If you’re like me you spend a fair amount of time perusing classified ads looking for that next great bad decision. Over the years I’ve come to really appreciate a well put together ad: great photography, a well-written and informative description and all the relevant specs. Given this, one of my big pet peeves is when people get even the most rudimentary info on their cars wrong…like, dead wrong.
And I’m not talking about the geeky stuff, like number of valves per cylinder or final drive ratios…I’m talking about which of the wheels of your car are the driven ones. How many cylinders your engine has. Stuff like that.
Real…basic…stuff.
Don’t get me wrong; if Mini comes out with a RWD Mini Cooper, I’m all over it. But I don’t think this one listed for sale in Huntington Beach is a one-off. Yet, it came up in my list of rear-wheel drive cars as that’s what the owner thinks it is.
Just this one sitting produced the above Mini, a 2007 BMW 335i with a 4-cylinder under the hood if I’m to believe the seller. Add to that a bevy of FWD BMW 3-Series and RWD Honda Civics. There were even a couple RWD minivans because why the hell not.
Could some of these be a case of checking the wrong box or making a type-o when submitting the ad? Possibly. But if you really wanted to sell your car, wouldn’t you take an extra couple seconds to make sure everything’s correct before submitting? I’m not sure which is worse; not caring enough to get the basic info correct or not knowing the basic info in the first place.
My point: if you want to sell your car, you need to know a little about it and double-check your work. If your Hyundai Sonata is listed as a manual and it’s really an automatic, its invisible to buyers who search for automatic cars. If you don’t know this info on your car, look it up or ask a friend.
That is all 😉
