<VV> Another ebay scam - NO Corvair

[Tony Underwood]

At 07:59 hours 07/20/2005, Dave Morris wrote:
>Y'all be careful on eBay.
>
>Two weeks ago I went to look at a 1983 Porsche 911 Targa that was 
>going for under $10k and was in excellent shape.  Test drove it, 
>looked at the engine, all spotless and beautiful.  I noticed that 
>there was no current inspection sticker.  Actually no inspection 
>sticker at all.
>
>"Yeah, it's actually NEVER had an inspection sticker".
>(Uh oh.  It's a grey market car.)
>"You mean in 22 years it has never been inspected?"
>"Never needed to.  The original owner never inspected it, and we 
>bought it from him and never inspected it"
>(Hmmm... wonder who the car is registered to!)
>"Why?  Won't it pass inspection?"
>"We don't know if it will or not.  We still have the original 
>exhaust system over here in the garage if you want it".
>"I''ll buy the car if you get it inspected first."
>"We'll throw in the exhaust system but we won't get it inspected for you"
>"Why are you selling it?"
>"We're moving to Virginia"
>(Aha, they can't get it registered in Virginia without an inspection sticker)
>"Never mind.  See ya'll later!"



Nope...  something else is going on with the car.   VA does NOT 
require a state safety inspection before you register the 
vehicle.  I've registered vehicles in VA that didn't even run... one 
didn't have an engine but it had tags/registration and thus the city 
couldn't gig me for having an unregistered vehicle in the 
driveway.   Maybe they could have gotten me for "inop" but a visual 
drive-by wouldn't alert them.

More than likely the car doesn't have DOT smog gear on it and where 
it had lived before may have required the car pass smog before you 
could tag it.

Now:   Depending on where in VA the car might live, it may or may not 
have to pass a sniffer test.  NoVA has lots of traffic congestion and 
they sniff.   If it flunks the sniffer, it has to be corrected or 
they yank the registration.   Southwestern VA doesn't sniff.

If this Porsche was a grey market import, it likely had no smog gear 
and thus would flunk a serious sniffer.   I'd imagine this was the 
case with this car although in VA you do NOT have to inspect the car 
to register it.

If you were still interested and the car was still available and had 
a clear title and you were able to check out its heritage, AND your 
home state doesn't require sniffing on an older car, it may still be 
a valid deal.

Again, it depends on where you are and what your local Gestapo 
demands.    Where I live, this wouldn't be an issue.

tony..