"what if your purchase turned out to be a lemon?" It didn't turn out that way. That's the point. There's an exception to every rule.

"Never buy a car sight unseen" wasn't good advice in my case, because my experience, however unusual, was a good one. I wouldn't, however, on the basis of my experience, say that everyone should always buy a vehicle sight unseen, because as we know, the outcome could be disastrous.

Based on my experience, I can say it is possible that a good vehicle can be bought sight unseen, just be very, very careful. Ebay, I think, also has some protective measures in place that provide their participants some avenues of redress in the case of willful misrepresentation, but I can't comment on how effective they are.         

...and this comment more apropos to the discussion at hand: I prefer manual transmissions except in congested areas of towns where there are traffic lights at each intersection, traffic jams/and or heavy stop and go traffic. Then they are a pain in the foot, literally.