For most people, it is the deals. But not for me. No, it isn’t my favourite part of shopping the classifieds.
Yes, I do like getting deals, just like anyone else. Though, anyone I know who has made many purchases from classifieds will tell you, sometimes you buy stuff that’s junk and you might have been better off buying new. Or end up throwing whatever it is out and buying something new instead. I know that I have been guilty of that before.
So, the deals can be hit and miss. You can also spend a lot of time on emails co-ordinating a meeting, then time driving to go and view it. That could be important, depending how much you value your time. You could save a lot of time buying something from a store or ordering something online that arrives at your door in a few days.
What is it then that I love so much about wasting my time driving long distances and buying junk? Good question.
It is the people that I meet. The little snippet of their story that I get from that brief meeting and exchange.
For example, just this past Friday, I went to Strathroy, Ontario to buy some pink springs and shocks for my Outback. It was kind of a long way to go, but the price was good and more importantly they were the type of suspension that I wanted to switch my car over to. But the more interesting part of the story was why the guy was selling perfectly good suspension for next to nothing. Did he upgrade the suspension on his Subaru? No, but sort of. He had a kit car he was building, which is supposed to use most of the running gear off of a Subaru WRX. But after he bought a perfectly good ’04 WRX wagon (for $3 grand! why didn’t I find that deal?). Then proceeded to completely take the car apart and assemble his kit car. He decided that he wanted to upgrade some things. In fact, almost everything except for the drivetrain and wheels (which I tried to convince him to sell me).
The idea of the kit car is that the company in Boston makes the chassis, body panels, glass and a few other things. You order that (or pick it up) with the instructions. Then buy a Subaru WRX and will be able to pull the rest of the parts you need to make a functioning car out of the two. The result is supposed to be a mid-engine two seat rear wheel drive convertible. Kind of like the last generation of Toyota MR2. It was a pretty cool project, I was happy he decided to upgrade so many parts. Granting me the fortune to meet him and chat about his project car.
I had another interesting experience in August last year. When I went to London, Ontario to look at an ’02 Audi A4 Avant. I decided to buy the car, which turned out to be crap. But that’s an old story, me buying crap cars. The more interesting part of the story is the man who was selling the car. As he was a bit of a VW diesel nut and had a crazy modified Jetta TDI. It wasn’t anything special strait out of the blocks, but once you got on boost. Whoa, hold on to your seat. I always thought of diesels as slow. I was happy to be corrected.
But not all the people I met were car nuts. I had an old Homelite (Canadian made) chainsaw I bought on the side of the road shortly after getting our house. To use to cut a dead tree down in the backyard. It came with a parts saw and seemed to work well when I bought it. But by the time I got around to using it 6 months later, it was sitting in a pool of gas and wouldn’t start. I tried looking up what the problem might be and tried rebuilding the carburetor and a bunch of other things. But, to no avail.
As I was more interested in getting the tree cut down before the wind blew it onto my neighbours house. Than being a small 2-stroke engine mechanic. I just bought a small new chainsaw and got that job done.
I put the two old Homelite chainsaws on kijiji together for $60 figuring that someone might want them for parts or to fix. I posted the add Sunday night. By Monday morning, I had a buyer contact me and they were sold and gone that evening. A chainsaw nerd in Brantford saw the add and immediately got excited. The guys hobby was to collect and fix up old chainsaws. Who would have guessed such a person would exist. I felt like I should have asked more for them. As he didn’t even try to talk me down on price. But I’m not greedy and was happy to get the gassy smelling things out of my garage.
Not all my interactions with people from classified adds are that pleasant. Some people are rude and try to talk me down to next to nothing, some are brief and unmemorable (this is starting to sound like I’m talking about a different kind of classified add). But you have to take the bad with the good. It is an interesting and unique experience. And if you want to buy some 16″ steel rims from an Audi A4, let me know.
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