Earlier this week we asked for your worst stories involving car gifting. For a lot of enthusiasts, it can be an exciting prospect to either make use of vehicles after their previous owners no longer use them or to share a passion with younger drivers. However, gifting doesn’t always work out for the best. Recipients may be ungrateful for the car or the gift might not have the best intentions. Without further ado, here are your worst car gifting stories:
This memory was well and truly suppressed until now...thanks Jalopnik.
In high school, I had a longtime girlfriend who had come from some serious adversity. Long story short, her dad was gone, her mom was dead, and she found herself living with her aunt and uncle who were a bit...rough. Despite him working in SF Bay Area tech, they refused her real financial support other than the roof over her head and food in her belly.
We were both really into cars and would regularly check out used car lots just for fun. Senior year we came across a VW Cabriolet Etienne Aigner Edition. Now, she loved cars and she loved “fashion” so she was obsessed. Her birthday was just around the corner so my dad and I decided to give her the money for the car for her birthday (it was $2,500).
Unfortunately, her aunt and uncle decided it wasn’t a good car (perhaps right, but it was a “cool” car) and instead used the money to buy the uncle’s mother’s car. A 1992 Mercury Cougar...it broke both our hearts.
Then she cheated on me freshman year of college so it was all for naught anyway. C’est la vie.
Submitted by: SantaCruzin6
I was once ‘given’ a 1960 Mercedes 220S sedan, “because [I] restore cars.” It was so rusty the spare wheel just about fell through the trunk floor while it sat on my driveway for about 6 months. I stripped it of the most valuable parts (the carbs, etc.) and donated them to my Mercedes mechanic.
I found out later, the 85-year-old man who gave it to me died on the same day I took it to the car crusher. I received $300 for scrapping it.
Submitted by: Yo...MTV Raps!
I had a gold 1996 Buick Roadmaster that my parents gave to me when they got themselves a Cadillac. I loved that car. It was smooth, quiet, and quite a rocketship for its size.
I had it a few years and took excellent care of it. The inside and outside were immaculate. Everything was there and worked. Well, except the Limited Edition hood ornament that had flown off on the highway and smacked the windshield.
My wife and I were in a pretty good place financially, and her maternal aunt was not. She had made some poor life choices and suffered some health issues. The Caprice she had inherited from her mother died, and my wife and I decided we could give her the Roadmaster, and I would get something fun!
On the night we took it over, she and her kids (from multiple deadbeat dads) were all smiles when we handed over the keys and title. They took it around the block, and when they came back, they had all the seats leaned back and were blasting music from the speakers with the bass cranked all the way up.
I winced as they drove up. It was like watching a dignified elderly lady being harassed by a bunch of punks.
It was in the junkyard in less than a year…
Submitted by: Anthony Thornton
I have a pretty rough one - for my 25th birthday, I was gifted a car of my choosing from a wealthy relative and to this day, I regret going with a brand new B7 A4 instead of a low-mileage CPO E46 M3.
Submitted by: daftskunk
About 15-20 years ago, I was asked by my friend if I could look at his BIL’s Pontiac. The car had belonged to some relative of the BIL and had been sitting in the BIL’s backyard since he had inherited it.
Long story short, the Pontiac in question turned out to be an early ‘50s four-door sedan with no drivetrain, no interior and quite possibly a family of raccoons living somewhere within the rusty remains. The BIL had towed the Pontiac from his relative’s yard when the relative passed away in 1990 or so, with dreams of restoring it to its former glory.
The BIL offered the car to me for $2000, then $1500 and finally $1000. I declined. Two days later, my friend called and said his sister (the BIL’s wife) said I could have the car for free if I could tow or drag it out of their yard.
I think they finally paid someone to haul it away.
Submitted by: Earthbound Misfit I
A sad one I’m afraid. My dad’s best friend bought his son a Lotus Elise. He drove toward the end of the road on his first drive at a fair speed, a recovery truck cut the corner entering the road - they crashed and the son hit his head on the B-pillar and roof, was in a coma for 2 months before they turned off the machines. There’s the saying shit happens. It should be “shit happens all the fucking time.”
Submitted by: treessimon
Not a gift per se, but when I got a new car a long time ago, I sold my old Ford Tempo to my sister for $100 because she really needed a car. I had been driving the car for 3 years without an issue, and then it broke down on her after 2 weeks and was unrepairable. I felt really bad, but at least I didn’t make her pay a fair price for it.
Submitted by: Thomas Hajicek
Summer, 2007. My FIL had recently passed away, leaving us his early 90's Subaru Legacy wagon. 140,000 miles on it, 5-speed stick, purple-ish with grey cloth interior. Not in bad shape for a 15-year-old car that lived most of its life in Wyoming.
My son was graduating HS that summer, so I told him I would bring the car out to him (I’m in CO, he’s in CA) as a graduation gift. Prepped the car for the 1100-mile drive, and averaged about 30 MPG (mostly downhill, but still).
Spent a couple of days teaching him to drive stick, then I flew home. He kept the car for a while, then “re-gifted” it to a close family friend, who promptly totaled it. The replacement he got? An SN95 Mustang, with an anemic V6 and an automatic.
Submitted by: mlogue
My second car was a gift from my aunt when I was in high school. After my ‘86 Chevy Celebrity sprung a leak in the radiator she gave me her ‘88 Accord with 250k miles on the odometer. A week later it ate the transmission. Thankfully my grandmother paid for a rebuild and that car ended up being pretty amazing. Worst part about it was being stuck in the middle of nowhere when it happened but a free car was a free car so bummed some rides from friends to school for 2 weeks and that was it.
Submitted by: xvflutop
One year for my birthday my mom “gifted” me my own S-10 that I was already driving, paying the insurance on, had paid to have repainted after someone hit it in the parking lot, and was maintaining. My insurance went up exponentially because the registration address changed to where I was living.
Another time, I had gifted my wife a Dodge Neon, and then I borrowed it to drive to work and I unceremoniously broke the motor driving it spiritedly home. In return, I had gifted her an SRT-4, that she spectacularly scattered the motor in on a drive home from a doctor’s appointment on a boost pull when the wastegate line tore. She said, “It was running really good, and then sounded funny for a second, and then I heard a loud bang and saw lots of smoke”.
Submitted by: IDRIVENEON
When I graduated college my parents got me a Dodge Caliber on a lease. I was rear-ended by a drunk driver a week later.
Submitted by: thank you, earl
Not Christmas, but a birthday gift.
I sold cars for a few years while I was attending college, 2002-2007. I worked in what would be considered a high-wealth region. The county was in the upper threshold of median incomes for the country, and specific towns were even higher. Ben Bernanke was elected to the school board in the town where this story took place.
A dad comes into our shop, has a daughter in High School who was turning 17 in a week and he decided to buy her a new car. He was very specific. The new RAV4, pearl white, oak leather, sunroof, AWD, effectively loaded.
we didn’t have the car, but they were around, so we settled on a number, found the vehicle, swapped a silver one for it, and went on our way.
Then he asked us to deliver it. Ok, no problem, what’s the address?
The high school, at the time the students got out of school. That should have been enough of a red flag, but whatever he paid for us to deliver it, and we needed to sign paperwork and everything at the delivery, so once he had the keys, he can park it and do whatever he wants.
So we arrive ahead of time to a back lot of the school, sign everything, and then they leave me behind to show the new owner how to operate the car, set up their phone, etc. All things Toyota requires of the delivery process. So we agree that after the daughter comes out of the school they will bring the car around and we can get everything set up. He jumps in it and pulls it directly in front of the main doors, slaps a bow on it and has a big sign for her saying happy birthday.
She comes out of the building in a crowd of her friends and starts screaming. Not with joy, though. SCREAMING at her dad that it was the wrong car, that she doesn’t want some cheap Toyota, that she wouldn’t be caught dead in something like that. Etc etc. At this point, he’s trying to show her how it had everything she wanted for equipment and was the right colors, and such and she is having NONE of it. She repeatedly screamed it was ugly, and that she hated him for not getting her what she deserved (IIRC some Mercedes or BMW X3 or whatever) When I tell you this went on for 15 minutes, it could have been an hour, I have no idea. I was so completely overwhelmed by the onslaught of entitlement and bitchiness that was pouring from this 17-year-old.
Meanwhile, the mom has arrived and sees the car for the first time and takes the daughter’s side. Starts laying into the guy about how stupid he is to think she would want a Toyota.
So I’m standing there like 200 feet away trying to get another 2000 feet away. And he comes over hat-in-hand and asks, “What can we do to get out of this deal?”
So I wind up driving him and the RAV4 back to the dealership where we unwind the deal as best we can (it was cash, but notarized documents and backing out checks, etc) take our cut for the restocking and vehicle swap, etc. And send him on his way to deal with that.
It was easily the most uncomfortable I have ever been due to someone else’s behavior, and I have 3 kids of my own who have done numerous stupid things.
Submitted by: PotbellyJoe and 42 others
Car gifting is a staggeringly stupid idea. It costs thousands of dollars, it has incredibly subjective taste, and of course comes with a looming threat of steep repair/maintenance costs... rather than have this person hate me for gifting them ‘a problem’, I’d much rather write them a check with a suggestion to buy the nicest Toyota they can afford.
Submitted by: Killing Time