Maybe you can relate, this is what happened to me this week.

First you need to understand my precise situation, so here goes a quick explanation I am living in a foreign country and I wanted to buy a car so I've checked some online adds and I've found a BMW 120I for around 130000 in this country's currency which is about 5k euros, the car had only 100000km on the tachometer (for those who don't know much about cars, this is the deal of a lifetime) so I've filed the online formular and sent it.
The next day I got a call from them, but the operator did not speak english, (well actually she did speak English because she explained to me in a very clear English that she could not speak it...) this was the first wake up call, there will be some more throughout the day, please bear with me, this story will be useful for you if you want to buy a used car.

So, I was saying that the operator told me that she could not speak English so that she would tell an English speaking colleague to call me. (which never happened) they somehow later found my girlfriends number and called her phone (this is another story, for another time), aniways, I finally was speaking with an English speaking car salesman who told me all the car's information and how the next steps were to be.

This is what he told me, the car was not in this sity so I would have to go to theyr office, give them a 2k down payment (around 90 euros) to insure that I was serious about buying it, afterwards they would import the car to the city and I could go try it the next day.

So this is what I did, got. Got in my car weant to the ATM got some money, weant to the city, spoke to another car salesman, luckily my girl spoke with him because no one there was wiling to take the leap in English, we made an appointment for the next day to test drive it and I've payed what would be a refundable 2k.

...jump to the next day...

There was I, ready to try the car, so the salesman took us to the car, of course the car was parked at the end of the parking lot so that we could 'fall in love' with the beemer while we walk towards it. So the salesman took the key and started the car, (immediately I heard a cringing coming from the motor bay, the kind of cringing a door makes when you open it, now this was a relatively new car, it should not do this noise but I told myself that it was normal, the car was probably sitting for a while... After the motor ran for 2 minutes the noise stopped, so I forgot about it and weant on to inspect the car and don't get me wrong when I say inspect, I really mean check everything out. This is a good deal but it is still a very big investment which can easily go wrong if the car is not in good condition.

So I started looking for Sines of wear, there was small cracks in the front windshield small scratches on the rims but nothing really bad, the interior was perfect, so then I weant on to the motor bay and this is where I saw that something had to be wrong!

I tried opening the motor bay and the lever didn't want to cooperate, this can look like a small thing to the untrained eye but it is not that small of a detail, it is a purposely made mistake by the mechanic so that I wouldn't be able to access the motor, so eventually we got it opened.

And there it was, the motor, finally!

Actually if anione who reads this knows about German cars, they will know that when you open the motor bay, you will not see the motor, only a bunch of plastics covering it, actually in this particular model you can't even see the battery which is in the coffer.
Aniways I started looking around, whatever I was able to access under and through the plastics, and I could see that there was some rust on the motor, which is weird for a car with only 9years. Aniway, I decided to give it a shot, it was a very good deal after all. So before I weant for the test drive I just stopped the motor for a second and I've took the oil cap off and smelled it(car enthusiasts will know why) I've immediately noticed that the oil was brand new, so I said to the salesman,"Uau brand new oil" and his words immediately convinced me that something was wrong with this car, he said "-of course, we have to".

You see it is true that a car salesman wants the car to perform during the test drive so he will probably change the oil and filters before he takes you for a drive, the car will respond better and in my case he did not only change all of that, he also boosted the car's power with the computer, I've noticed because the car had way too much power in the first 2 gears it was like trying to taim a wild horse.

You see this is a brand new BMW with 100000km for 1/6 of the price with amazing power for 5k euros.... This car should sell himself, why would the car salesman want to have everything so perfect? I was still convinced of the great deal....

To be continued