Bad Luck or Shady Deal?

Project2G · 11-06-2008

So Monday morning I go with a friend to Riverside, CA so he can trade in his 99 Honda Civic and get financed to purchase a 1992 Nissan 240sx. The place is called Blessing Auto Market. http://blessingautomarket.com/index.html This is a used car sales lot with two small lot's. One has normal cars and when I mean normal I mean unmodified in any way. The other has a large banner titled Inland Drift. This "Inland Drift" lot has about 10 cars all in which have modifications done to the car to not make any of them pass CA state emission laws. There are about 4-5 240sx with turbo sr20 motors and a fully built ae86.

When we get there my buddy asked the salesman (Rudy) why the car has a not on the windshield that reads "Car not for sale, please ask staff for more information". Rudy the car salesman informs us the note is incase DMV people stop at the lot it doesn't look like they are selling non street legal cars. My friend takes the car for a test drive and the car runs and feels great. Boost was at 13psi and idled perfect. I asked the seller how do they get away with smogging these cars and he said I can not tell you that. But then a few minutes later he said he has a hook up at the DMV. After the test drive we go over to the other lot since that's where the finance guy is located. They work out that my friend will trade in his 99 civic and get 3k which will be used as the down payment and make 16 monthly payments of $402.

After my friend finished all the paper work they made him call his insurance company and take the civic off his policy and add the 240 to be full coverage (Prgressive insurance). Right before we left Rudy was telling my friend if we ever get pulled over to just have the hood latch unhooked so we can pretend it's broken and can not pop the hood. He also said "by law I have to tell you this car is for off road use only".

Now for the meat and potatoes!

We left the dealership on our ride home in this car and everything was going great. We are on the 91 freeway which is about 5 lanes wide with an additional 2 lanes for Toll Road FastTrak owners. We were in the fast lane going 75-80mph when we could smell something burning. Then we felt the bumpy ride and could feel like a flat tire just occured. We changed lanes to start to head to the shoulder when all of a sudden the car slid sideways counter clockwise a little more then 180 degrees towards the center of the freeway. I can see we slid through 3 lanes and slammed into the wall with the passenger side rear hitting first (pass rear tire blew). The passenger side of the car is on the wall with the driver side on the freeway if that makes sence. Sorry no pics. My buddy the driver hit his head on the roof near the driver side window and door shut knocking him unconsious. My kneck was strarting to hurt but I was inshock of the situation. His head was hung over the steering wheel and he was not moving. I began to try and get him alert so I know he's okay. He was breathing and probably after 35-40 seconds he was consious but did not know what happened. He never moved and stayed hung over the steering wheel. After about 5 minutes the CHP showed up and emergency personel came. The fire department put a kneck brace on him and pulled him out of the car. I had to get out of the car on my side through the window and climb on the roof. Thank god the car did not roll and thankfully we had our windows down or glass would have been everywhere. They took us to the hospitol where we found out he had a severe concusion, bruised ribs, partially punctured lung, and kneck pain. I just had kneck pain and headaches. I rode with him since I had no ride home plus I wanted to find out his condition. He stayed the night in the hospitol and I went home.

His medical bill came and he owes around 10k. Do you think he should get an attorney? Or will his insurance company probably go after him? I still wonder why we spun out? I've had a blow out going 80 on my gst but it was the front passenger side tire. Is it because the 240 is RWD?

Just wanted to vent.. Thanks for the space. Oh and we don't know the condition of the 240 right now since it is no longer in the tow lot, the insurance company came and picked up the car. The car still starts up. That I know because the CHP started the car two get it off the wall.

1992 Nissan 240sx

Unknown mods
-Megan Racing suspension
-sr20det motor w/ hks turbo
-Megan full turbo back exhaust no cat
-Silvia front end conversion
-Blitz FMIC kit

Exterior
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...%20240sx/5.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...%20240sx/6.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...%20240sx/7.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...%20240sx/1.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...%20240sx/8.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...%20240sx/9.jpg

Engine
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...%20240sx/4.jpg

Interior
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...%20240sx/2.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...%20240sx/3.jpg

**Kracka** · 11-06-2008

Sounds like a very shady dealership, but at the same time your friend was knowingly purchasing a used and modified car with unknown history that was not legal for use on the streets as the dealer stated. I would say let the car insurance company handle the situation since that is there job and why they are being paid.

awd-drifter · 11-06-2008

what did the 'burning smell' smell like? depending on how the driver drove at that speed, i dont think it is possible to actually spin out unless you force the steering wheel plus depending if he pressed on the brakes or not. can you give more detail if you remember right before the car slid? i know how ya feel man, this is some scary shit, but more detail of how the car felt before it crashed would be great.

I do agree with Kracka on this one also, because the dealership did tell you guys it was only an off-road use only vehicle.

craig · 11-06-2008

sucks looks like it was a nice car, let the ins. co. deal with it though.

iceminion · 11-06-2008

I doubt that the car dealership would intentionally sell a car that was a ticking time bomb, its very likely that the tire went flat, and since the car is RWD and twitchy, lack of experience (going from fwd to RWD) driving an RWD car and not stock suspension resulted in this crappy situation.

Remember these cars are light and made to drift....even if it is into a wall.

DSMs are more stable, and alot heavier.....a flat on a stock DSM with 205/55r16 and a flat on a drift 240 with 235/30r18s are two totally different animals.

I would contact the dealership, tell them what happened....if you use your words right, they may help you because they probably want to continue selling illegal cars and not get any attention from the law.

buy a 240 shell, swap the parts in, call it a day.

MustGoFaster · 11-06-2008

Bummer on that deal.

As for why he spun out, these are my thoughts on possible causes. The car looks substantially lowered, that tends to screw up suspention geometry as well as make it easy to lift wheels off the ground. If the car wasn't properly aligned after the lowering, having a wheel lose grip to counter act the forces of the other improperly aligned wheels = spin. In this case I'm thinking excessive toe in, on the rear, causing the tires to run hot, blowing one before the other, then the surviving one sends you around. With out seeing the tires I can't say for sure. Did you by chance take a look at them? I would understand if you didn't. It would be easy to tell, the outside shoulder of the tire would be worn worse than the inside.

TkrPerformance · 11-07-2008

that sucks it was a nice looking car. let the ins. get it worked out. +1 with ryan with a messed up alignemt

**Shane@DBPerformance** · 11-07-2008

I think it's extremely shady for a licensed car dealer to be selling cars like that and I wouldn't have bought from a place like that, but it does really suck for your friend and regardless he was somewhat taken advantage of, even if the car wasn't known to be messed up by them.

Project2G · 11-07-2008

Thanks for your input guys. At the moment we are waiting to hear back from the insurance company and I have returned to work.

brando · 11-07-2008

Megan Racing suspension!!!!!

these are absolute shit. horrible quality