Anyone familiar w/ VIP imports? JH4NA1154MT002565

Re: Anyone familiar w/ VIP imports?

I am...met with the guy here in Seattle. They have a shop down in Texas too...basically the guy sells cars on the side. He's super cool...showed me the 1000hp black supra, plus the two R33's that he had at the time.
He only buys/sells cars that are checked out. Anything he has in his inventory should be top notch.
 
Re: Anyone familiar w/ VIP imports?

I dont know if it's becuase I just turned 16 today or I am on something that NO ONE can obtain in the u.s. But are those prices for real? I mean hell, if I get a job now I can save up for a Viper! Damn!

1 Min later: Oh nevermind, its the mileage.
 
Re: Anyone familiar w/ VIP imports?

Well, I have never dealt with them directly but I am real familiar with a few cars in their current inventory.
The 03 Supercharged M3 was a buddy of mine in Virginia car. It is easily the fastest M3 in the U.S.
The TT NSX I looked at back in July when it was being sold by a dealer in Virginia.
 
Re: Anyone familiar w/ VIP imports?

:rolleyes: I would never deal with them (Daniel). I almost bought a 1997 Alpine Supra from him. Maybe his other cars are OK, but the Alpine Supra I put a deposit on had lots of questionable and mysterious stories that came with it. I did a little bit of research and found out the car had been in a previous wreck.

Long story short, the car was claimed to be "bone stock" (his favorite quote), but in fact was fully modded but then brought back to stock. None of the body panels lined up properly in the pics, and when asked for additional pictures of specific worry areas, he would not comply with the request. Additionally, the car had all the locks changed, i.e. ignition, doors, etc. He gave me some sort of bullshit story, but I never bought it. I also had a friend email him to ask questions I knew answers to just to see if he would tell the truth, but guess what, he bullshitted my friend as well.

In a nutshell th guy has a lot of cool cars. Most are probably OK, he has a good reputation (except for me and some negative feedback on Ebay for inacurate descriptions :rolleyes: ). However, I wouldnt buy from him.

my 2cents.
 
Re: Anyone familiar w/ VIP imports?

Yeah, I definitely wouldn't buy a car from him (or anyone) without seeing it first. The cars he has up here in Seattle are on his personal property...he basically runs the business out of his house as a side project. Seemed nice enough. At the time he just couldn't give me enough $$ for my Z to make it worth my while....didn't get into it much beyond that. He seems to get some really nice cars tho. I couldn't find any supra's near me and he was sitting on 4-5 of em.
 
This is Daniel and I own and operate VIP Imports. One of our customers directed me to this post and said they doubted the accuracy of a derogatory post. I hope you'll pardon me for coming on here to post a response, but when you work as hard as I do to run a business with honesty and integrity, you don't take it lightly when someone who has never done business with you makes inaccurate statements.

First off, Jack (Supra2NV) has never purchased a car from us or seen one of our cars while in our inventory. He was interested in a '97 Supra that the owner of a Toyota Dealer had traded to us, but he tried to say he could tell from pictures that the car had paint work and even knew better than our Elcometer paint meter. The statement about the request for additional pictures was denied is a flat out lie and I still have the e-mail demonstrating that I sent tons of pictures. While Jack has a right to his opinions there are several things he's stating that are inaccurate and I will caution you Jack about posting things that are not factual.

If you want to know feedback on VIP Imports, the best place to conduct a search is on www.SurprForums.com because we've sold many Supras to members of that forum and our reputation is well documented.

We always openly advise people if our cars have had prior modifications.
We perform dealership inspections with compression checks on our cars and use a paint meter on the exterior to ensure we can advise our customers of prior paint work. We will also take videos and put the cars on our lift and take videos or pictures of the under carriage when requested.

We told Jack that the car he was pursuing had been modified and even took pictures of the car for him with the modifications clearly pictured on the car. This is not something someone who is hiding modification does. Jack acted as if he had amnesia when we reminded him of this fact.

Jack didn't believe the answers to the questions he had on the car, even when confirmed with the prior owner. He could have flown up on a 2 hour flight and inspected things first hand or paid for his own inspection, but instead he just started accusing me of lying. Jack is one of types of prospective buyers we very occasionally come across that doesn't believe the truth and also doesn't want to give you the chance to prove it. These are the types of prospective buyers that we try to avoid dealing with as we just don't need the hassle. I knew we'd be better off to sell the car to someone else, which we did a few days later and the owner loved the car and we have been friends ever since.

The other assertion Jack makes is that our ebay feedback has three negatives which he states are for description issues (assumed to be with cars we've sold) It is true that out of 309 total feedback, we have three negatives. However, these three were not for transactions involving cars and were before we I started VIP Imports. We have 100% positive feedback on car transactions. The most recent negative feedback is from August of 2001 and is posted as: auction ended 7/15/01-paid in full-no response from seller which was satisfactorily resolved. Only one of the three negatives was for a descritpion issue which was for a camera sold in 1999 that was a simple error in the title. Jack--your statement that our negative feedback was for auction descriptions is simply a misrepresentation and inaccurate statement, which you are growing famous for.

The only thing you stated that was accurate is that we have a good reputation with exception of you, which is true. I run VIP imports as a hobby because I enjoy cars and it is not what I do for a source of income. I do store some of the Seattle cars on our personal property, but the property was purchased to accommodate this purpose and has a 5000 SQ FT warehouse and a 2000 SQ Ft Service shop on it.

I apologize again for the interjection!

Regards,
Daniel
 
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DanielV said:
This is Daniel and I own and operate VIP Imports. One of our customers directed me to this post and said they doubted the accuracy of a derogatory post. I hope you'll pardon me for coming on here to post a response, but when you work as hard as I do to run a business with honesty and integrity, you don't take it lightly when someone who has never done business with you makes inaccurate statements.

First off, Jack (Supra2NV) has never purchased a car from us or seen one of our cars while in our inventory. He was interested in a '97 Supra that the owner of a Toyota Dealer had traded to us, but he tried to say he could tell from pictures that the car had paint work and even knew better than our Elcometer paint meter. The statement about the request for additional pictures was denied is a flat out lie and I still have the e-mail demonstrating that I sent tons of pictures. While Jack has a right to his opinions there are several things he's stating that are inaccurate and I will caution you Jack about posting things that are not factual.

If you want to know feedback on VIP Imports, the best place to conduct a search is on www.SurprForums.com because we've sold many Supras to members of that forum and our reputation is well documented.

We always openly advise people if our cars have had prior modifications.
We perform dealership inspections with compression checks on our cars and use a paint meter on the exterior to ensure we can advise our customers of prior paint work. We will also take videos and put the cars on our lift and take videos or pictures of the under carriage when requested.

We told Jack that the car he was pursuing had been modified and even took pictures of the car for him with the modifications clearly pictured on the car. This is not something someone who is hiding modification does. Jack acted as if he had amnesia when we reminded him of this fact.

I believe the real issue Jack had with us is that we don't tolerate a lot of indecisiveness or people that play games. I believe Jack only signed a bill of sale with us to get a lock on the car as he knew we had other buyers for the car at the time and then was looking for a way to get out of the bill of sale when we wouldn't lower the price. When Jack starting to question this and questioning that from the pictures and not believing the information I was providing, he could have just flown out or paid for an inspection to verify the facts. But instead he just said he "knew we were lying about the paint work" which was just a way to get out of the bill of sale. We moved on and sold the car to someone else.

The other assertion Jack makes is that our ebay feedback has three negatives which he states are for description issues (assumed to be with cars we've sold) It is true that out of 309 total feedback, we have three negatives. However, these three were not for transactions involving cars and were before we I started VIP Imports. We have 100% positive feedback on car transactions. The most recent negative feedback is from August of 2001 and is posted as: auction ended 7/15/01-paid in full-no response from seller which was satisfactorily resolved. Only one of the three negatives was for a descritpion issue which was for a camera sold in 1999 that was a simple error in the title. Jack--your statement that our negative feedback was for auction descriptions is simply a misrepresentation and inaccurate statement, which you are growing famous for.

The only thing you stated that was accurate is that we have a good reputation with exception of you, which is true. I run VIP imports as a hobby because I enjoy cars and it is not what I do for a source of income. I do run the company out of two buildings on our personal property, but the property was purchased to accommodate the car business and has a 5000 SQ FT warehouse and a 2000 SQ Ft Service shop on it.

I apologize again for the interjection!

Regards,
Daniel

#1: Ad said "bone stock" but in fact the car was a more heavily modified car than you stated. Truth came out in the pictures in which the car had more high level mods than you claimed.

#2: you played games with me regarding getting the car with or without the wheels. you first gave me the option to buy the car with stock wheels, but then took that option away from me as you figured out it was a better deal for you to sell them with the price quoted with wheels. Then you turn around and give the final buyer the option to buy the car with different wheels.

#3: (MOST IMPORTANT FACT) After weeks of talking with each other, all of a sudden you remembered something you "forgot" to tell me about the car. The story went something like this, not verbatum, but you'll get the idea... "the car has had all the locks changed, so if you ever go to Toyota to get keys made from the VIN they wont work. The guy who used to own the car had a break in into his garage, and the owner got paranoid about people making keys from the VIN to steal the car, so he changed all the locks".... I dont know about anyone else, but this raises BIG question marks to me. and this was weeks into the deal.

#4: I remember specifically asking for pictures of certain body parts because it did not look like the Hood or the rear trunk hatch lined up properly. I wanted pictures to make me more confident in taking time off from work to go pick this car up. he DID NOT provide additional pictures.

#5: finally, I knew the car originated from the owners son of a new car dealership in NY. Well, during the same time, the car was also listed on Cars.com for $50k. I noticed the VIN matched the car that Daniel was selling. So I picked up the phone and asked the salesperson about his car they had advertised. He told me the ad was old and they did not have the car for a long time (It seemed the ad was greater than a year old). Anyways, I asked the guy whos car it was, and he said it was the owners son. I then asked him if he knew the owners well, and he said he sees them around and he worked there for many years. He also got comfortable and started spitting out comments like "yeah he totally was into modding and racing that car around and eventually got into a wreck with it..."

the comments from the salesperson at the dealership is of course hear-say, but did not comfort me enough to forget and go to Washington (from Cali) to see this car.

TOOOOOOO MANYYYYYYY QUESTION MARKS!!!

Daniel, at this point it does not matter what either of us say. I will be the first to admit I am anal and paranoid, but that is the way I am. I never saw the car, so I dont know first hand what the car was about. I am going by pictures that were posted (showed bad body panel alignment) and more mods than you claimed the car had. I was happy to pay the full ticket for the PERFECT Supra at the time, but at the end of the day I was not comfortable with that deal. I will say that it was noble of you to mention the car had all the locks changed (although you remembered about it a little late), but at the end of the day there were too many things that were fishy about the car. About the eBay feedback comment, I remember a negative about improper description, but if you say it was not for a car, then I will take your word for it. So if I am wrong about that, I apologize.

Good luck.
 
Jack,
Its amazing how quick you are to brush off your inaccurate statements--if you going to make a statement that we've had problems with our auction descriptions of our cars, you should be able to back that statement. I didn't start VIP Imports until 2002, so let's go see who's lying:Ebay Feedback

Bottom line is, yes there were some things we had to check into on the car--happens a lot. We didn't find out about the door locks until we went to have a new key made--but I did disclose it to you as well as all the other things you were concerned about. In most cases we were passing back the information that we were being given by the prior owner. The owner, shop inspection, matching Vins, and paint meter all showed original paint--which I was willing to let you come observe. Instead you decline my offer and want to call me a liar. If you felt the information is not making you comfortable, then fine don't buy the car--I was never pressuring you and don't ever try to push a car on anyone.

You are taking this to another level when you start coming onto public forums and making accusations like we are misrepresenting our cars or stating our cars are "bone stock" when they are not. Its fine to come on a forum and give your experience positive or negative, but there can be signfiicant consequences to you for not being truthful and accurate when you post defamatory information.
 
Not picking sides. But I think it's perfectly reasonable for someone to set up an account "just" to defend himself. I would go to great lengths to defend my business ethics if they were questioned...particularly on a public forum.
 
DanielV said:
Jack,
Its amazing how quick you are to brush off your inaccurate statements--if you going to make a statement that we've had problems with our auction descriptions of our cars, you should be able to back that statement. I didn't start VIP Imports until 2002, so let's go see who's lying:Ebay Feedback

Daniel, why don't you scroll up, look at what my comment about your ebay feedback was, then start typing. In case you dont feel like scrolling up, here it is...."Most are probably OK, he has a good reputation (except for me and some negative feedback on Ebay for inacurate descriptions )." I never said it was on cars, I dont know if it is or isn't on a car since I cannot see the auction.
All it says is:
" Very misleading item description. Tried to sell anyway.
94gtvert ( -1 ) Oct-05-99 05:39 171494481
Reply by vipimports_com: Totally ridiculous-It was a minor desc error- I adj the ad early & let him out!"

And if you say this was not on a car, then again on my following post, I appologized, but you were quick to make this comment in response to my apology??
"Its amazing how quick you are to brush off your inaccurate statements"

How did I brush off an inacurate statement? I saw the negative, i mentioned the negative, and if you say it is not on a car, then as I said in my response in my previous post

"About the eBay feedback comment, I remember a negative about improper description, but if you say it was not for a car, then I will take your word for it. So if I am wrong about that, I apologize."

Please, dont twist my comments, and don't make me out to be the bad guy...thanks.


DanielV said:
Bottom line is, yes there were some things we had to check into on the car--happens a lot. We didn't find out about the door locks until we went to have a new key made--but I did disclose it to you as well as all the other things you were concerned about. In most cases we were passing back the information that we were being given by the prior owner. The owner, shop inspection, matching Vins, and paint meter all showed original paint--which I was willing to let you come observe. Instead you decline my offer and want to call me a liar. If you felt the information is not making you comfortable, then fine don't buy the car--I was never pressuring you and don't ever try to push a car on anyone.
[/


And I am glad your memory is in line with mine regarding the locks...I don't know about you, but I find it very fishy that all the locks were changed on the car. And yes, at the end of the day, you were willing to give my deposit back, no issues what so ever. I never said anything about you pressuring anyone? youre coming out of left field with that comment.

DanielV said:
You are taking this to another level when you start coming onto public forums and making accusations like we are misrepresenting our cars or stating our cars are "bone stock" when they are not. Its fine to come on a forum and give your experience positive or negative, but there can be signfiicant consequences to you for not being truthful and accurate when you post defamatory information.

As you said, I have the right to post my experience and thoughts. I have made no accusations what so ever, nor have I made posts of "defamatory information"....I have only posted the facts about our dealings on the one car. I suggest you go and read my post again, and you will notice I have only made a comment about the 1997 Alpine Supra I put a deposit on, and said nothing negative about your other cars, nor have I made any personal attacks. In fact, I made a positive comment and said your other cars are probably OK, you have a lot of cool cars, and good reputation (except for me, and a few negatives on eBay).


Jack
 
He offered me good money for my 99 Viper GTS. He said he would buy it only if it were perfect. I am not a dealer and he bs'd with me for a 1/2 hour about what certain cars were going for and what he tought about future prices of 996TT's. I ended up selling it for only 1K more than he offered. I told him I thought his TT NSX seemed a bit high due to the price that the red one on here finally sold for. As far as used car dealers go I wouldn't hesitate to buy a car from him. After some marathon negotiations of course. The guy knows the low down on it seems every high end car out there and he seems to be more than happy to give you his info. Not trying to nut swing, but you could do a lot worse.
 
It's not often a NSX becomes available in the local market. Seizing the opportunity, I reached out to Daniel at VIP Imports for more information. I found both him and the owner passionate auto enthusiasts eager to discuss any concerns regarding the car. After spending over an hour on the physical inspection and a comprehensive test ride/drive, I was quite satisfied with their disclosure. If anything they were overly emphatic in pointing out any potential areas that might prove troublesome.
While this car wasn't 'the one' for me it certainly wasn't for any uneasiness with representation or ownership.
Micah
 
WeakestLink said:
Not picking sides. But I think it's perfectly reasonable for someone to set up an account "just" to defend himself. I would go to great lengths to defend my business ethics if they were questioned...particularly on a public forum.

I agree:) I think most of us would do the same thing.
 
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