I bought a 1956 Thunderbird from the Dave Rafus at the above company on what I thought was an E-By purchase. Mistake nuber one as I negotiated a "Buy It Now" price two or three hours before the auction ended, without pressing the "Buy It Now" button on the computer. So E-Bay consideres it an off auction transaction and will not help me.
The car is reprsented in the ad, which I still have, and by Mr. Rafus as a frame off 2 year old 2000 mile restoiration. This is not so. When the car was delivered to me by enclosed trailer on August 13, I could not even drive it home without it stalling out on me
The next day I took it to a mechanic. The fuel tank had to be drained, the fuel lines cleaned, the carburator taken apart, cleaned, and put together properly as two hoses were reversed and the electrical going to a resistor was hooked up wrong, points replaced and the points replaced.
The next stop a few days later was to fix the power steering as the ram was leaking profusely. Also the car was pulling severely to the right when the brakes were applied and a front engine mount was broken. This is still not 100% resolved.
Other mechanical problems are the heater does not work and the radio/cassette unit will not play a cassette.
The interior is inferior. It had deep ucts in the right hand side of the dash, the carpet is faded in spots, and the seat cusion looks like it has 25,000 miles on it. More important the trim on the doors does not line up with the dash. There is a bout a 3/4" difference.
The doors have about a 3/8" gap tow here it meets the body and th passenger side door probably needs new hinges.
So far I have spend about $1200 on this car and will probably spend $3000 to $4000 more to bring it up to what it should have been.
I have about 45 carefully taken picures that were posted on the Speedway Auto Mall website along with the ad for this car. They were taken to avoid showing any of the body and interior defects.
I have had several classic cars over the past 27 years and know what a 2 year old 2000 mile restoration looks like. I also know a lot of peoppe who collect and they agree with me.
Ultimately I know I should have looked at the car. However deception is deception.
I have sent Dave Rafus and Speedway Auto Mall two faxes stating my case and they have refuseed to acknowledge them. I also taked to Mr. Rafus once who said he would get back to me and did not.
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