Trying to make this story short, but I have a close friend I have known for almost 10 years now. During my college years he helped me through being broke. I regularly raided his refrigerator, because I could hardly afford food, and he is an ASE certified mechanic, so when my cars broke, he taught me how to fix/modify them, in some cases providing me with the parts I needed for my project cars, because he so often had good parts laying around in his inventory for my car, hes a good dude.
Well, my friend, we will call him John, had a friend in High school, whom had a son, the son went off to live with his mom after a nasty divorce. Years go by, the son is now about 20 years old, and has an apeshit crazy mother who is addicted to drugs. The mom looses her mind, kicks the kid and his girlfriend out of her house, and my friend, John has literally nowhere to go, and only ~$1000 to his name after just getting his first "adult" job where he makes and income where he can support himself. His girlfriend is currently unemployed and looking.
It ended up being a super shitty situation, the kid lost his car because it was in his mom's name, his girlfriend has never met her parents, and has nobody to go to, so my friend, John, Puts this kid in his spare room until the kid gets on his feet.
Learning about this situation, I offered my Craigslist Ninja expertise, in order to find a good car for the kid.
We started at a $1000 budget, but quickly decided it wasn't smart to spend every dollar he had on a car, so I shit you not, I spent half of my day on the phone and in front of the computer in my office clicking through craigslist ads, trying to find something that simply runs, drives, stops, and steers, all of the in between is fixable.
I limited my search to the most basic cars; a Ford Focus, a Chevy Cavalier/Pontiac Sunfire, and a Toyota Corolla.
After finally getting a response from the owner of a 1999 Corolla, and having a Ford Focus owner flake out on me, we were in the car en route to look at what had to be the most ambitious car purchase I have ever helped someone make, the owner wanted $700.
First impression was better than expected, the car did have some rust around the windshield, and rear quarter panels, but overall was in reasonably good shape.
A short chat with the owner revealed he bought it used in 2005, and drove it 100 miles a day for work, he had the transmission replaced twice in it. Every word he said about the car I could verify, the transmission looked clean with no fluid leaks, he stated one of the struts were replaced, sure as shit I could see a new strut under the car. This guy was making it too easy.
We go for a test drive, and the car drives straight, has good power, the transmission shifts buttery smooth, and aside from a very small exhaust leak, everything works perfectly, EVEN THE AIR CONDITIONING!
We return from the test drive, and I am lost in a sea of confusion, "how ever can a $700 car, run and drive as well as this one?" admittedly, it wasn't perfect, the tires were very much so down to the wear bars, and uhh... the door handles were a little loose. But as far as a good runner goes, it drove better than some cars I had driven priced at 3-4 times what it was listed at.
"whats your bottom line?" I say to the owner
"I wont take anything less than $650" he says
"im not going to nickle and dime you over little heres and theres, its a cheap car, and its going to need work, we came here expecting that. But this is business, and my friend here is trying to get on his feet, would you do $450?"
He replies "ill do $600."
I stopped to think for a minute, and pulled a card out of the Mike Brewer hat. "I see where this is going," I say "and I know where we are going to meet up at, make it $550 and you have yourself a deal, this kid hardly has $600 in his pocket, I would have to spot him"
The guy laughs, shakes my hand, and grabs the title. Success! a running and driving Toyota for under $600.
On the drive home, I could see how incredibly excited he was, and I realized something. I helped this guy buy his first ever car, and I got to help someone else get on his feet, and I never thought I would see someone feel so excited for a rusty old Toyota.
I told the kid if the car needs anything to let me know, and I will teach him how to fix it, and he should invest in a good set of tires as soon as he had the cash.
All in all, it was a pretty special day for me, and im pretty sure I made his day too.
TL;DR, have a friend who got kicked out of his mom's house, needed a car to get to his new job, he had little to no money to work with, found him a reliable car and barely spent half of his budget, he is excited, I feel good, everybody is happy.
Submitted May 26, 2017 at 08:01AM by iamnotcreativeDET http://ift.tt/2rFdtDm cars
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