If you are selling a car privately please read as this happened to me last month and Mrs Dukesox has subsequently told me she has seen posts on FB where others have had similar experiences. We advertised a car on Ebay and after a few days a guy arranged to view it. He turned up as planned and had a couple of blokes with him. They were in a nice newish Mercedes. All 3 looked and sounded like young versions of Pops from League Of Gentlemen, Google him if you are not sure . The car was running beautifully as it always has in the time we have owned it. The guys asked to look under the bonnet and then I guess I was distracted by 2 of them talking to me while one of them did something to the car . I subsequently took them for a test drive and after a couple of miles the car began to smoke terribly. It was awful, smoke billowing out of the exhausts. It was so bad I expect to receive a visit from Greta in the near future ! I drove home carefully but did note that there was no drop in performance. Once home the buyer offered me 50% of what the car was advertised at after informing me that the engine was phuqued in his opinion but he was still happy to buy it as he is a mechanic and could fix it himself. I politely declined but he was quite insistent . Eventually he got the message and left but called me another 3 times over the following week. The car went to our friendly local garage where other than the black smoke and a layer of oil on top of the coolant the mechanic could find nothing wrong. He drained and replaced the coolant and then went for a drive, came back and repeated the procedure a couple of times. By the 3rd time the car was running clean and clear. I have since done a few hundred miles in it with no issue. The mechanic is convinced that the buyers did something to make it smoke for 20-30 miles and then clear as he serviced the car 6 weeks before it went on sale and it is running beautifully again now. In future I will make sure only 1 person at a time is close to any car I am selling so I can keep an eye on him or her and please bear the above in mind if you are selling a car. Had I fallen for this and sold them the car it would have cost me thousands.
Should report this then if someone else does get this happen and report it a pattern appears, I bet some people fall for this scam
thanks Chris I didn’t realise slimy toads had that effect, I’ll keep well away from ponds when selling
That is quite bizarre as it is a VW Touareg we were selling and after the test drive one of the slimy toads (thanks @Chris ) did put his fingers in the coolant tank.
Maybe oil in the coolant is part of the scam to show you your head gasket has gone. The cause of the smoke will be some other dirty trick.
I've just noticed my slip up.... Please note I don't always have the European Research Group in my mind.
From all of the replies so far I think it most likely oil was squirted up the exhausts while I was talking to one of the buyers at the front of the car and then after the test drive the buyer had some oil in his hand ready to drop in to the coolant reservoir. He suggested the cause of the oil there was the head gasket having blown. We have cctv but unfortunately the car was parked in a blind spot so I cant prove anything or report a crime.
there is no real easy way into intake manifolds these days. maybe a quick sqirt of somthing down a breather or vacume pipe. where was the smoke comng from? out the exhaust or under the bonnet. its an EGR valve btw.
Out of the exhaust. It was clean white smoke as opposed to the dirty black smoke I would have expected with a blown engine.
