On Buying A Lemon

There are cars and there are lemons, and this one caused more trouble than you could ever imagine.

They say that the number one deadliest sin of all is to lie. And that is because not only is it immoral, but as sure as eggs are eggs it is going to come back and bite you very, very painfully on the posterior, as a very good friend of mine discovered to his horror many years ago.

My friend worked at a car dealership. He had sold a brand new car to an elderly couple who were absolutely delighted with their purchase for all of a week. The car in question became what is known as a Friday afternoon car, or, not to put too fine a point on it, a lemon.

That shiny new, right out-of-the-box little baby developed so many problems that the buyers went right back to the dealership demanding a replacement car. As it had less than ten miles on the clock and the elderly couple had a case, the dealership did as requested and took the car back giving them a faultless replacement. Problem solved.

The lemon was fixed up and sold on to another couple as almost new. When the new buyers asked how such a car had so few miles on the clock, the inexperienced salesman really didn’t want to tell them the truth. So he told the new owners that the previous owner was elderly and had died a week after taking delivery of the car. The salesman said the dealership kindly agreed to take the car back to help the deceased’s widow. A plausible story that was never going to hurt anybody. Or was it?

Not too long afterwards both couples were in the car dealership at the same time and standing very close to one another. The first owners glanced out the showroom window and saw the lemon parked nearby.

“Oh look!” said the wife of the first owner

“There’s our new car!”

The husband of the second owner of the lemon realising it was their car that was being referred to exclaimed the immortal words “Your car? You’re dead!”

All hell let loose with the second owners complaining vociferously to the dealer principal and demanding their money back for what had been a lemon.

The salesman in question almost got fired and was only saved by it being his very first job. To my knowledge, he learned a very valuable lesson that day and went on to become the most honest, not to mention successful, salesman I have ever met in my life. A lesson learned you might say.