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At one of the vintage cars websites sites I belong to there was a member who shared an interesting experience to the forum. Below is the Readers Digest version.

The new owner (who we will call John) had seen his dream vintage car advertised on the same website referenced above. John liked what he saw, and it helped that many forum members validated how nice the car was. John set an appointment to test drive the car. When John arrived the car was even better looking than the pictures indicated. The owner decided that John was a serious buyer and wasn’t a “tire kicker”. They decided to take the car out for a test drive. The car started on the first turn of the key, idled smoothly, and ran perfectly. The owner let John drive back on the return trip. And even though John was taking it easy, he was able to get the tires to chirp easily in 2nd and 3rd gear.

John purchased the car, loaded it up on his trailer, and was now the proud owner of a beautiful 1970 Nova Super Sport. Since the car was almost perfect and didn’t need any work, John started driving to a couple of local car cruises and classic car shows to get a feel of the car.

The next car show was about an hour and a half away. After waxing the car, and checking the fluids, John filled the gas tank. A couple of miles down the road John stopped at a red light. When the light turned green, he pulled away, and heard a light knocking/pinging noise on acceleration. The noise grew louder the longer he drove the car. The only time John heard the noise was on acceleration. If he drove the car “easy” like there was an egg under the gas pedal, the pinging was almost non existent and tolerable. If he had to pass another car and was required to accelerate, the noise got worse, and the engine didn’t have the same power as his first test drive. Other than the noise, the car performed flawlessly. John drove the car to and from the show, but he was really anxious and nervous because he thought he had bought a lemon. And he wasn’t a happy camper.

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