“I RISKED $500 ON A 15K CAR! Where do I start?” That is the caption @bybtim put on an Instagram reel about a white Mercedes SUV, and the question is a fair one. Over nearly three minutes he walks around the car with the hood propped open and points his camera at one problem after another, and he never tries to make it look better than it is.
He opens by pushing a palm toward the lens, and the first word of his burned-in captions is “don’t.” From there the reel moves fast. The captions flash a single word at a time while the picture jumps to whatever he is talking about, so the footage carries as much of the story as the narration does. The first stop is the engine bay, where the plastic engine cover and the intake pipe are littered with dried plant debris. The word on screen at that moment is “seized.”
The roof comes next, with the caption “mossy.” Green growth runs along the roof rail and across the textured roof panel, and a clump of twigs has collected against the rail. Down at the front wheel the caption reads “rusted” over a close shot of a brake rotor that has turned brown behind the five spoke alloy. Another shot shows a pleated filter so covered in leaf litter that the pleats are hard to make out.
The windshield tells the same story. Brown pine needles are heaped under the wiper arms and wedged along the edge of the hood, and the glass is speckled with grit. The captions at that point read “exposed” and then “sun.” Blue fluid jugs sit on a wooden deck in one shot, and in the next he is talking straight into the camera with the word “coolant” under his chin.
Then he moves to the back of the SUV. With the cargo floor panel out of the way, a yellow tow strap lies coiled on the foam tray underneath, and his hand reaches in for a boxed part while the caption says “got.” The word “engine” follows. A separate shot shows a rectangular opening in the carpeted floor with a white plastic housing below it, and the caption there reads “charger.”
The money comes up about halfway through. He leans back against the grille with his arms folded, then walks to the tailgate and gestures at it while the caption reads “guy.” Seconds later he is bent toward the camera with both palms turned up, and the words on screen are “$500” and “lowball.” Pointing an open hand at the front end of the car, he gets to “parts” and then “expensive.”
From the driver’s seat he does the longest stretch of straight talking in the reel. The words that land on screen during it include “mechanic,” “lines,” “recognising,” “couldn’t,” “2013” and “system.” He talks with his hands the whole way through, and at one stage he presses a palm to his cheek.
The reel also shows how the car was moved. Under a clear blue sky the SUV sits with its hood up and the driver’s door open, and in the next shots it is on a flatbed tow truck, first with the bed tilted and then level, with someone crouched at the back of the truck.
Back in the driveway he walks up carrying a portable jump pack with a red clamp hanging from it, and the caption reads “let’s.” A hand rests on the grille. He tells the camera a number, “135,000,” and a second number, “124,000,” appears over a shot of the instrument cluster with its center display lit. The reel then cuts to his hand on the key in the ignition, with the word “truth” on screen. It ends with him back in the driver’s seat, hand on his chin, and the last caption is a question: “good?”
What makes the reel worth watching for anyone tempted by a cheap luxury car is the order he works in. He records the whole car, inside and out, before he gets to the key. The list he builds on camera is the same one any buyer of a vehicle that has been sitting outdoors should run through.
Start at the top. Moss on the roof and needles packed around the base of the windshield hold water against seals and block the drains that are supposed to carry rain away. Clearing that area by hand and checking that water runs out underneath the car costs nothing, and it is the first defense against a wet cabin. A leaf-clogged filter like the one in his video is usually a cheap part, and an easy one to forget.
Look at the brakes before the car goes anywhere. A light brown film on the rotors is normal after a car sits and wears off in the first few stops. Deep, flaky rust is different and means rotors and pads belong in the budget.
Check the fluids before trying to start an engine that has been parked. Oil level, coolant level and the condition of both say a lot about what happened before the car was left. If an engine will not turn, forcing it with the starter can make things worse.
Plan for the battery. A parked car will almost always need a charge or a jump pack, and low voltage can set off warning lights that have nothing to do with the real fault. Charge the battery fully before judging the electrical system.
Move it on a truck. His SUV traveled on a flatbed, which is the safe choice for any car whose brakes, tires and engine have not been checked.
Finally, price the parts before making an offer. The two words he puts next to each other, “parts” and “expensive,” are the reason a low purchase price on a luxury SUV is only the beginning of the bill. A low offer is easier to defend when every flaw has been photographed first, which is exactly what his camera does here.