How well do you know your car?

After his beloved Honda Civic was stolen, Ewan Valentine went on the hunt to replace his so-called “mid-life crisis car”.

Mr Valentine told Moncrieff that when his search led him to an online ad from a seemingly reputable dealer offering the same make and model as his previous vehicle, he was delighted.

“[The seller was] a really good-looking garage, really good reviews online, well-established - no reason to be suspicious basically,” Mr Valentine said.

“The mileage was really low compared to my stolen one – which turned out to be not the case - but it looked good.

“It was uncannily sort of familiar and there were a couple of scratches, and I was sort of thinking at the time, ‘Oh, hang on, mine had a scratch there’.

“But then I was thinking, if anyone’s driven slightly too close to a hedge, it’s the kind of place where you’d expect a scratch.”

Car dealership. Image: industryview / Alamy. 23/08/2014.

Mr Valentine said he had a “weird feeling” while driving the car home and decided to take a closer look.

“Years ago, I’d smashed a bottle of beer in the boot and I could never quite get rid of the smell,” he said.

“So, I was there in this car park sniffing around the boot and sure enough, I could smell stale beer in one of the corners, so at that point I was thinking, ‘Oh my God’.

“I thought of checking the sat-nav history - I was actually driving home when I opened that - and sure enough, I see my address, my parent’s address, my partner’s parent’s address.

“I nearly crashed to be honest with you.”

At this point, Gardaí became involved to investigate how the garage came to possess the car.

After all that, Mr Valentine said he still didn’t get to keep the vehicle, as it is now “uninsurable”.

Main image: Man buying a car. Image: Igor Mojzes / Alamy. 30/3/2019.