicles. I do not mind paying money for a good car. I can even go for a 10 mil car with a cash deal any day. But as a sensible person I wanted to buy a mid priced car just to go from A to B. For that I do not want to feed these filthy sharks some money for nothing but for their lies and dishonesty. I am seriously thinking to go back to the country, I came from to serve this country as a patriot after the conclusion of the war. People there were not Buddhists or spirituals. But at least they were honest beyond imagination when you consider the status of our lovely home land currently fallen into.

I think we should start a thread to share our experiences of being cheated when buying or selling cars. For that matter any thing related to automobile business including survices. I am sure it will be a good database for members, who do not know these dirty tactics simply because they are honest people. I will post few experiences which I wrote in another thread below for a start.

I know everyone is not a crook in this country. I love this country and that is why I returned back, when I still have chances to be a highly paid professional and citizen in UK. But it is becoming increasingly difficult to find the right person. Mostly because of the broker networks. There were number of other people, who was tapping our friendly crook for a quick sale, while I was working out the deal. Would you believe that they have contacts working in the Sunday papers to get the numbers of the people selling cars around Friday? So now you have to find good cars from the advertisement section of the papers before papers come out. I can tell you another story. When my sister was selling her FB15 some time back, about 20 people came one after other and depreciated the value of the car significantly, demoralizing her. A good four or five lakhs below the real value. And suddenly a gentleman came and gave a bid 2 lakhs more. She was so depressed by that time and concluded the deal. They were very quick in closing the deal early Sunday morning. The gentleman crook came to conclude the deal with few people, who depreciated the car. My sis was furious and she said she is not selling the car. They almost threatened her but she stood her grounds and sold the car for a good price later. We are not brought up in an environment to suspect everyone around and usually trust people. But it is difficult to fool us too. I will never buy or sell my car to a sale person or a broker as a principle. I have a nice back-up car, which I will sell to one of my friends when I find a good car.

That is a good idea. But the way country is heading; surely will create another set of crooks, who will issue false reports for money. Even in UK there are lowly people mostly with an origin from this region, who issues false MOTs for higher price. I have seen that several times. But something is better than nothing

I heard there are such places and want to find them. I should tell this story for the benefit of the members I think. I will not mention details or particulars of identity of the persons concerned apart from my identity. I went to see a vehicle advertised recently. It was a Honda and apparently the first owner, who was a certain professional was selling it. As I am in the same trade and a professional in the same rank, I trusted and went ahead to see the vehicle. A third person, who is a very nice polite gentleman, soft spoken showed me the vehicle and he seemed a very honest guy. He said that he is one of the best friends of the professional and selling it on behalf of him. He was very reasonable and showed some minor flaws of the vehicle. As I have done my homework regarding the particular 7th generation Honda sedan, I wanted to check CVT gear problems and steering rack problems. He also guided me to run the tests and everything was seems to be smooth except for few problems. As I am paranoid about CVT issues I wanted to check Staford records and he nicely evaded the topic. Car was in a very good shape and condition. We agreed on a price tag of 2.725 mil. He did not want to reduce the price to 2.7 mil as the current bloated value by sale owners for this vehicle swings around that value. He never mentioned a tranny issue when we closed the deal. Just mentioned that he has changed the oil. I gave him an advance but was clever enough to call my fellow professional although I have never spoken to him before. The professional have sold the car for mere 2.2 mil 2 days ago. The gentleman was told that the car has a CVT problems and the current market for that car is 2.2-2.3 mil. In fact the car was having some vibration, when it runs from idle position and Stafford has told the gent that it need a replacement of the CVT, when it dies soon. They have done the oil change several times and just after the change it runs smoothly only 1 or 2K before getting the issue again. So I contacted the seller. I confronted him bluntly and very directly and asked him whether he replaced the gearbox after buying the car. He was stunned and couldn't lie in that tight situation. He said no. He has only done a oil change. I said I would check Stafford before buying and he said OK. The car was well known to Stafford and it had CVT issues. The pathetic part was he got the car through one of the good friends of the professional. He trusted them fully and feared the imminent doom to the CVT. So he told the whole truth about the tranny to them. Later he was told that they replaced the CVT for 400000 and then will sell the car for 2.7 mil. Later again he was told they have done change of a valve inside the tranny. What a lie! he had done only an oil change. He is selling it for 2.7+ mil using the good name of the professional and milking money, while the honest professional has already sold it for lesser price considering the CVT issue.I have asked for a refund of the advance . He gave it without any hesitancy and was very polite. I am sure he will sell it either to a poor person who trust his conduct or another sale owner out of the few, who were lurking around when I was checking the car. Myself and other colleague checked the market price for that Honda (2003) from various sources. I checked with few sale owners, I met before, through phone, who quoted 2.7-2.8 mil for similar car (not a penny less). I acted as if I wanted sell my Honda. Surprise surprise! Market value was 2.3-2.2 mil. They pointed out the difficulties of selling vehicles in current market. Imminent price drop! And yet wanted to see the car. Another car sale owner has a white Honda 2003 sedan around kohuwala junction. 2.85 mil He said he can not reduce the price even a penny as he bought it for almost 2.7 plus few days ago. I know it was overpriced but set it as the benchmark price for this week. When asked the price again on Sunday suddenly the price was 3.0 mil. So who make that price hike? The seller himself! Well the moral of the story! Decide yourselves! We are honest people, who earns our money honestly. not by fraudulent manners. I think it is high time to come out with similar stories. And it is high time for us to have auction or garage sale type of places to sell secondhand vehicles. I do not mind paying money for a good car. I can even go for a 10 mil car with a cash deal any day. But as a sensible person I wanted to buy a mid priced car just to go from A to B. For that I do not want to feed these filthy sharks some money for nothing but for their lies and dishonesty. I am seriously thinking to go back to the country, I came from to serve this country as a patriot after the conclusion of the war. People there were not Buddhists or spirituals. But at least they were honest beyond imagination when you consider the status of our lovely home land currently fallen into.

Some interesting information regarding CVT issues in Sri Lanka CVT Problems And Oil extreme additive

Just seen a good example of manipulation today! A car bought for 2.2 mil just going for 2.8 mil with some basic patch work and oil change. I should have become a sale man or middle man than wasting all those time to become an honest professional! Milking 5 lakhs for couple of horrendous lies to two honest people is a very easy way of making money. That is within the space of two days!! Ordinary people like us finding it very difficult to find cars now as these guys snatch good ones as soon as they smell their prey. So we are forced to buy at new premium set up by sale guys. I am telling this after spending so much time to find a good car. You have to be better and one step above them to buy a good car. Learned few tricks as well in the process. The contradictory stories they tell to people (Both buyers and sellers) who are unaware of the car market is just pathetic and disgusting!

Does this "magic thel" really cure the problem or just postpone the inevitable replacement when start clutch problem appears? I am sure when appears in the local market all the bad CVTs will get the treatment!

I think I am going to grab a good unit once I come across one irrespective of price. I have missed few chances to buy couple of good ES8 units and I thought they were overpriced then. But those prices seems to be reasonable at present standards. I have seen such a wreck today and the person quoted 2.85 mil. I wouldn't have bought it even for 2.2 mil few months back. Toyota 121s have sky rocketed in price. I have sold mine for just 2.5 mil three years back. I could have sold it easily for 3.5 mil today. Absurd!

Yes people, who need to buy a car badly and quickly, would buy for these absurd prices. So there is always a market. And many people believe the stories told by car sale owners. And this scaremongering will prompt people to sell their cars for absurd prices as well. Clever people know this is the time to sell their cars. When car sale owners are told that import tax may come down soon below 1600cc, they say that it will be only for cars below 1000cc. And they say taxes will further go up for other classes. Influx of cars into north and east have created another market for these monsters to flourish. I have seen very good example of manipulation by car sale owners recently. Cars on Sunday paper adverts vanish very quickly in the morning and I have seen several cars meeting the same description in sales few days after for higher prices than those quoted by original owners. Secondhand car market has stuck by "middleman syndrome" now!

ES8 was the shortest civic series being sold in Spore. It was sold in late 2000 and stopped ard 2 yrs later to make way for the ES1/5 series. Many of the ES8 owners sold off their ride within 3 yrs. Why ? Due to the infamous start clutch problem associated with the CVT gearbox. Subsequent civic from ES series onward was using the normal torque convertor auto gearbox. I was driving an EK3 from 2000 to E/2004....managed to fix the problem just before warranty ended.