Unusual marks on the bottom of passenger doors?

LOL.

Fortunately the dealership I went to for a used car check does them regularly.

They actually stopped me from buying a car from a nice family with many cars, I met the guy at his house, the car looked nice!, it was the guy's wife's car ....but it had a problem that was too expensive, killed the deal. The problem was real, but the guy wasn't going to lower the price based on a piece of paper.

They're not carnac, but they can recognize leaks, poorly done repairs, old brakes, etc.

 

What scares me off buying used cars period, is what owners (and dealerships) can get up to, and is undetectable. These are all recent PriusChat postings, btw:

1. Use of alternative fluids in the transaxle, even though Toyota expressly says to only use GENUINE TOYOTA ATF WS. (Tell someone what not to do, and: you guessed it...)
2. The above mentioned fluid poured into the brake reservoir. (Comedy of errors.)
3. Engine inadvertently started during oil change. (Car not turned off after driving up on ramps.)
4. When doing first DIY oil change, discover dealership neglected to put in oil filter, at least for the last oil change. (Suprisingly easy to do, and undetectable. Almost a design fail, better if it wasn't possible.)

 

My guess:

The price of those repairs is less than the savings from depreciation.

I.e. if I buy ten cars, each three years old, and pay $7,000 less because of depreciation, that's less than the cost of the one car that's been abused.

In a perfect world, the depreciation would account for that risk, I think. Theoretically, I guess, you could put a number on that by buying an extended warranty!

That kinda begs the question, for the risk averse, such as yourself, EW would be designed just for you. What's cheaper, a new car or a used one with EW?

Just a thought experiment, having fun exploring this.!

 

I went to the BMW dealer a month ago, thinking of buying something faster than my Prius. He had a used BMW M3. It was a beefy car: Big V8 engine, flared wheel wells with fat tires... the car was a real beast.

But I looked at it carefully, and I didn't like what I saw. I could tell the car had been detailed and I could see the circular marks of a buffer (bad). But when I looked closely, I could see bits of dirt and leaves, and in the trunk under the carpet it was scratched up and filthy. This car had been mistreated, and a BMW M3 is a car that shouldn't be parked outside under trees regularly and its trunk shouldn't get scratched up from hauling whatever. So I passed on it. He could have dropped the price $10K and I still would have passed on it.

 

Yeah little things jump out at you. I was looking over a Maxima with my son, the interior looked fine, but then noticed the seat hold-down bolts were all rusty. Never went further, he went with another car, but yeah.