Hammer Time: Here You Come Again!
If I had the choice to meet anyone in this world, it would be Dolly Parton. Politicians, rock stars and ‘modern day philosophers’ are always aplenty. Look at who wrote this sentence! But there is only one Dolly and every time I see a car get no-saled at an auction and revisit it’s old haunting grounds, I can’t help but think of this song and smile.
Every dealer will go through this terrible addiction of casting off an unloved car that they have too much money in. Seeing it no-sale at the auction week after week, and watching their no-sale fees go steadily to the three figures, seems to be a rite of passage for virtually everyone I know. It finally happened to me last year on a 1995 Volvo 960 wagon that I could never get running right. Several mechanics. Frequent visits to the brickboard, and a healthy level of spending couldn’t save it from being a glorified paperweight. I finally moved it to a junk sale and sold it for $700 which was $400 less than what I paid for it… not to mention all the towing and repair costs that were a complete waste. God I shirk at the thought of all the money I threw at it.
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Steve, I enjoy reading your articles. You help me grasp the successes, struggles, and failures you face. Pardon the long link, but here's Dolly: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://s0.ilike.com/play%23Dolly%2BParton:Here%2BYou%2BCome%2BAgain:67982:s2510569.8119295.10485389.0.1.84%252Cstd_cfa7a6d646f4b96ca189617568185829&ei=CrVKS72cI5O1tgeKpZzkDQ&sa=X&oi=music_play_track&resnum=1&ct=result&cd=2&ved=0CAgQ0wQoADAA&usg=AFQjCNFHdHsywJrmuHo_qUSjwcQYYTIEUg
As her good friend Kenny Rodgers would say, "You got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away, know when to run."
or when to part the contraption out and auction off the parts on eBay.
A long time ago, I worked for an Acura dealership that would take anything in on trade. Two lot landmarks stand out: an Alfa Romeo GTV6 2.5 (which eventually sold for way less than we had in it- the damn thing was in the shop more than on the lot. But still...) and a gray-market Benz that came in with sketchy adoption papers and left with an even less-credible bill-of-sale.