In the beginning of september 2003, I was specifically looking for an atmost 3-4 yr. old Honda accord 4-dr sedan with leather and manual transmission. I found 2 locally, one was black (already have a black car) and the other was gold both of which colors I was trying to avoid. Then I found 3 such cars on eBay motors. Two of those 3 sellers didnt have enough strong feedback for me to trust them. The third seller was maugillman who seemed to have quite a few good feedback. On further investigation it turned out that this guy is a Dealer salesman based in Austin. Actually Gillman Auto   turned out to be the biggest auto dealership in Austin TX. So I called up the guy and negotiated for about 5 mins. and I got the car for the price I wanted and he seemed to be happy about the price. Auction closed on 09/03/03.

Next few days went very smoothly while I sent him the check and he sent me the papers for me to sign. Anyway paperwork was done, and I decided to drive the car down to the San Francisco Bay area from Austin. I didnt want to risk it with the shipping companies since it was driveable distance.

Now the fun began. We flew to Austin on 09/13/03, Saturday. Wilson (name changed for anonymity) had been informed and he picked us up at the airport. Everything was ready, we saw the car was exactly as pictured on the auction. Well, it had 58000 miles on it, so the obvious car door bumps etc. were there which werent very clear in the pictures but werent exactly unexpected.

So we were on road within an hour witha full tank of gas, courtesy of Gillman Auto. We were planning to drive about 620 miles the first day and stay in Las Cruces, NM. We drove on I-10 W no problems for about 8 hrs. to reach our Motel in Las Cruces. Had a good night's sleep. Got ready next morning to check out and have breakfast an leave. Guess what?? The car wouldnt start. Everything looked good under the hood, it sounded like a dead battery. We checked all the lights and we hadnt left any lights on cos, the headlights have this alarm which rings when you try to leave the car with the headlights on. And all the interior lights were also off since we locked the car at night. Anyways, we got AAA to jump start our car and fortunately there was a Wal-mart right behind the motel. We took the car there and they ran a load test and it said.. -unstable battery- At this point we had already lost about hour and a half when we had 1200 miles of drive ahead of us. We were mad and disappointed. At that point we could have given him a negative feedback on eBay if we had a computer nearby...we were that mad. All sorts of things crossed our minds. Did the dealer rip us off? etc.. I called Wilson's cell phone and left him a voice message about this problem. It was a Sunday and he was off that day. But he returned my calls anyway. I talked to him later that day after we got back signal on our cellphone.

Anyway, we bought a new battery and we were on our way. We crossed the desert through Hwy 180 cutting from I-10 to I-40. It was a lonely road and at times could get a little scary if we werent driving a Honda. Anyway after about 1000 miles we got into California and it was very late in the night. So we stopped on I-5 past Bakersfield and finished the rest of the drive next morning.

Now, it was monday and I wanted to get a car-wash before showing it to friends and co-workers. So I was waiting in line for the car-wash and the coolant temperature guage started rising slowly and steadily, almost all the way up. As soon as I revved the engine it came back down. Anyway, I got scared and turned off the engine, got a car-wash and went to work. There I thought I'd check the coolant level. Popped the hood, and there was no coolant. I then added some water and some coolant. After doing this I didnt see the temperature rise again. But anyway, I believed what I saw and called a couple of Honda service shops. I scheduled an appt. with one of the auto-repair chain shops next morning. For $34, they told me that the coolant pump was bad and needed to be replaced along with other stuff. estimate about $600. - And oh.. while you are down there why dont you get the timing belt fixed too?

 I called  a reputed repair shop in Milpitas and they told me that it was unusual for a Honda to have a bad pump at 60k miles. So I took it to them the next morning. They actually found the right problem.. leaking O-ring seals from the pipe behind the water pump. Estimate $474.

I called Wilson at Gillman Auto and explained the problem and he was amazingly nice about the whole thing. He apologized for the inconvenience and offered me the reimbursement. At this point I have to mention this. I dont think that I saved a whole lot by purchasing the car from Austin, but I got the kind of car I was looking for and even if I had found the same car locally at any private party or local dealer, there was no chance in hell I could have gotten any free repairs after sale. Any other seller would easily walk away from any responsibility, since it was an as is no warranty sale. Today, 09/29/03 I have received a check from Gillman Auto for the full reimbursement of the battery replacement, coolant leak repair and disgnosis.

I cannot say enough good words for Wilson (not his real name) and Gillman Auto and I thought that 80 chars on eBay feedback wouldnt be enough, so I made wrote this guide to share my whole experience.

Now for the long-term experience. I am now at 104K miles. Got the timing belt & water pump & 90K & 105K service done. My mechanic, John, found a clutch behavior that was not what he expected (but we were used to it from day 1). The clutch would not engage until all the way towards the end of the pedal release. He flushed the clutch fluid. It helped a bit but it surfaced the real problem i.e. The clutch disc was almost gone. The clutch now started slipping. So now a clutch replacement job was due. During the clutch replacement job, John found that the clutch had been over-revved i.e. some inexperienced-to-manual-transmission driver revved the engine while the clutch was partially engaged. This led to premature wearing out of the clutch plates, which can last to as much as 200K miles if not abused. We have driven the car for 47K miles and we have always driven it the way a manual tx. car is supposed to be driven. This means that the previous owner from Texas, traded-in the car after realizing their mistake of buying a manula transmission car. The dealer (Gillman Auto) did not do their due diligence of trouble-shooting the clutch behavior (which I noticed as odd, the day I first drove this car from the Austin airport).
So lesson learnt, when buying used car sight-unseen from eBay, make sure that you are getting a WAAAYYY better deal than local private party sale. And NEVER TRUST A USED CAR SALESMAN. Do your homework before buying the car on eBay. Get it thoroughly inspected by the inspection services.