LT64

As stated before, neither the auction house or the previous seller have said a thing to me after trying to reach out with my frustration. Also, I did not have time to perform a PPI before the auction closed, but I did get one done as soon as it arrived. While the tech that performed the inspection did comment on the whine, almost a straight cut gear noise, I was told by the seller that nothing was wrong. It was only after the transmission was blown I contacted Todd from Protomotive who ensured me there was no whine with a numeric/protomotive clutch package. What bothers me most is that this mess could have been avoided had the seller been honest with me and just had it rebuilt. The transmission is junk now. He clearly knew exactly what was wrong and springed his problem onto me to deal with.

s65e90

Why not tag him here? He had this car listed for what seemed like a long time given the market before it hit Pcarmarket.

2fcknfst

I thought that PCAR was the PCA classifieds, apologies.

Bernard IV

114k miles yah you have to test drive that.

pfava1

Sorry to hear that. unfortunately Pcar market place doesn't have the eyes on it that BaT does. The beauty of BaT is there are some many experts (or not) on there who can pick up on these sort of red flags in the comments section.

TheDeckMan

Sorry to hear about the unfortunate condition of your 6tt. Personally I would never buy a car of BAT or any other auction site unless at a steep discount to cover "what if"s. The FOMO craze has driven prices up on problem children that normally would end up sold to entry buyers not afraid to put in the sweat equity to sort a car out. Personally have done that a couple times and ended up with a well sorted car. However each time there was a discounted price because of unknowns that laid in wait to vaporize bank accounts. The auction setting generally does not work well for purchase of cars that you can have checked out/do research on vs person to person sales.

IMO BAT and the auction sites are what they are, a great place to dump a problem child on a unexpecting new owner after puffing it up or pimping it on a YouTube channel.

Freddie Two Bs

This sucks and most likely the seller did know something was off with that tranny, but if I were you I'd move on and try to get anything else that th car needs done and enjoy it for many years. Sometimes even low mileage cars can **** you in the *** sideways. On my 996tt between 28k and 42k miles I needed a tranny rebuild and a new clutch. The mechanics said they had never seen a pressure plate cracked like that.

Pcarmarket is by far my least favorite of the big three auction sites (the other two being bat and carsandbids), i find that their reserves are often set to the moon, and there were questions at the begining about some cars where they were representing that they were acting as agents but actually they were principals. Having said that I can't find them at fault here. You can't expect them to have inside info on the cars they auction. Their added value is to provide a platform where people can comment on the car and ask questions, and possibly police after the fact by banning rogue sellers. But I couldn't blame them for the tranny whine turned bad tranny.

vogz

Not to add insult to injury here, but you should NEVER take a seller's word for anything. If an inspection noted the transmission noise after you bought it, you should have immediately addressed it. You drove it 1000 miles after someone told you that noise wasn't normal and now you're mad at the seller because you need a new transmission?

leftlane

I don’t believe anything a new car salesman tells me, much less some dude on an auction site hoping to get rid of a car in the fastest way possible. PPI does not stand for POST purchase inspection - at that point it doesn’t matter what they find, it is now all on you. A 20 year old used car is a gamble under the best of scenarios, and you can be sure the auction houses all have themselves very well protected from any liability. Sucks, but you either cut and run or spend the $$ on a long term keeper that will be in demand for a lot of people.

s65e90

For what it's worth, the used car dealer I just bought my Cayenne from told me the thumping I felt driving was due to low air pressure..... It needed a new transfercase lol.

LT64

Regardless of what you or I think, it would have been nice had the seller been transparent. He clearly knew there was something wrong. I am addressing it accordingly, and this more serves as a buyer beware. Neither parties are taking responsibility or frankly responding at all. I would never recommend buying from pcarmarket. All cars have their issues that need sorting out, and I have had good experiences with other auction websites.

vogz

Of course it would have been nice though most sellers really don't give a crap about being 100% transparent. That's why PPIs exist. I don't think this is on the auction site at all. They don't inspect the cars that sell on there and they are really only responsible for connecting sellers to buyers and making sure the transaction runs smoothly.

Definitely a buyer beware post, and there are thousands of other buyer beware posts all over the internet.

pfbz

That's some hard truth right there!

If you want low risk, buy from a known high end dealer, additionally have a PPI done, and then further put your own eyes on it and test drive yourself. But the price difference would likely have been close to the $15K you are putting in your transmission.

I'm not really a fan of pcarmarket to begin with, but as with ANY auction site, it is not their responsibility to 'vet' the cars they sell nor resolve disputes other than possibly refunding the buyers premium in extreme circumstances.

Turbodan

I wouldn't feel so confident about BAT and others. I have seen BAT take down comments when a rlister, correctly identified a coolant leak on a mezger engine in an auction and BAT took it down.

2fcknfst

The only reason I bought my car used was that I knew it from the day it was delivered to the PO in May 2003 - and I was involved with it all the way along through its previous stewardship.

I would not buy one of these otherwise, in any used car forum or auction site.