1966 Ford Thunderbird

Coupe Coupe

351

Automatic

Clear

Gasoline

1966 Ford Thunderbird?? BEWARE - on the surface my listing looks great, but it’s full of errors that make it look great and lure you to bid. For example, the first photo is not of the car I’m listing (but that is not of any significance to PayPal’s Vehicle Protection Plan). My purpose is not to sell as I don’t have anything to sell, but to make you aware of a questionable, similar listing which I was unfortunately the winning bidder. I returned the car, but lost my $1000 deposit. The car has since been relisted – noting the buyer’s (me) wife said NO. I find that an untruth as I’m unmarried and my wife passed away about 4 years ago. And they know why I returned the car as I pointed out each of the errors in their listing! They did promptly return the cash balance money I gave them, but why not – they still have the car AND my $1000 deposit. FLASH 1/30/2016 -- The questionable listing has been removed - because they no longer have the car???Also, please check my payment requirements in this listing - for your amusement.The following are my findings and opinions about the listing which is basically unchanged from the original listing even tho the seller is well aware of the listing’s errors. The quotations are from the original listing. It seems their description had a couple of significant errors under the Power Options. That is, the car DOES NOT have power door locks and it DOES NOT have power seats. If you know what to look for in the photos, you can see there is NO door lock switch (on the console below the seat belt warning light/above the power window switches). And the seat positioner knob on the lower, left side of the driver’s seat is a manual seat knob, not a power seat controller knob. These are huge errors in my opinion as it would likely cost thousands of dollars to have just these two options installed. ”The 390 engine runs great and is tight with no blow-by.” Yes, there may be no blow-by (whatever that means), but the oil pressure at warm idle is below the O on the oil pressure gauge – which is much too low in my opinion, maybe only 10 -15 psi. “We also got the front door power windows including the wing windows to work as they should.” Perhaps the driver’s window worked for them, but it did not work when I had the car. “As the Thunderbird sits, it’s a great running example that you could take to local cruises”. Well, as it sits perhaps you could do that, but you’d be violating the law driving it because the brake lights do not work. These lights are not fused; rather they are protected by a circuit breaker – which seemed to missing in fuse/circuit panel. “Also the sequential turn signals work as they should and so do the dash lights as shown in the pictures.” As it’s illegal to drive the car without working stop lights, it may not be relevant that the sequential turn signals DO NOT work as they should. They should sequence thru all three rear lights, but on both the left and right side, they only sequence thru two lights – the last lights do not turn on. The dash lights worked for me only if I turned the Lights knob all the way to the interior lights ON detent. They didn’t dim, unless you consider OFF to be dimmed. It appears the dash light dimmer rheostat is not working properly. So, with all of these obvious omissions and errors in the listing one would think the Ebay/PayPal Vehicle Protection Plan (VPP) would cover me. Unfortunately it did NOT help in any way. The VPP doesn’t’ cover cars over 20 years old. And it doesn’t apply to non refundable deposits - stating clearly the buyer must exercise due diligence to verify the listing is without any errors. You have to carefully read the listing’s Payment info. The listing had (and still has) a NON REFUNDBLE $1000 deposit requirement. It’s there, you just have to dig deep to find it. (Hopefully, the seller will correct the listing after seeing this missive.) The Ebay/Paypal VPP loophole turns out to be a license to steal - which some sellers may be using, i.e. my listing. How you may ask. I list a collectable car over 20 years old with a zillion description errors to make the car appear to be fully optioned and near perfect and require a high, non refundable deposit. You win the bidding, pay the deposit, and can’t wait to see your new toy. If you are lucky you can drive to see it; if unlucky you pay for shipping to get the car – and then you see you didn’t get what was described on Ebay. You complain and the seller may give you some of the money back that you paid for the car – less the non refundable deposit of course. That’s my story. A good bad seller may inform you about the errors before shipping the car. A bad bad seller will let you pay the shipping. If you are fortunate and do not pay the remaining balance, the seller still has the car, relists it, is already $1000 ahead, and likely another couple of thousand more from the next non refundable deposits from winning bidders. Now this I see as Ebay/PayPal allowing sellers to defraud buyers. I hope this is of some benefit and educational to you. I can assure you, you won’t be happy if you win this auction!