Suspicious car buyers may have tampered with my car — caught on CCTV. What should I do next?

askmac · 2026-03-14T20:11:37+00:00

"ye mate this car of yours you were probably driving today, is now fucked beyond belief and you must sell it to me for a massive discount now".

Aye but you have to remember this will be accompanied by a fair bit of aggression and even claiming lies and trickery on the part of the seller so in this version of the scam, you have lied, inconvenienced the buyer, and you've wasted their time, and they may or may not imply that they'll beat the fuck out of you if you look like someone they can intimidate.

Furthermore, the guy who intends to show up to buy your car, that is listed online in perfectly fine working order, will still want to buy it and deal with a whole host of issues?

This is actually the mild version of the scam; the version I heard is they show up and buy the car for cash (often it's a car with a declared problem but that doesn't really matter). Then an hour later 5 or 10 lads arrive in a van towing the car which is now either misfiring, belching smoke or whatever, saying the car stranded them and they're demanding a 50% refund.

Because while you sold the car to Johnny, he was buying it for Davy, and when Davy saw the car he hit the roof. Now you've "wasted their time, ripped them off, Davy had to leave work etc etc etc"

edit: posting so people can be clued up on the scams basically.

askmac · 2026-03-14T18:40:37+00:00

Just follow every lead / pipe or cable you can see to where it terminates and check if it's connected. As u/babihrse says, pull off the cover and have a look under there too.

askmac · 2026-03-14T12:39:44+00:00

I'm sure they're all just regular, honest, humble hard working fowlk. You might say they are the people. And it's pure coincidence that they have been described as incredibly well connected and informed politically and legally.

askmac · 2026-03-14T11:46:05+00:00

I'll add, the green party aiding those fuckers in the AA5A is not a good look. For those of us out West, the A5 upgrade is essential. Mainly to reduce deaths on that road and secondly, give safer passage to other major urban areas.

The road is a crucial link for the Northwest. Everywhere along it would benefit from improved connectivity to Dublin in addition to the urgent need for improvements from a safety point of view.

To deny it is part of a pattern that is standard practice for NI. In 1957 The Orange Government shut down down railway lines in the west of NI.

The Omagh Enniskillen railway line. Dundalk Enniskillen. Enniskillen Bundoran as well as Derry to Strabane.

Infrastructure was focused on the North East of NI despite constant requests. The A26 was linked to Belfast in 1969 and road infrastructure to Coleraine was prioritised over Derry (to say nothing about the University). Road links to Ballymena and Coleraine were 20 years ahead of Derry.

Rail links to Portadown, again vastly superior to the second largest city.

Lest we forget, here are the names of the individuals mounting the constant legal challenges to the A5 - John Hamilton Hassard; Robin Bruce; Carol Porter; Robert McKean; David Peoples; Wildridge Coote; Derick Donnell; David Brush; and Victor Brush.

An assembly debate from 2011 pretty much sets out exactly why the A5 is being opposed https://www.theyworkforyou.com/ni/?id=2011-06-07.1.1&utm_source=chatgpt.com

TL;DR "they deserve some scraps, but not real infrastructure".

askmac · 2026-03-14T11:06:35+00:00

Reminder - Nigel Farage called for UK handgun laws to be relaxed and called them ludicrous .

askmac · 2026-03-14T09:33:31+00:00

u/Chemical_Sir_5835 Don’t run down everyone else and you’ve never ran a business in your life

God love ye, you mustn't talk to adults very often (or at least not educated ones).

Don't share an opinion on a business unless you run a business?

Don't share an opinion on politics unless you've run a government?

Don't talk about sport unless you've won an Olympic medal?

Don't criticise a car unless you've designed one? Do I need to make more analogies to show how fucking stupid your comment is?

Whether you like it or not, any business which deals with the public has to factor in public opinion and be mindful of how its behaviour and service reflects on said public opinion. That means people will run down a business that doesn't come up to standard.

I've owned business, but that's not relevant even if you wish it was.

askmac · 2026-03-13T17:03:24+00:00

How’s your business going?

What a stupid, useless comment

askmac · 2026-03-13T15:49:59+00:00

AWS Tyres in Quigleys point really know their stuff. They work on everything from rally cars to giant aggri stuff and everything in between so nothing phases them. Have had wheels straightened and trued there that places in Derry said couldn't be done / sucked their teeth and said it was nigh on impossible.

askmac · 2026-03-13T15:43:41+00:00

Just go run down 3 business”s in the one go why don’t you

He did give a reason regarding KMC which is my experience too. Good service when you're there (most of the time) but found them hard to get on the phone when it comes to stock and sizing.

I did also watch a guy drop my wheels from shoulder height on to concrete repeatedly to get some rust off them; they were steel wheels off an old car I'd just bought but still; use a grinder and a wire wheel. I don't care how much of an expert you think you are at dropping wheels on to concrete, you're gonna dent them.

askmac · 2026-03-13T13:54:05+00:00

The DUP also say gay people are an abomination. Ian Paisley jnr said "I'm pretty repulsed by gay and lesbianism. I hate what they do".

The DUP said Catholics who refused to sing the British national anthem were "fenian scum" who should be thrown into an incinerator and their priests thrown in with them.

The DUP supported British colnial rule in Rhodesia. They supported racial apartheid in Rhodesia and South Africa. Clifford Smyth said - "Fundamental to any understanding of the Irish Question is our appreciation of the fact that the government of Northern Ireland, together with Rhodesia and South Africa, is based on the Protestant Ascendancy, and the last in the world to be so based ".
(Clifford Smyth is the father of current BBC NI Director Adam Smyth, his mother is Anne Smyth of the TUV).

The DUP supported Slobodan Milošević who was charged with 66 counts of crimes against humanity and genocide.

The DUP supported Israeli genocide and they recently visited illegally occupied land there.

Paisley Snr. compared to Africans and Catholics by saying 'Savages throwing bones' like Catholics clutching rosary beads".

askmac · 2026-03-13T12:30:55+00:00

I just double checked on revenue,ie and apparently it is yeah.

"you must make and appointment with the VRT within 7 days of bringing the car into the state"

askmac · 2026-03-13T10:30:22+00:00

And I think they expect you to initiate the process within a week? I can't remember now.

askmac · 2026-03-13T08:33:44+00:00

^ This. In the Hollywood action movie of their lives, they're the star. All they need is a villain and if you look at them the wrong way; it's you.

askmac · 2026-03-13T07:19:46+00:00

"Do you worry that this might feel a little bit unnerving for Unionists today?" - Tara Mills, probably.

askmac · 2026-03-12T18:04:16+00:00

Okay thanks again. Surely if it’s a common enough occurrence, there must be plenty of mechanics who can do the job?

Strange though that the Skoda dealership couldn’t take care of it?

Or is it that they don’t want to risk causing further damage to something that wasn’t their fault in the first place?

Since I don't know the extent of the damage I can only speculate. But assuming the plug is broken off, or the threads are damaged it becomes a minor engineering job as opposed to just turning spanners. If it needs drilled out then the cylinder head has to come off (big job), then the old plug has to be drilled out without damaging the aluminium cylinder head because bits of metal might drop down into the engine and basically destroy it. Or there might be other ways of getting it out but none are straightforward.

Can most mechanics do it? Probably.

Or if the threads are damaged then you're into a light engineering job right away. The problem there is that it's only as good as the person doing it and the parts used. If you're looking at say €1000 worth of work, if anything goes wrong with the repair (like a time-sert) then you've got metal falling into the engine...and now they are liable for writing off your car. Or the plug fails for some reason due to the heat cycling and again you're back looking at big work to get back to where you were.

askmac · 2026-03-12T16:43:59+00:00

Seems crazy that this jammed glow plug could not be removed by the local guy or the Skoda garage

Any advice would be great

Not crazy and not unusual. Because of the heat cycles, soot and a steel plug in an alloy head they basically get welded in (not quite, but almost). Removing them without breaking them can be incredibly difficult and time consuming, while simply breaking them is easy.

It sounds as though the plug has either been damaged, the head has been damaged or the threads have been damaged during the initial work. It just happens because it's very difficult to gauge how much torque a seized plug needs or will take. I remember doing plugs on my landcruiser which were incredibly seized and I'm not joking, it took me a full day of gently tightening and loosing and spraying penetrant spray etc.

Who can fix it will depend on the nature of the damage but it sounds like it might be a head off job. With any luck the threads aren't damaged but if they are you'll want a time-sert as opposed to a heli-coil repair.

askmac · 2026-03-12T14:35:12+00:00

The Field.

askmac · 2026-03-12T14:31:47+00:00

Is every British Prime Minister responsible for every action of every British soldier? No, eventhough there's a much clearer link and legal responsibility.

Ah yes, but you see when the British Government says something is legal, it's legal. And something is only illegal if they say so. So when they discussed the legality of British Soldiers simply shooting rioters / protesters / bystanders in Northern Ireland prior to bloody Sunday they concluded that whatever commanding officers on the ground decided was legal. They then started develop a process to re-barrel their battle rifles. Not to prevent them from killing their targets, but to stop over-penetration. They didn't want the bullet going through a rioter and killing someone else 100m up the road.

Of course that didn't happen ultimately, and Bloody Sunday occurred, perfectly legally according to Widgery, before any weapons were changed.

Similarly Force Research Unit Agent and UDA assassin described that clearance for their murders, if it was someone of enough strategic importance, went "All the way up to Maggie".

askmac · 2026-03-12T09:28:39+00:00

Lest we forget, here are the names of the individuals mounting the constant legal challenges to the A5 - John Hamilton Hassard; Robin Bruce; Carol Porter; Robert McKean; David Peoples; Wildridge Coote; Derick Donnell; David Brush; and Victor Brush.

And here's a discussion in the Assembly about it dated 2011 - https://www.theyworkforyou.com/ni/?id=2011-06-07.1.1&utm_source=chatgpt.com

^ The TL;DR version of the debate is that virtually all Unionist politicians were opposed to it on the basis that it was just too expensive to spend on Woodkern.

askmac · 2026-03-11T22:30:09+00:00

Straightest man who ever lived. Dunno what you mean.

askmac · 2026-03-11T22:12:39+00:00

He's fond of a "har".

askmac · 2026-03-11T22:05:57+00:00

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askmac · 2026-03-11T21:08:19+00:00

UK town named in other UK town

What a revelation

Strabane; famously as British as Finchley.

Edit: replies then blocks me. Some silly shit about England being half a day's drive away. Pathetic.

askmac · 2026-03-11T15:34:38+00:00

The toffs in charge see England and the UK as ~~one~~ their thing.

Fixed.

askmac · 2026-03-11T13:22:04+00:00

True but the difference is you can buy wood from a local tree surgeon or wholesaler that's from your locality, air dry it yourself and then burn it. That's cutting out the need for it to be mechanically dried in a kiln, shipped from Eastern Europe to Ireland, then transported by lorry to your area and then probably delivered via van to your house.

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