Date:         Thu, 7 Jun 2001 23:20:25 -0400
Reply-To:     The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Subject:      Re: seeking advice about long-distance Vanagon buying
In-Reply-To:  <10e.e05599.2850d935@aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

> As one ardent observer of human nature once told me, EVERYBODY lies.
> In my experience of buying Vanagons, I have to agree with him.  I have
>  viewed 5 vans which were advertised on the web.  I
> bought 2 of them.  One purchase was, in comparison, honestly
> represented and the seller was a pleasure with whom to deal.
> The rest sucked.


My experience with buying vehicles long-distance couldn't have been more
different from yours.  In fact, my observance of human nature, too, is quite
the opposite; that if you trust people, you will, in the vast majority of
cases, not be disappointed.  And even if you are burned once or twice in
your life for having assumed the best of people and being let down, consider
on the other hand the cost of _not_  doing so.  How many doors would you
close to friendships, experiences, and opportunities in life by not
extending the hand of trust, just because once in a while it could be
bitten?

Okay, enough armchair philosophy... With regard to the specific question at
hand...

Before I started The Bus Depot, I found myself between jobs with a mortgage
payment due, and needed to find a way to support my family temporarily. So I
put my knowledge of VW busses to work by locating non-running rust-free
'70's Westfalia campers on the west coast via the internet, buying them
sight unseen, having them flatbedded back east, fixing them up mechanically
and reselling them. I would look for a solid, rust-free Westy with a blown
engine or other major problem; once it arrived here, I'd seek out a junked
donor that had good mechanicals but was simply too rusty to restore (not an
umcommon situation around here), and turn two busses into one.  It worked
out well, although it was not easy.

In the process, I bought maybe a dozen busses from people sight-unseen over
a period of time. Most of these were about $500, but by the time I paid for
cross-country transport they were more like $1500.  They each had a known
major mechanical problem, but it was absolutely critical that the body and
interior be nice, or else they wouldn't be worth anywhere near the $1500
that I would end up paying before even starting on the mechanical work.  So
when I called the sellers, I asked them _very specific_ questions about
condition: location/size of dents, rust, paint damage, rips in the
upholstery/canvas, etc. etc.  (Asking the right questions, very
specifically, was crucial.)  I trusted the sellers to be honest in their
description of the vehicles.  But I also trusted them far beyond that:  Once
we came to an agreement, I overnighted them payment in full, in exchange for
promises that they would mail me the title, give the bus to the transport
company a week or two later, and not sell it out from under me if they got a
better offer.  Worst case they could have stolen my money, leaving me the
only recourse of flying cross-country to try to get it back.

Not once was I intentionally ripped off.  Oh, on a few occasions there were
minor disappointments, but not due to dishonesty on the part of the sellers.
In a couple of cases their idea of condition differed from mine, or they
overlooked something that I might have noticed had I been there, but clearly
none of these was a case of intentional misrepresentation, nor were the
differences huge.  Of course, I also was realistic about my expectations.
If I was looking for an absolutely mint vehicle and was concerned about
every little scratch or mark, there would have been no substitute for an
on-site purchase.  You can't be 150% picky when buying a vehicle
sight-unseen, you have to be realistic. I was happy if the vehicle was
_almost_ exactly as described, and it was every time.

The Bus Depot exists almost entirely due to my experience buying and fixing
those busses. I had never expected it to turn into a long term thing.
Busses were my hobby not my business, and I had only done what I did due to
the neccessity of paying the bills while I looked for other work.  But in
the process of dealing with bus owners,  I really became impressed with many
of the people who drove those old VW's. Generally down to earth people,
honest, real, open-minded; some who were just a little quirky and took the
road of life just a little slower, kind of like their chosen vehicles.  The
kind of people I liked to meet.  (In fact, two of them went on to become the
godparents of my 3-year-old daughter!)  All of the sudden I began to wonder
why I should go back to my "real" career at all.  So I took a sharp turn off
of my own life's course, invested the meager profits from the sale of the
busses in a website and a few dozen pieces of inventory, and never looked
back.

- Ron Salmon
  The Bus Depot, Inc.
  www.busdepot.com
  (215) 234-VWVW