The ‘Dream Machines’ Car Club in Illinois

I saw this article and I think it deserves a ‘guest post’ on my blog. It’s just about a local cruise in Illinois, but the car club calls itself the ‘Dream Machines’ car club, which sounds great to me. I don’t know why, but they didn’t include pictures. I always include pictures. Sorry, but it’s a good look at the latest craze in America; classic cars and hot rods. That’s why I hope they enjoy my novel, Dream Machines. Enjoy.

This cool cruise info is from: http://www.mywebtimes.com/news/editorial/our-view-in-streator-cruise-night-is-king/article_984c9141-062c-50c4-8830-5606c4267d12.html

 

It’s Labor Day weekend in the Illinois Valley, and that means it’s time for one thing — the Dream Machines Car Club Streator Car Show and Cruise Night.

Sure, there are other events going on — notably in Toluca, Paw Paw, Mendota and Pontiac, some of those celebrations with more than six decades of history — but today’s Cruise Night celebration is the undisputed king.

If there was any doubt about which event wears the crown, last year put it to rest. After a threat of rain abated, Dream Machines Vice President Mike Starjack said more than 500 vehicles took part. He also told The Times between 15,000 and 20,000 people came out to see the vintage cars. Those numbers are on pace with 2010, the last year where Cruise Night coincided with great weather, which drew 545 cars and at least 20,000 spectators.

That’s a two with four zeroes — a larger number than the population of any single town in La Salle County.

Some taverns and restaurants point to Cruise Night as their biggest of the year in terms of traffic and revenue. Cars come in from several states. Perhaps not every hotel room in town is booked, but clearly Cruise NIght has a social and economic impact. It’s no wonder the organizers of the Streator Tenderloin Festival chose Labor Day weekend — they knew when it made the most sense to tap in to a huge number of visitors.

Cruise nights are common throughout the region, so what’s the big deal in Streator? Anyone can have a car show. In Streator, the real attraction is the cruising: getting those vintage vehicles out on the road, slowly going up and down the main streets, listening to classic music and restoring — if only for one night — some magic memories of the past.

In many ways, Streator is a perfect backdrop. Many families have called the town home for generations. The people are proud of the town’s work ethic, and nothing says “elbow grease” like getting under the hood of your classic auto and turning a wrench yourself. Anyone with money can buy an old car. But only someone with passion, skill and dedication can restore it to glory.

The physical scenery itself helps, as Streator itself has a classic look. Not much of town is ultra-modern, and that’s the way many folks like it. Streator looks and feels like home, and these classic cars and their owners fit right in. Cruise Night hearkens back to the days when the Roamer — America’s answer to the Rolls Royce — was built in Streator.

It seems almost preposterous now to think America’s leading luxury car could be built in a small town in the middle of Illinois. But that’s the way things worked in the early 1900s, and Cruise Night and the Dream Machines Car Club help us all tap into that nostalgia.

The cruise route is from Main Street to Park Street to Kent Street to Vermillion Street to Hickory Street to Shabbona Street and back to Main. Members of the Dream Machines Club are selling tickets all day for the choice of a restored 1975 Plymouth Duster or $5,000 in cash.

The people who continue make Labor Day weekend special in Streator every year deserve praise for their efforts. It’s a labor of love for sure, and the beneficiaries are numerous. Hats off to everyone involved. The months of planning and preparation are complete. Tonight, the party begins. Live it up, step back in time and enjoy one of the greatest weekends of the year.

 

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Jimmy Shine and the Grand Rapids, MI, Metro Cruise 2014

I was so tired when I got back home from the Woodward Dream Cruise; I seriously over-slept to noon the next day. The Dream Cruise was three days of intense cruising and checking out over 40,000 classic cars, hot rods and big exhibits by Ford, Chrysler and GM. So when I heard the news that Jimmy Shine would be at the Grand Rapids, Michigan, Metro Cruise the coming weekend, it gave me enough energy to make the 5 hour drive west on the Ohio Turnpike to Indiana, then turned north to GR on a Friday afternoon.

In case you never heard of Jimmy Shine, he started out with the now famous, ‘SoCal Speed Shops,’ which are garages where they restore or modify classic cars and make a lot of cars go…faster. Jimmy is the kind of guy that can take a beat up old 1950s (or any year) car and with his own two hands, turn it into a stunning show car that has power and looks to win trophies and races. That is talent.

 

Jimmy is also the host and/or guest on many classic car shows that offer classic cars and restoration projects as subject matter. Those shows frequently are shown on the Velocity Network on cable. His show, ‘Car Warriors,’ pit two teams of restoration mechanics and fabricators to restore and modify in a small amount of time, two similar old cars. The teams can do whatever they want to the cars and at the end, the cars will be judged and the winner gets to take the car home.

 

Jimmy is also in my novel, Dream Machines. When the two old farts realize that they can’t restore and race their cars by their self-imposed deadline, Jimmy steps in. He helps by adding two teams to work with them to get their cars ready to settle the big 50-year grudge drag race on Woodward by Friday night. The only condition is that the restoring and race will now be part of Jimmy’s show, ‘Car Warriors.’

Now, this is the kind of car I see myself in… someday.

I got to GR, dropped off my luggage at the hotel and headed down 28^th street, where the Metro Cruise was. The Cruise was supposed to be on the west side of Highway 131, but miles before that, there were classic cars in parking lots with lots of people on lawn chairs checking out what’s interesting in traffic. I hope they all saw my Cruisemobile mobile billboard and ordered the book.

 

After Hwy 131, there were significantly more classic cars and hot rods as well as bigger crowds. At a large shopping center, Roger’s Plaza, there was an enormous crowd, with food vendors, lots of lights and cars. This was the main staging area for the Cruise, http://www.28thstreetmetrocruise.com/, so I figured I would keep going until I found the end of the cruise area then turn around. It kept going for about a mile and a half before I turned back. Along the road, the crowds kept growing, along with a lot of side-of-the-road food vendors.

 

I pulled into Roger’s Plaza and did my best to get a parking space, like all those other people roaming in their car hoping to get lucky, which I finally did. The whole scene reminded me of a carnival, only instead of amusement rides, they had cars, lots of very cool, groovy and all the other ‘60s adjectives, cars.

 

I looked for Jimmy and found him immediately, signing autographs. I showed him my book and he said, ‘I have that book on my desk, but I haven’t read it yet.’ I gave him another copy (yeah, he wanted me to autograph it and he gave me his autograph) and he introduced me to his beautiful wife, Nikki, who took a picture of us. He was so nice, it was like talking to an old friend and he said that he would read the book. I told him I wanted to make the book into a movie and Nikki’s eyes lit up, like they had been talking about such a thing. Maybe he’s looking for the right book. I tried hard not to be so impressed with him, but I don’t think it worked because I probably sounded like the ‘Wayne’s World’ groupie of a rock star going, “I’m not worthy, I’m not worthy.”

Jimmy Shine and I (I’m the old guy);-)

The show was going to close at 9pm, or so they said, and if it was anything like the Woodward Dream Cruise, that could mean facing major traffic jams. So I headed out, knowing I would be there first thing in the morning. As I headed back to the hotel, I saw a place I had gone to many years before, the Beltline Bar; home of the famous Wet Burrito. Yeah, I stopped and had a famous ‘Burrito and Beer,’ and it was just as good as I remembered.

 

I arrived Saturday morning at 9 am, when the program said it was going to start, and it sure enough; it had already started without me. Being there at what I thought was an early hour, I thought I’d be able to get a good highly visible parking place, but the place was already packed with people and cars. I saw all the cars and after-market companies then ran into Scooter, with the ‘Cruiz’news’ magazine from the Detroit area. I asked if Dana was there, but Scooter said Dana had gotten totally burned out at the Dream Cruise and was on a beach far away from any classic cars;-)

 

It was nice to see a city like Grand Rapids with such a large cruise. It was a good size cruise and I could tell the crowds loved it. I left at noon because I had to get going back to Cleveland, where I had things to do later. I decided to go through Ann Arbor and head south from there so I could stop for a lunch break at one of my favorite stores; Cabela’s. This Cabela’s is huge inside with an incredible selection of outdoor gear and clothing. I just happened to need some mesquite wood nuggets for my smoker.

 

I decided not to eat in their ‘wild-game’ restaurant because I saw a sign at a nearby small pub, The Great Lakes Pub & Grill, that advertised fresh Bluegill fish. I love Bluegill and they didn’t disappoint. The filets are only big enough for one bite, but oh, they are the tastiest fish, even better than Perch. I love Florida seafood, but this is great lakes fresh water seafood, and it is delicious.

Blue Gill, beans and cole slaw. I only ate the Blue Gill.

I finally arrived back home, just in time to unload luggage, pick up my neighbor Roger, and head to downtown Cleveland to arrive just in time for the opening ceremony for the Cleveland Browns home exhibition pre-season game and Johnny Football himself; Johnny Manziel. Throughout the frustrating game for the Browns, which almost distracted me, I still kept thinking about Jimmy Shine, and all those gorgeous Dream Machines in Grand Rapids. Way to go GR!

Woodward Dream Cruise 2014

It’s the biggest annual event in Michigan. It’s the fourth largest one-day event in America. It’s the biggest car festival/cruise in the world. It’s the Woodward Dream Cruise with over 1.3 million spectators and over 40,000 classic cars, antique cars and hot rods. This year was the 20th anniversary of the event and not many people outside of Michigan know about it (other than classic car buffs, hot rod enthusiasts, drag racers, auto restorers and car people).

I had to be in Detroit the Friday before and it was crowded with cars and spectators already – a week in advance! I returned on Wednesday, picked up my friend Steve from California at the airport and headed to the hotel taking a longer route on Woodward. Woodward was packed. Four lanes going north and four lanes going south and it was bumper-to-bumper classic car traffic at around 4 MPH. Engines rumbled, an occasional tire squealed loudly and sometimes it was hard to hear with all that Detroit muscle revving up.

With my new automobile advertising wrap about my novel, Dream Machines, I was getting plenty of attention. My goal with this trip is to get enough publicity to sell over 2000 books through Amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com so I can attract a literary agent, who will sell my book to a big publisher. If that happens, then movie producers will be interested and that is my true main goal: to make my novel, Dream Machines, into a movie. If made (hoping some big rich Detroit leaders read this) a side benefit would be improving the negative perceptions and opinions about Detroit into positive ones. At least, that’s my plan. Know of any people like that with $5 million they would like to invest in a movie? I didn’t think so.

Wednesday night was the only chance we would have of stopping at Duggan’s Pub on Woodward for a Big Chief burger, the burger they once served at the Totem Pole. Speaking of the Totem Pole, I stopped by the lot on Woodward where the Totem Pole was. It had turned into a Burger King for years and then they closed. They leveled the building and there is nothing but a vacant, empty lot left of what was the greatest drive-in restaurant in the world (my own opinion).

Thursday had Steve and I cruising Woodward as much as possible (to show off my moving billboard). I had a very bad problem though. On Tuesday, my good friend and best man at my wedding, Dan Hurley died of a heart attack. Dan went to many Dream Cruises with me and his absence was a sore spot. That night we went out to dinner with his son, Neil and his wife Monica. We went to Birmingham, where the sidewalks were filled with people trying to get seats at the many fine restaurants in the area. The streets were also starting to be filled up with classic cars.

Friday put me in a better mood. We cruised a very busy Woodward, but my friend Steve wanted to hear about actor/comedian, Robin William’s home area, because it was in the news so much about his death a few days earlier. Better than explaining, I showed him. We toured the neighborhoods and small lakes of Bloomfield Hills and the exclusive Cranbrook Institute of something or other. Robin lived in an extremely affluent part of Detroit’s suburbs along with his neighbors Mitt Romney and Lee Iacocca. In the ‘50s and ‘60s the area attracted big executives from Ford, GM and Chrysler. They let their teens play with the new demo cars they drove home from the factory. Many of those kids and their parents, drag raced on Woodward in their new GTO’s, Mustangs, Dodge Hemi’s, Corvettes and all the other muscle cars. Robin and Mitt had to have cruised all the drive-ins too. That’s a cool thought. I believe there are still a lot of auto execs living there.

Friday night was an absolute zoo. Cars were crammed onto Woodward going about 2 MPH bumper-to-bumper for miles. It took hours to go a mile. The tree lawns, parking places and just about everywhere the crowd sat on lawn chairs or walked between the mini cruise-ins that were jammed with cool cars. TV crews were flitting around getting interviews and radio station guys were out in the street talking to people in their cars asking for a rev up (for sound).

The police were out in a larger force than I’ve ever seen. At the shopping center at 13 mile and Woodward, where Chrysler has set up a ‘Mopar’ exhibit, there was a line of police motorcycles like I have never seen, other than in a movie like, ‘Blues Brothers.’ There had to be at least 30-40 motorcycles from police stations all over the Detroit area. There were cop cars everywhere as well as plenty of cops on bicycles and horses. At the Mopar exhibit, there was a lot of local hype and publicity about Dodge’s new 700+ HP Charger, ‘Hellcat,’ but it wasn’t at the exhibit…yet. They said it would be there on Saturday, but unfortunately, we had a different schedule for cruise day.

Plymouth’s ’67 Belvedere GTX   ‘Silver Bullet’ ripped up Woodward in the ’60s with over 600 HP.

Down the street from the Mopar exhibit, and across the street from Duggan’s Pub, was GMs Corvette exhibit and next to that was a park area that was transformed into a classic car carnival. It was packed with food concessions/trucks, classic cars, hot rods, t-shirt tents, the truck from my friend Dana’s magazine ‘www.cruiz’news.com,’ several bleacher seats faced Woodward and the enormous crowd either sat and watched, or milled around enjoying the intoxicating atmosphere of motor city metal.

It was quite an experience, but the show ended at 9:40pm when the huge presence of police blocked off Woodward and everybody had to go home. I mean, tried to go home. The small neighborhood road that the police forced people to take became jammed and it took us forever to make our way back to the hotel.

The Saturday morning of the Dream Cruise had a chill in the air. The temps had dipped into the 40s the night before, but there was a crowd on Woodward at 8am. We headed to Ferndale. At the corner of 9 Mile Road and Woodward, 9 Mile was blocked in either direction for blocks and blocks for Ford’s ‘Mustang Alley.’ Ford and many after-market suppliers like Saleen, Rousch, Shelby and many others showed their newest Mustang designs. A large parking lot was filled with only Mustang Cobras. Then there were blocks and blocks of Mustangs of all years and models owned by private owners. In all, we figured there had to be at least 1,000 mustangs. It was unbelievable and overwhelming for this ardent Mustang fan. My Mustang was stolen, but that’s in a previous blog.

Ford’s Mustang Alley
9 Mile at Woodward

We then headed to Birmingham to see GM’s offering to the Cruise. It took us a long time to go 6 miles, but lots of people saw my mobile billboard along the way. Tee shirts under a tent dotted the sides of Woodward for miles as well as a bunch of ‘radio towers’ so people would know a radio station was broadcasting from there. Crowds surrounded various cool cars parked everywhere and anyway they could. I could tell by the crowded boulevard that this was the biggest Dream Cruise ever. Along the way, there was a row of around ten DeLoreans like the one in the movie, ‘Back to the Future,’ all with their doors open and pointing skyward. What a blast!

In downtown Birmingham, Old Woodward Avenue was closed off and wow, they had quite a show of classic cars. Since this was Birmingham, with it’s affluence, there were a lot of classic foreign cars that cruised Woodward in the ‘60s, like MGs, Triumphs, Austin Healeys, Jaguars, Rolls Royces and even an old Bentley. There was a long row of Cobras, Thunderbirds and Corvettes. On the other side of the sidewalk, in parking lots full of parked cars, there were a number of exhibits for after-market companies that do a lot of business with GM.

Ken Lingenfelter and I at the Dream Cruise, I’m in the Hawaiian shirt.

An old friend of mine, Ken Lingenfelter, owns one of those companies, Lingenfelter Performance Engineering. They make GM cars like Corvettes and Camaros go faster and make race cars go faster too. They build race car engines and components like superchargers. Ken showed me a new product of his; trucks he named, ‘Reapers.’ He gives trucks a go-over, performance and custom looks wise, and calls them ‘Reapers.’ They are already in some GM showrooms in Texas. Ken also showed me his personal ‘everyday car,’ a gorgeous ’67 Corvette with over 600 HP. I want to go the grocery store with him.

At the end of the street where it meets Woodward, forms a triangle where Chevrolet, this years Dream Cruise sponsor, has a large exhibit of their coolest new cars and classic Chevys. There was also a TV station, WXYZ (ABC), which is a sponsor, doing live broadcasts as well as the oldies radio station, WOMC, with their funny radio hosts, Bobby and Stacy doing a live show. Add in all kinds of food trucks, huge crowds, live music stages and you’ve got a pretty wild scene with hundreds of thousands of classic car buffs oo-ing and ah-ing  every cool car that drives by.

When we headed back out onto Woodward we heard my radio interview. The day before, I had done a radio interview with WWJ 950 am all news, and we heard it run several times in the day and once at night. We didn’t really get all that far on Woodward, because again it was wall-to-wall classic car traffic going at a snail’s pace. At 9 pm, we saw the lights on all the police cars go on like it did Friday night just before they closed Woodward down. I hurried (you really couldn’t hurry) as fast as I could to get off Woodward. I turned the corner at 13 Mile Road and just then the cops shut down Woodward. I thought, ‘9 pm?’ I guess they wanted to end the happiness earlier that usual. Back at the hotel, I heard people moaning about the long ride back in the traffic. I felt lucky, where can I buy a lottery ticket?

The Big Chief Burger

On Sunday, we finally got our chance to eat a Big Chief at Duggan’s Pub. We sat at the bar and I saw a very hard working guy, Larry Payne, owner of Duggan’s. Larry said he heard my interview that morning on WWJ, so maybe I sounded better than I thought. I said goodbye to Steve when I dropped him off at the airport. This was his second Dream Cruise year and he said it was, ‘great.’ I headed back to Cleveland, with a big smile, great memories and it helped me get over the tragedy of my friend, who loved the Dream Cruise, passing on. I’m sure that now he’s in a real, ‘Dream Machine.’

More pictures –

CRAIG’S LIST/EBAY SCAM ALERT!!!

FRAUD/SCAM ALERT!

I’ve been writing in my blog about my search for a good used car for my son, who’s a senior in high school. This is the third and final chapter on this subject (thankfully).

BUT FIRST – I have to address this CRAIG’S LIST/EBAY SCAM ALERT: Craig’s list has a used car scam that is hitting the entire country. It’s not the doing of Craig’s List, but some piece of crap loser has come up with a scam on Craig’s List to steal your hard earned money from any town, and send it to this human piece of manure (can I say shit?). There may be more than one scam and may come from some group/gang, but here’s how this scam works.

You’ve been looking for a good used car and respond to an ad on Craig’s List by owner, for a car that is perfect for you and at a price that you can’t believe; a one-owner creampuff.  It seems like it is ‘too good to be true.’ It is, but you need a car and send an email inquiry hoping for the best. An email comes back to you from a woman (yeah, sure) with a hard-luck story. It’s either, “My husband died and I’m moving with the kids,” My husband left me and I want to just get rid of the car because it reminds me of him,” or “I’m in the military and about to be shipped to Japan (or wherever) next week and really need to sell this car.” If their sales pitch comes with a hard luck story, beware.

Then, they say the car is in a different town far away in a warehouse ready to be shipped to you. They want the deal to go through ‘eBay Motors’ because it’s safe and you have 7 days to inspect the car and if you don’t like the deal, you get your money back. Then another email comes from what looks to be eBay Motors (including eBay logos and pictures of the car and description like a car dealer, to look real) explaining what you have to do. They want you to go buy some MoneyPaks from a drugstore and load them with cash: thousands of dollars of cash. Then you give eBay Motors the scratched off numbers on the cards to make the money transfer. DON’T DO IT!!!!

HERE’S THE BOGUS INVOICE – It’s long, but look at how legit it looks. People get fooled by it. Article continues after you see the work of this POS:

eBay sent this message to Ron Lundmark Your invoice for eBay Buyer Protection Purchase – 2004 GMC Yukon Denali AWD
Invoice for eBay Buyer Protection Transaction Case ID 6P28D654V43 between Erica Armstrong, the Seller and Ron Lundmark as the Buyer. Please follow our instructions to complete the transaction safely. eBay’s got you covered. Your purchases are now covered by eBay Buyer Protection Program.
Seller: Erica Armstrong Address: 31 Joshua Dr Ramsey, NJ 07446

How to make the payment; To complete the transaction you must send the payment via MoneyPak Service.
Once you bought the MoneyPak, ask the cashier to load them with cash and Reply us the following details from the MoneyPak:
MoneyPak Number and Debit Load for each MoneyPak card and scanned copy off the back of your MoneyPaks. NOTE: You can    add only up to $1,000.00 onto a MoneyPak card, so buy as many cards as you need to complete your payment for item purchased.
Fax the MoneyPak payment receipt to eBay Financing Center Department at: +1 (206)-426-7263
For security reasons please DO NOT release the payment details to the Seller or any other unauthorized person.
Case ID: Mileage: 121,925 *Note: Payment must be made within the next 48 hours. 1 $2,000.00 Inspected YES $0,00
*Please check the details for an accurate delivery in order to avoid delays
Payment must be submitted via MoneyPak to eBay Financing Center. We will secure the payment until the Buyer receives, inspects and accepts the vehicle. Or, if it will be the case, eBay will refund the payment to the Buyer.
* All the transaction details, payment and personal information are confidential and will not be released under any circumstances.
* eBay Buyer Protection program security measures are constantly reviewed and modified given evolving circumstances globally.
* Our main and constant priority is the safety of our customers.
Go with cash or debit card to any provided store and pick up a MoneyPak from the Prepaid Product Section or Green Dot display and take it to the register. The cashier will collect your cash and load it onto the MoneyPak. It costs $4.95 or less. There are no hidden fees or charges. Just purchase your MoneyPak, use cash to fund it and you’re ready to go. Once you bought the MoneyPak and loaded the debit:
– reply us the MoneyPak Number (14 Digits Number off the back of your MoneyPaks) – send the scanned copy of your payment receipts by fax or email and a scanned copy off the back of your Moneypaks, where we can see the
MoneyPak Numbers, so we can add them to the files and validate your payment.
Note: Please be very careful to buy Green Dot MoneyPak, and not Green Dot Prepaid Credit Cards ! It is very important !
You can add up to $1,000.00 onto a MoneyPak card so buy as many MoneyPaks as you need to complete your payment for item purchased. (Ex: If you buy a vehicle that costs $2,500.00, you must buy two MoneyPaks loaded with $1,000.00 and another one loaded with $500 and so on). When payment is received, it will be verified and secured into a non-interest bearing trust account. Payment verification process usually takes less than 24 hours. After payment is secured, the Seller is authorized to ship the vehicle. The Seller has 24 hours to send the Buyer and eBay Financing Center Department the tracking number of the shipment. If no tracking number is provided, a full refund is immediately sent to the Buyer. The Buyer receives the vehicle and has 10 days to inspect it. If it is complete and as described, the Buyer should accept the vehicle. If he refuses the vehicle, the Buyer must ship the vehicle back to the Seller within 10 days. After the inspection period is over, the Buyer must contact eBay Financing Center Department with the result of the inspection. If the Buyer refuses the vehicle, the refund will be sent to the Buyer after the tracking number for the returned shipment is verified. If the vehicle is accepted, eBay submits the payment directly to the Seller within 3 business days.
Purchase protection and refund: The eBay Motors Vehicle Purchase Protection (VPP) is a subsidiary of eBay Inc., dedicated to      insuring safe and honest transaction between online buyers and sellers, especially for deals involving large amounts of money. Each of our seller clients is required to open a Purchase Protection Account (PPA) which is managed by VPP department. The amount of the account provides protection up to $50,000 against certain losses associated with some types of fraud.
When a seller initiates a transaction with his/her corresponding buyer, VPP checks the seller’s PPA and, if it’s value is equal or greater than the transaction price, automatically locks it for a period of 90 days from the day the transaction was started.
Conditions to be met before you may ask for a refund:
1) If the item doesn’t get to its destination after the payment is received; 2) If the merchandise you receive doesn’t fits its description; 3) If your merchandise arrives in a much longer period than the one you agreed on (more than 3-5 business days from the payment clearance day);
For situations 2) and 3) you have to send back the merchandise to the seller prior to ask for your refund. Seller will pay the shipping to receive it back also.
Notice that each of the transaction has a method of payment which is selected by the eBay Buyer Purchase Protection, taking into account the seller’s location and background check. The selected method of payment is always the one which offers the most reliable protection against fraud. Please, be advised that if you did not pay the seller by payment method required by us, your refund request will be declined.
If you need answers to your questions, just reply to this email !
Best Regards, eBay Customer Support (Trust and Safety Department)
Copyright 1995-2014 eBay Inc. All Rights Reserved. Designated trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners. Use of this Web site constitutes acceptance of the eBay User Agreement and Privacy Policy.
CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS? If you do, you are exactly the kind of person they want to steal from.

I checked with eBay and they confirmed the part about a 7 day return policy if bought on eBay. But here is the nitty-gritty – IT’S NOT THE REAL EBAY MOTORS! They add something like, “Y&R eBay Motors” for their email address. Ebay does not do business that way. I called eBay and they confirmed that this is a scam. Absolute fraud. I got a hold of Craig’s list and they took the scam off their listing. But I found another scam just like it when I looked at Craig’s List from a different town. Then, when I went to Florida, I found another scam just like the other scams. This is either a punk or a gang of fools who are hitting every Craig’s List in the country! These pieces of human trash are targeting people looking for a car around $2000, which are people who saved their hard earned money and these cold-hearted morons just want to steal it away. Human garbage.

Should you shop on Craig’s List? I did, but you have to look at every ad very closely and be vigilant for Scams. I contacted Craig’s List and they don’t really monitor anything or any ad. I guess that’s why there are a lot of weird things that have happened with Craig’s List. Hey, Craig’s List is free and they don’t have the resources to monitor every listing, you have to do your own research on who (whom?) you are buying from. That’s why Craig’s List has a FRAUD WARNING at the beginning of their home page. Here’s how my search went and how your search might go:

Let’s say that you want a good used car for your teen son/daughter, wife or yourself…or whoever (whomever?). You do all the groundwork and analyze what your needs are, the budget, and you go on line searching for the perfect ‘cream-puff.’ You over-analyze by finding out what the resale values are per brand and the reliability factor, then readjust your search to fit your slim budget. You think you are on the right track.

Then you start going through all the sites for used cars like, www.autotrader.com, www.cars.com, www.usedcars.com, www.carguru.com, and www.craig’slist.com. Those are the big on-line sites. Then you can cruise through your local dealer’s inventory. I didn’t do this that much because of my budget on this particular car; new car dealers can’t make enough money on a cheap used car to bother with. They usually call in a wholesale dealer to take those cars off their hands. So now, if your budget is under $4000, you have to do things you should do, like asking all your friends and relatives if they know of a good, well taken care of, used car. No? Then it’s time find used cars from some private owners, or search the inventory of all of the small used car dealers for your ‘diamond in the rough.’

On Craig’s list, if you only want to search for ‘used cars by owner,’ you can click that. If you want ‘dealers only,’ you can click that as well as a button for both. On many instances I called a private owner, only to find out that it is a small used car dealer. When you ask them, they respond that the car you called on was his, ‘personal’ car. Yeah.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have purchased things on Craig’s list with no problems. The car I bought for myself, a low-mileage Lincoln Aviator, cost $12000 and it’s definitely worth it. A year and a half later, and I feel that I got a good deal. But this search was for a much cheaper used car to get my son through his senior year of High School and a few years in the US Marines. The budget for this car grew from $1000 to $3500 very quickly. I decided to look in Florida for a car without rust, while on a business trip. I flew one-way free by cashing in some airline frequent flier miles, and hoped I’d find a car and drive it home.

My search took me all over the Sarasota/Bradenton/Venice area and I had good food, music and fun with some old friends that live there. Thanks to my friend, Rod, I was able to search for a car and if I found one, I could pick him up and go back for the car. So, he lent me his fairly new Hyundai Sonata (nice ride). The search was harder than I thought and saw a lot of bad used cars…with no rust. Hey, $3500 and under apparently doesn’t buy you much anymore, used car wise.

On the last day, I was prepared to buy the very first car I looked at the first day because it only had 113,000 miles on it and no rust. However, at $3000 I just didn’t feel it was worth it because the car did not look or feel like it had been taken care of very well. On Sunday night at midnight, the night before I was to buy a car and drive it north to Cleveland, Ohio, I saw a new ad by a private owner for a car that, if true, would be perfect for my son. I called first thing in the morning and made an appointment to see the car.

I made one stop on the way, to a new car dealer that advertised a good-looking car that was $3990 and thought they might go down a bit. The salesperson couldn’t find it so they brought in ‘Mr. Slick’ who told me that, “he just sold that car yesterday” (despite the fact that they are closed on Sunday). He went on to smoothly say, “I’m looking in the wrong price range because of a State Law that says car dealers can tack on and extra $800 to every car as a fee. You should raise your total price to $6500 and I have a bunch of nice cars that would work.” This sounded a little phony, so I thought I’d call a friend, who is a wholesaler for a used car store in Florida.

He told me that car dealers can charge a ‘dealer’s fee…up to $800. He said only “Greedy dealers” charge as much as $800. With low price cars he can play with the price of the car and the fee, because the profit is so slim. This told me a lot about that new car dealer’s used car salesman and the dealer (assuming he likes to hire dorks).

At noon, I met the private seller at a gas station close to the seller’s home and it looked good. It’s a ’02 Jeep Liberty Sport with a V6 and 4×4, just what I was looking for, but it was $4200. I took it for a ride and it was smooth and quiet. She was honest and told me that the electric rear windows each needed a new motor and a few other very small cosmetics. That’s not a big deal and an inexpensive task. The price then lowered and reached the critical $3500. I bought it on the spot.

This was what I would call luck, based on a lot of work. Okay, an incredible amount of work and travel. Did I really do that? The only thing I didn’t try, when looking for a good used car, was auto auctions. There are auctions around, but they only sell to the public on certain days, and I didn’t know enough about it to try. Who knows? I may have found what I was looking for the first day, but there’s only so much energy that I have left. It felt good to have made a good deal on a good used car that will last for years, assuming my son takes good care of it, like his father takes care of his cars (did I somehow slip into third person? Aren’t I, him, his father?). Forget it. I got into the car and headed north on I-75.

I had to stop and see a friend in Gainesville, Florida, Chad, who invited me to stay the night and share some good authentic Cuban food; Pork roast. It was delicious, but I was worried about the air conditioner on the car because it was making a noise. My friend said, “Go see Jerry” at a local air conditioning repair shop, so I did the next morning. The air condenser needed Freon and some oil. After that, it worked fine with ice-cold air.

I had a great ride home and even stopped at the seafood place in Darien, Georgia that my kids and I stopped at on another trip. Skipper’s Fish Camp had the blackened scrimp and grits and it was delicious, once again. The car ran smooth and when I got home and my son saw it, it was in love at first sight. My long search was over and thank God.

 

Skipper’s Fish Camp Shrimp and Grits

Lesson’s I learned:

Many people lie about their cars for sale, especially used car salesmen. I don’t hold that against them unless it is an outright blatant case of fraud. Besides, lying is part of their job, like lawyers and politicians.

When people say their car is in ‘great shape’ they may be talking about the actual shape of the car if you drew it.

When possible, take it to a repair shop to have them inspect it (they might charge $59, but it’s worth it if you don’t know about cars).

Low mileage cars that looks rough with a lot of rust, might have more miles on it than it shows (don’t know how they would do this, but it probably still happens).

Be wary, be skeptical and ask a lot of questions. What looks good online, may not be the way the car actually looks in person. Pictures can be photo-shopped easily.

Shop all the ways you can and be persistent and picky because you don’t want to end up with someone else’s problem car.

Now, if I can only notify all the websites like cars.com and carguru.com that I already bought a car and to stop sending me ads through various news websites all the way to Facebook. They put spinning ads that distract you, with cars just like you looked for on all those websites. They keep that information and probably a whole lot of other information about you, then use it to advertise to you…then eventually sell that info to other online sales gimmicks. These websites keep sending you ads for cars you’ve been searching for, for a long time and it’s annoying.

Was it worth all the work and travel for the perfect used car with a budget of only $3500 for my 17 year-old high school senior and future US Marine? I can only tell you that yes, especially when I see the look of love in my son’s eyes… when he looks at that Jeep. I will know that I was part of the very excellent and great memory of his very first car ever. His first, ‘Dream Machine.’