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Basilbomb - [email protected] - Nathaniel
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Email: [email protected]
Last Visited: December 05, 2022
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Steffany
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Joined: December 26, 2011
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 12, 2014 6:46 pm    Post subject: Basilbomb - [email protected] - Nathaniel Reply with quote

Buyer beware!

I recently bought a 1984 Vanagon and was totally taken for a ride with the vehicle. I bought it from a seller in Victoria BC.
Mostly my fault for not doing more due diligent investigation, but I was lied to about many things.
This vehicle was brought into Canada and sold to me three months later.
The vehicle was inspected by a inspection depot to be road ready for Canada. I relied on this report to be truthful.
After buying the vehicle I took it to three mechanics and they all told me the same things. New engine needed first among many other things.
Even the coolant in the vehicle was the wrong coolant. The seller swore I must be mistaken and the mechanics wrong.
The seller swore that the internal electricals and fridge worked. They did not and $840.00 later most are working.
The list of repairs will now cost me a new engine and at least $5000.00 more.
I could never sell a vehicle in the condition my poor old new Van is in.
Be careful. Not everyone has a heart.
From too soft in Canada.
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Basilbomb
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Joined: September 30, 2006
Posts: 871

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 09, 2018 10:19 am    Post subject: Re: Basilbomb - [email protected] - Nathaniel Reply with quote

When this was first pointed out to me, I thought long and hard about whether to respond and how to respond; after all it’s more than 4 years old. But the nature of the net means it becomes a permanent accessible record, so I have no choice.

It was hard to recall the exact particulars after so much time, but after much thought I believe I do recall this woman and the van. It was a gorgeous low mileage (below 200k kilometres) westy, that she got for a very good price, around 13k, I believe.

In her rant she basically calls me a crook and a cheat, which is grossly unfair and inaccurate. I’m a VW nut, which means I’ve owned a lot of VWs and bought and sold quite a few. In all cases where I’ve learned that there’s a problem after the fact, I’ve always helped out the new owner, even this person. After she bought it, it was discovered that it didn’t have a spare (I didn’t know this), so I sourced one and delivered it to her. She also didn’t understand the kitchen so I went over the controls, how the fridge worked, and where water was filled etc. we probably we there with her for an hour, and this was many days after she actually bought it. Always glad to help out.

A few days or weeks later I get an email from her saying she couldn’t get the fridge started, so she took it in and there was a bill for fixing it. I told her I didn’t understand that, as my daughter and her partner had only recently gone camping in the van, and they told me it worked fine. That’s when the conversation went south, and she basically called me a crook and liar etc. I was pretty ticked at that and told her that if she had approached me politely, I could have fixed the thing. I’ve found these fridges are easily fixed and likely some rust had fallen onto the burner orifice or something like that. But since she chose to be an ass about it, I told her to lose my email. That was the last I recall about our conversation, and I sure don’t remember anything about a new motor, which makes zero sense to me.

Think about it: why would a westy with less than 200k need a new motor? And how could someone take a van for a test drive and not notice something was so wrong the engine needed replacement? The engine must have run ok, strong, no bad noise and no smoke, no symptoms basically, yet is shot?? And other than a cracked crank or wrecked main bearings, how could an engine be so far gone as not repairable? When we repair leaking heads a lot of people replace the pistons and cylinders because they are so cheap. If it had low compression or something why wouldn’t you do that rather than replace the whole thing?

Now I’m not saying it had any of these things. The van ran fine for myself and my family. If I have a vehicle with problems I'm going to fix it first or sell it as a project. But it ran fine when I bought it and it ran fine for her test drive. And yet she pops up here with some fiction that the engine was so bad it was unusable. Makes no sense.

Sadly, that’s all it takes: say something shitty about someone online and that’s all that’s required: no proof and no accountability and a person’s reputation is damaged. But as far as character references go, I’m very proud of my record: I’ve spent a large part of my life helping people. I’ve worked as a psychotherapist and a child and youth worker. I volunteer every month as an antipoverty activist. I even had a Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal awarded to me by BC’s Lt. Governor for my volunteerism with RESULTS Canada. Not that long ago I sold a vehicle to a young family and let them pay me when they had the money. So for this woman to come on here with this slander painting me as a greedy unethical manipulative crook when I sell a vehicle, is beyond the pale.

If she actually had problems with the van, and had been a decent person about it, I would have helped her out. We are all part of the VW community and that's what we do. But she wasn't a good person, and this post proves it.
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