Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General General Beware of this Ebay SVT!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Ford-Contour-1998-CONTOUR-SVT_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ31832QQitemZ4600041203QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

Ok, some of you know, my father just recently won a 98 svt on ebay for $4050. From what I could tell, the car was extremely clean judging by pictures. The vehicle has 144K on it but looked clean since its never seen snow or been in an accident. It has 2000 motor along with a rebuilt tranny with upgraded syncros and quaife. According to the ebay ad, the car was in "near perfect" condition. Sounds too good to be true! Anyways, myself, my dad and my brother drove 11 hours down to Atlanta Georgia yesterday to take delivery and settle up. We get there and the car was far from perfect. Ok, before we drove down, according to the seller the only things wrong with it were cracked hvac cover, slightly scratched hood and "buffable" scratches on rear fascia, broken window switch, 2 small holes in hood liner where tv was mounted (tv was being fixed and was going to be sent to me) and the center console was disconnected from the bottom of the dash. No biggie. I can replace or fix those cheaply.

Get there and within about a 5 min inspection these things were wrong besides what i knew previously.

Mirko splitter torn up pretty badly
Front bumper cracked from mirko bottoming out
Front bumper looked like it had been backed into
Front bumper hardly even attached to fenders. I could literally shake the bumper with my hands.
Drivers side door handle didnt even want to open
Every panel on the car scratched or dinged
Rear fascia didnt even appear to have clearcoat. Scratches were beyond buffable.
Center reflector didnt appear to be clearcoated
Rear fascia cracked and drivers side quarter panel
Sunroof broken
Radio bezel not attached
Both handles above driver and passenger front doors missing
Passenger side air vent broken
Miscelleneous screw plugs missing (i.e defrost vent on doors)
Premium sound emblems missing
Transmission was beyond screwed up. I couldnt even mind neutral in the darn thing. I thought it was in neutral and i killed the engine when i started it up after letting out the clutch. I literally had to force the shifter from left to right from the neutral position.
Everything and i mean EVERYTHING was missing in the trunk. Spare tire, floor board, carpet. Even the bolt holding the spare tire looked like it had been cut and bent.
Dipstick holder broken off
The "brand new" tires with 3000 miles were bald in the back and the front tires looks like they had been through an autocross.

Im sure there is more. I didnt even bother taking it for a test drive or checking to see if the headlights, foglights, etc worked. It was a disaster.

To make matters worse, its back up for sale on ebay and the listing hasnt even changed. Still "near perfect" and "my loss in your gain."

Just letting others know not to bid on this thing. Its a complete junker! Btw, I havent received feedback from the guy so its best if others don't go start flaming the guy for over-representing the car because I think that will result in a retalitory negative feedback even though he was completely at fault.

WTF did your dad say?!!!!!!!!!!! I would have punched the guy after traveling that far. A car with 144k is not going to be too great though. Would be pretty rare.

What did you guys say to the seller about it?

I think you should put your fear of negative feedback aside and lay it on him. He misrepresented the car in the auction; isn't that a violation of eBay policies?

You shoulda had me check it out. I've gots lots of free time to do stuff like this.

awwwwww man sorry to hear. your dad will get his hands on another one dont worry.

yeah, i think were going to go look at one in chicago this saturday.

cool, lets meet up. do you have a link to that one? maybe we can send someone over to look at it to make sure it is worth your time.

i could have sworn i saw another post on this car because the fact that it says "$1200 rear differential" stuck in my head.

Glad you'll didnt go through with the buy, sorry to hear about the troubles you'll went through as well.

i believ this guy was a ceg member to, correct? I remember that baby blue paint.