A man who thought he had found a cheap second-hand Tesla online had his mechanic stop him from buying it at the last second because he knew it was a loss.
Jeff Zarif, from Wollongong in central New South Wales, haggled with a seller on the Facebook marketplace from $56,000 to $45,000 for the used Tesla.
The seller said the electric car needed to be sold as soon as possible, so Zarif texted his mechanic, Mitchel Pedavoli, to see if the paperwork had been reviewed.
Pedavoli did a quick search of Tesla’s vehicle identification number (VIN) and discovered that the car was not roadworthy, making it illegal to sell in New South Wales.
“Don’t even touch it with a three-meter pole, friend, because it’s out of the question,” was the response Mr. Zarif quickly received.
Jeff Zarif, from Wollongong in central New South Wales, almost wasted $45,000 on a second-hand Tesla before his mechanic, Mitchel Pedavoli, warned him not to buy it.
Pedavoli did a quick pre-purchase inspection and discovered the Tesla was missing.
Zarif said that if it weren’t for his mechanic, he would have wasted tens of thousands of dollars because the car had also voided its warranty.
“I would have been stung because those Teslas are only as good as their warranty really,” he said. told Yahoo News.
It is illegal to sell a written-off car in New South Wales, but Zarif claimed the seller got around this by simply registering it in Queensland, where the legislation is different.
Currently, it is still legal to sell an unroadworthy car in the Sunshine State, but new rules will be introduced that would align more closely with New South Wales laws.
Queensland is one of the only states that does not have this type of legislation and others have had it since 2010.
Zarif said he immediately retracted the purchase and the ad was withdrawn shortly after.
He added that this was not the first time Pedavoli had saved him from spending money on a damaged car with a simple pre-purchase inspection.
Pedavoli (pictured) charges $250 for pre-inspection purchases, where he checks that a second-hand car is in good condition before spending money on it.
Pedavoli offers the service for $250 and when Zarif previously asked him to check a Jeep Grand Cherokee, he discovered that it had a broken cylinder head.
That particular piece would have cost Mr. Zarif between $5,000 and $6,000 if he had decided to go ahead with the purchase and replace it himself.
“Some people are investing their life savings into a car and if they find out it’s not reliable, they probably won’t feel very good,” Pedavoli told the publication.
During the pre-purchase inspection, Mr. Pedavoli thoroughly looks for accident damage or leaks on the vehicle, as well as a simple VIN check.
A car’s VIN contains valuable information such as whether money is owed, details of the warranty, whether it has been voided in a collision, flood or fire or whether any of the parts have been dismantled and replaced.
Pedavoli said the most common thing he found when inspecting used cars was Damage from accidents, oil leaks and tampered odometers.
