Dishonest eBay Sellers

Earlier this week I stumbled across this fine ’75 Nova on eBay (auction 2487679989). The auction pictures show a very nice, mostly original ’75 Nova.

A Nova buddy from that area graciously examined it more closely today and found bad rust problems. If I was to drive that car in much bad weather, the innocuous rust bubbles would become gross rust holes very quickly. The bad thing is that this rust problem costs at least $2,500 to fix correctly.

Rust near rear bottom corner of rear driver’s side door:

Right behind the left rear tire and along the bottom of the quarter panel:

Right behind passenger’s side door:

Another view:

Do you see any of this rust in the auction description or photos? Nope! The auction photos conveniently excluded any angles that would have exposed this, and the auction even states “The only blem we found was the tear in the front seat.” Whatever!

The owner of the car is not at fault here. The owner simply took his car to eDrop of Wichita, and that place handles the entire auction. Now it’s no wonder that eDrop was so dodgy about answering questions about this car.

Insurance Mess

Last Thursday my “total loss insurance adjuster” called with the initial insurance offer on my Nova. The offer was a small fraction of its actual value, so I rejected it out of hand.

That evening, I emailed the adjuster about 16MB worth of documents: pictures, receipts for all improvements since 1995, and a spreadsheet of “just maintenance” since 1996. I also sent nine ads for comparable Novas, several of which were above $8,000. And I sent her a completed eBay auction for a ’74 Nova that sold for the insurance company’s initial offering price. That thing was a incomplete rust bucket project that had been ragged out with heavy racing use, has mismatched finders, old paint, shoddy interior, missing parts, and a questionable engine and transmission. That was a far cry from my Nova’s condition.

A different adjuster admitted that this was some kind of standard valuation produced with an unnamed program, and he tacitly acknowledged that it’s inaccurate because so few Novas are sold.

Sometimes I get sick of NPR

I really like National Public Radio. It’s the only way to get commercial-free, substantial news on the entire FM band. I am a member of my local affiliate, KERA 90.1 FM.

But sometimes I get sick of NPR. I appreciate the value of understanding opposing arguments. I really like the Tavis Smiley Show. However, sometimes I get fed up with left-leaning fringe groups that get a disproportionate amount of air time on this network. I am often displeased with how Diane Rehm blatantly panders to her liberal guests. I tire of the fringe environmentalists who only talk about the most extreme environmental predictions. It often seems that NPR’s version of balanced coverage are occasional conservative footnotes to a litany of left-oriented news.

Blech.

Despite this, I believe that NPR’s core news product is generally balanced. I really like Car Talk. And I need to understand the opposing sides to my views. So I guess I’ll keep listening.