Nice Car's response to peterdaniels accusations

I have read all the posts in the various threads but didn't take notes. It would have been cleaner to keep it all in one thread and I may have missed some of the finer points.

I wouldn't pay that much for a Passat that old unless it had been stored at Harrah's.

I wouldn't fly to WA for the privilege especially after hearing all the bad, supposedly first hand, reports Peter did. He said he wanted to see for himself. He did and found what he expected.

But you asked what I would do.

IF for some reason I did go to WA and found the discrepancies he did I think I would have called the cops. If the guy had the paper trail showing he was the victim he would have been in the clear. If not he should've been turned in.

If I had played it up on the internet ahead of time I would simply state that there was a VIN discrepancy and didn't buy the car. I wouldn't be calling the guy names and accusing him of fraud especially without talking to him first.

Points taken, thanks.

I probably would have done something similar.

I would have posted something online after the fact, however, just as a record to other people in the future who may be thinking of going there. Not as a deterrent, but so they would have information to make their own decision, like what Peter did. If this truly is a case of NC's getting the car in that condition, then then that should be made known to other people as well.

I hold no animosity towards NC's and think they have quite a business there restoring B4's. I hope they continue to keep as many on the road as possible.

Abacus said:

I hold no animosity towards NC's and think they have quite a business there restoring B4's.

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That's kind of the problem, though. A business that specializes in "restoring", with many googleable dissatisfied customers, is going to have a "chop shop" aura around it. Nobody is out of line for suspecting the worst here. Whoever swapped the VINs -- and every subsequent purchaser -- was sloppy, to say the least.

Lets say that Nice Cars did indeed get screwed. OK, thats fine, its a plausible excuse. And lets say that despite everything rational to the contrary, their story holds up. How about an apology to me for wasting a day traveling and renting a car to come and see this car? Or my 500.00 dollars that I will never see again? YOU should have known about this car. Nothing in your story holds water. Nothing. I offered you a chance to make good and show everyone that you are indeed legitimate and can and do sell top quality B4's and have an offer on the table to buy from you.....

But nothing.. Not even a response to what I have said and the requests by the other members for very simple and legitimate information.

The silence is deafening...

I don't think it's in their business culture to respect or understand that people are using scare resources to visit their facility for the purpose of buying cars. It probably took many years and many victimized people to ingrain that culture in their mindset.

peterdaniel said:

How about ...my 500.00 dollars that I will never see again?

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I was going to mention that they could save face by reimbursing you, but if they gave an 80-yr old man the finger for his 10-mile busted timing belt, we can guess how this request would be received.

It is mostly on you though. You had enough warning signs that they were fishy, but you still wanted to see if it was good enough to be true. It reminds me of that new MTV show, Catfish, where people are online-dating an impossibly-hot chick/dude for months, but for some reason the hottie is never able to video-chat, or meet in person. And when they finally do meet.... yikes.

edit: IANAL, but you could probably sue them in small claims, or even better, on Judge Judy. I'm sure they'd like some free TV publicity.

Since you have an interest in this White B4S-TDI Passat, we are sending you an update on the investigation. The Florida State Police got back to us and suggested we inform the Florida Dept. of Motor Vehicles as the State Police are the muscle of the DMV and their job would be to arrest somebody if directed by the Florida DMV. We told the Florida state Police we had contacted the DMV of both Washington and Florida. When we first looked into this we discovered the Florida company we got this White Passat from said they "got it an auction" and we called the auction and found out they did indeed buy it with that serial number. Therefore we assumed it was a car that just passed through their hands. However, information that we just received this morning may point to the selling Florida company as being the actual culprit who may be responsible for this car having different serial numbers.

This morning, Feb 25, 2013 we spoke with "Aura" of the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles. We found out the company we bought this car from there in Florida bought it in 2005 from an auction. They registered in their company name in 2007 and received a title then. That title is the same Florida title we got with the car when we bought it.. So they had this car in their possession for 6 years before we bought it, from 2005 until we bought it in March of 2011. Six years is plenty of time to switch cars and serial numbers. Here is another interesting fact. In June of 2010 the other Passat was sold in North Carolina. We say then "other Passat" because this car we have here was apparently the result of joining two different cars. So the other Passat" according to the history report was sold in North Carolina in June of 2010. We called all the auctions we could find in North Carolina and finally found the auction in China Grove, North Carolina that sold the car. They confirmed it was sold June of 2010 to "a Florida Company". Because of privacy laws they weren't allowed to tell us the actual name but they will release that information to law enforcement. June of 2010 was during the same time the Florida company had the first car in their possession. Because of the possession and the dates it appears the Florida company may indeed be the guilty party.

Also today we had the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Dept. come out and inspect the car. They filed a report, ran the VINs and neither showed up stolen. He suggested we take it the WA State Patrol for serial number inspection. That inspection office is only open on Thursdays so we will have it there for an inspection and show them all our paper trail. We are also awaiting the "compliance officer" from the WA DMV to get here to do his inspection. We are also waiting for whatever info we will get from the Florida DMV. We will continue to keep you informed.


Thank You,
Nice Cars

Maxwell/Forrest,

Are you going to answer as to how the painted panels, the door jamb VIN sticker and the missing trunk decal eluded your trained eye for an entire year while you personally drove this car?

Willful blindness or incompetence?

I would be interested in getting all the contacts and their numbers you spoke to.

peterdaniel said:

......... How about an apology to me for wasting a day traveling and renting a car to come and see this car? Or my 500.00 dollars that I will never see again? ............

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Sorry, there are no refunds from the Roman Baths ..........

Thank you for the update, Nice Cars. I, for one, am interested in the conclusion. It sucks to have to go through this and I hope the guilty parties are found and prosecuted, since there may be more if these cars lurking out there. It's never a good thing to be the victim of other people's messes, especially when they hide it, deny it, and refuse to deal with it despite being the cause.

I guess mines Rust free too!

Abacus said:

From the $10,500 white B4 wagon ad: "no rust at all".

I guess this qualifies as "no rust".

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Mine has less rust than this does that make it pristine

I as well don't understand how a seasoned restorer and sales company would not catch these issues of VIN before putting the car up for sale. You mean to tell us it's normal practice for your company to purchase used cars from an auction, site unseen, have them shipped across country for thousands of dollars, and not do a thorough inspection when it arrives! Whether or not NC switched the VINs they still tried to sell it. What would you have done to make this "honest" mistake up if peter could not register it afterwards? Hopefully more than what you did for the 80 year old man. Your business practices do not instil faith in buying a car from you ever...


Also since you've been selling B4s for so long why did you not join the community until your reputation was being called out (again...w a vengeance)... I now return you to our regular scheduled programming...

It's a good thing they are not selling 12% CD's backed by the Bank of Antigua.

Had Peter not spotted the stamped vin on the body and bought the car, he probably would have been able to register the car in CA since it had a clean WA title with the dash vin number. CA would have likely issued a new CA title with the dash vin number as well and the bad guys who initially swapped the number and tried to flip the car (no matter who they may be) would have succeeded. Its not like the CA DMV actually inspects each car that is registered, they look at the paperwork, ask for the old plate if there is one (most people tell them its lost and keep the plate to hang in the garage or something like that) then process the paperwork, hand out new plates/tags and send them down the road... That is unless they are on break!!! I have moved from and to many different states and I dont think our cars have ever been closely inspected looking for vin numbers or anything else. During emissions testing they look at the vin on the dash and move on. With my 67 Camaro they have been confused since the vin tag is in the door jamb!!!

Actually, i have brought many cars in from out of state. They do in fact, look for the VIN in two different places every time I have registered a car. I would have been royally screwed.

peterdaniel said:

Actually, i have brought many cars in from out of state. They do in fact, look for the VIN in two different places every time I have registered a car. I would have been royally screwed.

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Wow, they never did that with any of my cars/trucks... not when we moved back to CA or when we've moved to other states...

I'm glad you didn't buy that car, don't get me wrong. I think the DMV wouldn't be the only problem with it though!!!

If YOU owned them from out of state and were just bringing them in as cars you have owned AND registered in other states then they wouldnt be so picky... but when you buy out of state and bring it in as a resident of CA, its a different taco altogether

Oh, I did not purchase out of state while living in CA. Here in Tennessee I purchased my Duramax truck from Indiana and they didn't even look at the truck to verify it existed only my paperwork and handed me the new plate after I paid the fees!!!

MaxwellDreaver said:

To all TDIClub members interested -



There has also been comments made that we have totaled cars for sale and are hiding that. It’s legal for anybody to sell a "branded title" car, that is one that is salvage, rebuilt, flood damage, etc. IF they disclose that info to the seller. That disclosure is not necessary for us because we have no - I repeat NO, B4-TDIs for sale with any branded titles. Any and all of you TDI club members are invited to come here and look over our cars, examine the serial numbers and the titles. You can look at how we upgrade these unique TDIs. We'll show you original OEM B4-TDI parts that regular VW dealers don't have and can't get.






Thanks,

Forrest Barlow

NICECARS

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"Forrest"

The white 1997 B4V is in fact a salvaged vehicle. It was involved in an accident in NC by Robert Aliciki. The airbags were deployed, front hood, both front fenders, windshield, front grill and lights were all damaged as well as the rear quarter ( drivers) dented because it got sandwiched in a 4 car accident.

Mr. Alicki said he sold it to you because of heavy damage otherwise he would have kept it as it is a rare 1997 wagon with decent mileage

The ONLY reason its not salvaged is because you bought it with a "clean" title in NC before the insurance company could or was notified. Mr. Alicki says he wasn't going to notify the insurance company. Therefore it looks like a perfectly clean title.

You have not responded to any of the accusations or facts that have been presented. Why not?

I'm waiting for an answer.

okay guys, this just got a little confusing to me. can someone help the dumb guy? i think using nc for north carolina and nice cars has put the dunce cap on me. who again is Mr. Aliciki?

thanks for the help,
ciao,
waltz

Mr Alicki is a man in North Carolina who buys and sells TDi's He has a bunch of wagons as well as Sedans. He sells some of what he gets to Bob in Nice Cars of Bellingham WA.

I almost bought a 1996 wagon from him before he disclosed the extensive rust on the passenger side A pillar.

I still don’t and will never will understand why people get all sexed up over low mileage on these cars?

With the amount of expertise on this site – I won’t name names but you all know who the studs are on this site……J , information at ones fingertips, access to all pertinent parts and reasonably priced parts across the board there is ZERO reason to let low mileage (claims) drive emotions or significantly drive up the purchase price. No way would I pay 10k to 12k for any of these sedans but that is just me

Nor is high mileage a reason to run for the hills. Yes, wrecks and mismatched vins are real reasons to be concerned.

My car has been a west coast car most of its life and my main concern when purchasing was body/frame condition and was it priced about right from a market perspective – compared to other cars of it’s age and what I am looking for. Again, I would not pay $10k to $12k for any of these sedans and thought I paid a premium at $4k for a car with 240k on it even though I knew a lot of items would need to be replaced as it was destined to be my daily driver.

I am not defending the guy from Washington in any way, shape or form BUT the onus is on the buyer to check his/her emotions at the door when making these purchases. I have seen way too many horrific stories about people paying very high prices, anywhere from $6k to 12k on these cars then completely freaking out when things start wearing out / breaking ultimately blaming the seller.

My guidance? 1. Use this forum 2. do some homework before hand 3. don’t overpay – a mint condition 17 years old car is still a 17 year old car 4. Use this forum and finally 5. Use this forum……………………………….yes everything will need to be replaced at some point.

This is a good case where peter did his homework

While I agree with you on most of your points, I have to comment on some of them.

High mileage is all about wear and tear. Its about seats that are worn out, fabric that looks beat, creaks and groans, old rubber, worn bearings etc and general overall condition. 8/10 times a low mileage car will be in better condition assuming all things being equal.

I too, and to some extent will always be in favor of low miles cars. They are easier to resell since I have always sold my cars rather quickly. Same thing for sunroofs. I always look for the ones with the moon/sunroofs ( factory) because they resell better. Nevermind the fact that most people ( including me!) never use them LOL!!

The awesome people here on this forum though have changed my mind. Like I was explaining to a friend of mine the other day, I look at the B4's as something to keep forever.. and to rebuild as necessary because you can NOT find anything like these cars at any price. The combination of comfort, room, ease of servicing and of course fuel mileage is nowhere to be found anywhere else.

Thats the draw of these cars. Thats what drives the high emotion. But many if not most people who buy these look at the fuel economy and see nothing else. So they dont understand the things that are involved in owning one and most have no desire to learn or work on it themselves. They simply want to get in and drive.

The biggest problem comes from when a company like Nice Cars promises all these great things and either doesnt do them or creates an impression that they do everything. I will still say that assuming they do everything they say they do AND the body/paint is as good as they say it is then the price is whatever people will pay for them. Look at what 12K and 16 K will get you these days. Nothing comes close. They at Nice Cars know this. Thats why they push what they purportedly do so hard. That creates the value.

But all else aside, I agree. With these cars the only thing that truly matters is the condition of the body and rust issues as well as a legitimate title/VIN. Its just really nice to know what the true miles are... However, like so many old cars, the odometer issues become part of the folklore and the car essentially is just a tool. Does it work and work well and is it sound in body?

If yes, then thats all you need to be concerned with

funny i just noticed you are in campbell.................i am downtown s.j............

So the other part of my post on setting expectations prior to and after purchase is in this list: here is what i have done to my car over the last 85,000 - i tried to group into categories to make this easier:

Installed New or Did:
1. Side markers, Headlight polishing, 9005 headlight upgrade, HVAC lights
2. driver window and regulator, redline boots
3. full paint job including dent repair, sunroof seal, trunk seal, 2 cup holders
4. New AC unit, Voltage regulator
5. 2 CV axels/joints front, rear rotors drums and pads all the way around, Bilsteen Struts & Shocks, Both Ball joints
6. Muffler, water pump, ccv tube, oil cooler and seal, harmonic balancer, OEM cam shaft, new battery, new starter, new radiator, motor mounts
7. Intake cleaning, vacuum line and n75 upgrade
8. savage yard tail lights and trunk lock, passenger door handle
9. 520 injectors, SAACHS clutch, New borg turbo, Turbo supply and return lines, Hammer Mod

and this does not include the new timing belt changes along the way...........So the total
cost to do all of this was $10,500. I am not a mechanic but i do have a very good one
and i use this site religiously. If someone would have showed me this list would i have
paid >10k for the car?? emphatically, no.

But i am totally fine with what i put in versus what it delivers in performance and cost:
I do love the car, it only let me stranded once in 4.5 years and the OVERALL cost of
ownership is still lower than anything comaparable - i don't care what year it is from..............

We should get together and shoot the breeze. Feel free to email me.
Pete

thank you for the clarification.

waltzconmigo said:

okay guys, this just got a little confusing to me. can someone help the dumb guy? i think using nc for north carolina and nice cars has put the dunce cap on me. who again is Mr. Aliciki?

thanks for the help,
ciao,
waltz

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Mr. Alicki is also known to buy these cars and mark them up considerably but neglect to mention the problems with them, which is why he got them cheaper than usual in the first place. Do a search on here and you'll find more.

The term 'unscrupulous' comes to mind.

abacus---i searched "Aliciki", as spelled in post #50 and it only brought me back to this thread. off to do a proper search, thanks for correcting the spelling, i remembered the name from this or another thread but obviously search came up with nothing.

Did someone say that Mr. Alicki is in North Carolina? Isn't that where Prothe is? Coincidence?


Y.