Man Tries to Sell His Toyota Tacoma. Then a Buyer Tries to Pull the 'Dirty Oil' Trick

"4 dudes buying a car is a red flag.."

Tacoma Scammers

Photo by: Unsplash.com

Nina Hernandez

By: Nina Hernandez

Sep 6, 2025 at 9:00pm ET

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A man attempting to sell his Toyota Tacoma to a stranger thinks he was almost the victim of what is known as the “dirty oil trick” scam. Here’s what he says happened and how to avoid it.

TikTok user Anthony (@theanthonynguyen) posted a video about his experience earlier this week. He starts the video by saying, “Y’all, I think I almost just got scammed.”

Anthony explains that he was in the process of showing his truck to four potential buyers when the incident happened. Initially, the group seemed to be on the up and up. They had the cash in hand and everything.

The positive vibes shifted during the test drive. “During the test drive, the guy kept on bringing it up, like, ‘Oh, what’s that smell? Does it smell like burning oil, burning rubber? What’s that smell? Is it coming from the car?’” Anthony says.

Did Anthony Almost Fall for the ‘Dirty Oil’ Trick?

When Anthony and the buyer came back from the test drive, one of the men asked Anthony to pop the hood. That’s when he alerted Anthony to the fact that there was oil burning in several different spots around the engine bay.

“There was a whole bunch of oil in this area, and that’s where it was smoking,” says Anthony. “And then he was like, ‘Can you go in and rev it a little bit more and show me if it’ll keep smoking?’”

Anthony agreed. Once he got in the car and revved the engine, the buyer called his attention to the truck’s exhaust pipe, which was leaking oil. “I think they, like, put oil or something in there,” Anthony says.

The final thing the buyer pointed out was the coolant reservoir. “It doesn’t look like coolant. It looks like oil. It looks like sludge,” Anthony says. But if you look at the side of the reservoir, the fluid inside still looks mostly pink.

“I looked up a photo, and if the coolant and the oil were to mix, it would literally look like coffee colored sludge,” Anthony says. He then pulled the oil stick and found that the level was sufficient, and it didn’t look sludgey.

The buyer tried to offer Anthony what he considers a "ridiculously" low price for the Tacoma. “I almost took it,” Anthony says, “but I’m so glad that I didn’t because now I’ve just got to get all this oil out of this coolant.”

Ultimately, he says, “It’s just more of a headache than anything. Beware of the scammers out there. I didn’t even know this was a real thing until I just tried to sell my car by myself. What a world we live in.”

The ‘Dirty Oil’ Scam

Anthony is right; this is a real scam, and it works exactly how Anthony laid out. The scammer inspects a used car and surreptitiously pours oil into the coolant reservoir of the vehicle. During the test drive, the vehicle starts to smoke, and the scammer offers to take the "problem" off the buyer’s hands for pennies on the dollar.

A Reddit user posted to r/Scams earlier this year and said their partner fell victim to a similar scam. In this case, the buyer poured a mysterious liquid into the coolant reservoir when the woman was distracted. Luckily, a good Samaritan witnessed what happened and alerted the woman.

Viewers React to the ‘Dirty Oil’ Scam

In the caption, Anthony wrote, “If you’re selling your car by yourself, make sure you bring someone with you. I was doing this solo and in front of my house nonetheless where the security cameras couldn’t reach. They made sure to ask if they could drive it out of the driveway before trying to pull the stunt.”

In the comments section, viewers said the entire situation was suspicious from the start. “Four dudes buying a car is a red flag,” one person wrote.

“So they almost damaged your car by putting oil in your coolant, smh,” a second person said.

What do you think?

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“One additional person needs to be close to the engine bay,” said another person. “[Get] multiple surveillance cameras.”

Motor1 reached out to Anthony via TikTok comment and direct message for comment.

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