Disgusting Shit Stain
I wish somebody would figure out how to disrupt the car buying process. It’s unimaginable how bad things must have been before you could easily find the models of a certain type in your area — you would’ve been completely at the mercy of the dealer at which you ended up. In this day and age, we can narrow our search from home with CarSoup, reference safety and reliability using hard data rather than here-say, and can make decisions outside the pressures of car price negotiation. But, it’s still bad out there.
We found a Honda Element in our price range that looked like it could work, so we went to see it. “Oh, the car was really dirty! We’re cleaning it up.” We drove up the road to the other lot that the dealer owned, where the car was supposed to be. Wasn’t there. Back to the original dealer — OH — there it is, in the ‘detailing’ department of the original location.
‘Really dirty’ was now downrated to this: “The folks who sold this owned two dogs and we noticed some things in there that we wanted to clean up.” We looked at the car for a while. The front seat was still wet from… shampooing. We wondered what was so dirty. “I guess they took their dogs in the car sometimes—no stains from them or anything.” It smelled like dog and some shampoo. Why do you list a car for sale when it’s not ready to be sold? What has been covered up in the cars where we haven’t seen this process?
We said we’d stop back later. Which we won’t. Their lies mean one things, ours another. “I noticed a list of things to clean on the dash,” said Mykala. “It said ‘disgusting shit stain on seat.’” No matter how reliable, we’ll let someone else buy this just-cleaned, gnawed plastic, shit-stained Honda Element.
