......
So, a round trip of nearly 8 hours, all due to a complete and utter lying .
My brother decided he wanted to upgrade his 199,000 mile Sport LE and fancied the later model HSE Lux. However, his budget didn't quite stretch that far after spending £30K on renovating his house in recent weeks. But we did find one on Ebay. Cat N, light damage, repaired. So did all the due diligence and asked a million questions, got a CarVertical check etc and it all checked out.
"Yeah, all fully repaired and ready to go, it was just the bumper and a scrape on the rear door" said the vendor "Mint mate, can't fault it." Sent us a few videos to reassure us.
4 plus hours on the motorway due to closures and accidents, we finally arrived at the address - a posh, new commuter estate on the outskirts of London. As we drove around the estate searching for the vehicle, we were aware of residents seemingly not too happy with our presence - probably thought we were drug dealers in an all black 4x4 with privacy glass !.
We found the Freelander and immediately our hearts sank. It looked like an unloved wreck. We got out and the first thing I noticed was the bonnet was high at the back, like it had been pushed back in the bump. I looked under the front arch - the plastic inner wheel arch was all smashed and not fitted behind the lip of the bumper and something was protruding out of it from under the bumper. The paintwork all round look like it had been cleaned with a brillo pad,the "scrape" on the door still remaining, all 4 tyres were worse for wear, the wheels all chunked and kerbed. The interior (Cream leather) was black with wear, the rear d pillars on the outside were faded grey. Nobody came out of the house, but we were aware of a Ford Ranger pulling up on the opposite side of the road and a man and woman getting out. A cursory glance at them as we were fuming and cursing the "f***ing piece of s***" as we got back in to the car and drove off. We stopped just down the road to refuel with food and drink and on returning to the main road, noticed the Freelander right infront of us. As we passed it, my brother commented that the driver was the guy that got out of the Ford Ranger and that there was something really dodgy going on as he immediately cut us up and floored it, going down the slip road , weaving in and out of traffic to the motorway. We surmised that he was parking the Freelander in the posh estate in an attempt to legitimise the sale. £140 down on the day, eight hour round trip to look at a "mint" shed and witness to a 4 or 5 car smash on the M25 on the way home.
I contacted the vendor via Ebay this morning and asked him if there was any damage that had not been repaired or if there was any paint needed. He responded thus , "Hi, no it’s done and ready to go👍🏽".
2013 Land Rover Freelander 2 2.2 SD4 HSE Lux CommandShift 4WD Euro 5 5dr _ eBay.mhtml

How frustrating for you!
Looking on the brightside, at least you hadn’t had to pay a deposit.
I’ve always been wary of wrote offs. A company I used to work for, years ago, used write off repairs as company cars; they looked good, but never felt right, with electrical glitches and signs of inexpensive repair work.
Sorry for your wasted day.

Take the positive that it was only time and a bit of fuel and you had not parted with any cash

"We surmised that he was parking the Freelander in the posh estate in an attempt to legitimise the sale."

Gosh - you can trust nobody. Jules

[quote="John E."]
I’ve always been wary of wrote offs. A company I used to work for, years ago, used write off repairs as company cars; they looked good, but never felt right, with electrical glitches and signs of inexpensive repair work.
Sorry for your wasted day.[/quote

Yeah, brother reckoned that's what it was. Like a pool car, hence the state of it because nobody gives a damn about damaging it, because it's not theirs.

He's decided to keep the Sport LE, despite the high mileage, because he knows it inside out and he pampers it like a child.
He reckoned it was an omen that the HSE Lux was a bag of . An omen telling him to keep his, but spend a few quid making sure everything was tip top . So he's booking it in Monday for a comprehensive service to extend it's life for another few years. It really does look new inside and only has the odd mark and stone chip to the paintwork. The underside is also rust free.
It also still pulls like a train and doesn't miss a beat. Apparently the previous owner used it as a motorway car for his business, hence the high miles. But he had it serviced and valeted on a regular basis. And it shows. If you rolled the clock back to 80K, you'd well believe it.

I think that you are right to obey the 'Devil You Know' principle.

I think that a lot of people's first reaction to getting an expensive or difficult fault in a car is to sell it on.
So it pays to beware of any private or cheap vehicle offered sale without a warranty, unless you have discounted any time and/or effort you may have to spend getting it reliable.

If your brother is keen to upgrade/change his FL2 but still has a reliable FL2 running, then, if I was in his shoes, I would make use of the opportunity to put a 'Saved Search' on AutoTrader and wait until the ideal replacement turn up. FL2 XS SD4 Auto 2010 2012-2017 (21k - 91k miles) (MY2011)
FL2 Metropolis SD4 Auto 2014 2017- (16k - 79k+ miles) (MY2015)
Metro in its 11th Year of (Extended) LR Warranty / Full LR Service History
(Expensive, but Trouble/Worry free - hopefully?)

Buying stuff privately is a minefield. There was that scandal of motorhomes being sold that already had a chatel mortgage on them and it didn’t show up on finance checks etc, and some people lost a lot of money. Have to be so careful

The last two cars I owned and sold I had mixed feelings about, because when I tidied them up to make them sale-worthy I fixed a bunch of cosmetic and mechanical problems that I had been putting up with for years.

One had blemishes on the B pillar that were at eye level, so every time I got in the car... It polished out in about 30 seconds, all gone just like that.

The other had a faded headlight and some scuffs in the clear coat from a prior owners use of a brillo pad on some trees sap, some split rubbers and a cracked mirror housing. A couple of parts, a full paint clean and compound after some judicious wet sanding and it scrubbed up very nicely. I left the mirror housing though, because if I fixed that it would have been too hard to let the thing go! It looked and drove like new.

It was the right time to sell them, but after putting in the work I did have a stronger attachment and it was a struggle, so I hope your brother can find some contentment if he does the same. The grass may be greener, but it can hide a snake.