'Untested' car parts on Ebay

I would personally suggest that it is being used more and more as a way to cover your ass if you sell something and it arrives broke. As long as they agree you can send it back for a full refund if it doesnt work, go for it.

If they are genuinely trying to flog broken bits they wont offer that.
 
jellybeard999 said:
It's almost certainly broken.
Click to expand...

Rubbish - I've bought parts that are untested before and never had an issue.

It's a risk obviously but a quick look at the sellers feedback and a judgement based on the auction itself will soon help you make the decision.

Obviously you pay accordingly depending on what the risk is worth to you. If they're £400 tested/guaranteed and you buy this for £200, one of 2 things could happen - you could be fine and save £200 or it could be duff and you could be £200 down. The risk is entirely down to you.

If it's duff - sell it as spares or repairs, some numpty will always buy it thinking they can fix it, you might recoup a couple of reddies and you wont feel like DannyW :)
 
It really is hard to test a mk4 nav computer if you don't have a car to test it in so it wouldn't scream scam to me necessarily.

It's not exactly a complicated bit of kit, it's probably worth a go if it's cheap enough. My mk4 ended up costing my 74 quid from ebay with a 'broken mechanism' and a brand new mechanism cost me £100 so I ended up paying £174 all in for a working unit. It now works better than most £400 units for sale on ebay as it has a whole new laser/mech.
 
Wicksta said:
It really is hard to test a mk4 nav computer if you don't have a car to test it in so it wouldn't scream scam to me necessarily.

It's not exactly a complicated bit of kit, it's probably worth a go if it's cheap enough. My mk4 ended up costing my 74 quid from ebay with a 'broken mechanism' and a brand new mechanism cost me £100 so I ended up paying £174 all in for a working unit. It now works better than most £400 units for sale on ebay as it has a whole new laser/mech.
Click to expand...

this is true

if in doubt, buy another one and combine the two to make a working one. Then sell the spare gutted one with two broken bits as untested to somebody else who will do similar things with it.
 
98% of the time it will be option b). People are generally optimists, and "Untested" sounds like you are in with a chance of a bargain. "Tested and found to be completely knackered" tends to put most people off ;)
 
What you have to ask yourself is it swill worth round about what you'll end up paying as a decarled broken item if it is indeed faulty?

I find people are either too savvy or completely retarded when it comes to buying on eBay. At least you haven't gone in eyes wide shut, but I'm wouldn't be afraid to take a punt. There's always someone on a car forum who's landed some rare part for 99p becasue nobody else would take the risk, and they're smugger than MS after 7 titles.

If you really want one of these and don't want the potential bother, get a declared working one and pay more. If you're not shy of faffing about for a weekend then take a punt. If it doesn't work there's usually an independant guy or even an ICE specialist who may be able to fix it up.

It's one of those things that will probably become rarer and more expensive or by the time one comes up you'll find the next ideal car instead and forget about it. Wanted a few things for the CTR which I could have got cheaply under the same circumstances but never bothered.
 
I sold some parts as "untested" a while ago

as they were genuinely untested I also added that I would give a full refund if they didn't work

If folks think they are good then there is no reason they can't do the same, if they don't then I would avoid
 
Rotty said:
I sold some parts as "untested" a while ago

as they were genuinely untested I also added that I would give a full refund if they didn't work

If folks think they are good then there is no reason they can't do the same, if they don't then I would avoid
Click to expand...

The problem then is that someone could just swap the good parts out and then say it didn't work.

As I mentioned before mk4 nav computer is very hard to test (well, almost impossible) if you don't have a working car with navigation to test it on so it's not unreasonable to sell it like this.
 
OllyM said:
No it doesn't take full postcodes, the Mk4 does exactly the same as yours. Even the brand new BMW iDrive satnav doesn't support full postcode lookup.
Click to expand...

Is that a feature of the system or the map dvds? I know of some unofficial dvd maps with full 7 digit postcode poi and speed cams, but for the mrk 4only
 
The map DVD's - BMW hasn't bought the postcode database data for some bizarre reason. The unofficial DVD's add postcode search as POI's, it's really clunky and doesn't work how you would expect it to.
 
Sukh said:
How is having a Tom Tom a a ***** trait? So all the Aston Martin owners that use portable Sat Nav are *****?
Click to expand...

Nothing worse than a cruddy suction cup mount stuck to the windscreen with a curly cord running down to your cigarette lighter socket.

It looks foul.
 
Got a contact number for the guy? Ring him up and see if he answers the phone going 'alllwiiighhht maaaaaate'

If he does I would avoid :p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom