This is just a personal venting post. Move on if you are looking for interesting news.

So I’m trying to sell my 1997 BMW 540i, and have posted ads on AutoTrader.com and the like. The car is pretty nice, although not perfect, so I took the Kelly Blue Book value for “fair” condition and dropped the price over $1100 from that. Fairly reasonable, I’d say, against market value for the car.

I got a call yesterday from a guy a few hundred miles away, asking questions about the car. He asked me what kind of condition it was in. I answered every question honestly. Body? The typical number of door dings and scratches for a 10-year old car, along with a couple more notable spots that may require some additional attention. Overall though, it still shines up nicely. Interior? Clean, good shape, clean carpets, no stains, etc. Any problems or defects with the controls? Not really, there is a little bit of paint scratched off on the steering wheel controls but everything else is fine. Anything not work right? Yeah, the right rear window doesn’t go up and down, but the motor still works and all it needs is a little plastic part. OK, he says, and makes me a kind of lowball offer. It’s several thousand below even the “fair condition” Blue Book value, but I’m ready to get rid of the car so I say OK.

He and his wife drive all the way to come get it today, and, long story short, they think the car was misrepresented. They were pissed and didn’t buy it. The clinchers? Some wear on the edge of the driver’s seat (where you slide in and out of the car), and the driver’s door seal needed to be replaced (that’s a rubber strip that’s really cheap and easy to replace, by the way). Those were the only issues they found that weren’t discussed on the phone. Are you kidding me? It’s a 10 year old car! And it’s a damn door seal — that I never even look at or would think to describe to someone! So they left, and drove 3.5 hours back home, because of a cracked door seal and some wear in one spot on the leather. On a 10 year old car. Keep in mind, it’s in better shape than probably about 80% of the decade-old BMW 5-series cars I’ve seen, and I came way down on the price for him. I can understand that some people are looking for a car in excellent shape, but it’s hard to understand his expectations of one that is thousands below Blue Book and in the “fair” condition I clearly described to him.

For the record, the five other people that have looked at the car said it was in great shape. One said, “How do you keep this so clean?” Yet these two managed to make me feel like I was trying to rip them off — at a price far below what I was originally asking. They were understandably not happy that they spent 7 hours on the road today for nothing, but now I feel like crap for no justifiable reason.