[s-cars] A little story about a car I looked at buying this summer...

[Rfeagleye at aol.com]

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I thought I would share this story since the car in the attached link looks a
LOT like the one I saw, although I do not have the VIN to verify it. I do
however, have the Carfax I ran on the car I am going to talk about, so if
someone gets the VIN we can check it out. I saved the Carfax in Word...

The car was listed in Autotrader.com sometime in the early summer. It was
local to me, fit what I wanted, and was $12,000, which was within my budget
(although I would have haggled!).

I made arrangements to look at the car. I asked the seller how many miles it
had and he said 48,000. I ask again to confirm, again he said 48,000.

I went to the sellers house to see the car, it was in very nice shape, paint
had some "sandblasting" from driving, but overall was in good condition. The
interior was nice, no rips in the seats, etc. I looked at the odometer,
48,000 miles. We went for a drive and all was fine. It did however, look a
little more weathered than 48,000...

I asked how it could have such low miles and he stated that he didn't drive
it much, only to and from work occasionally, or something along those lines.

I got the VIN and went home. I ran the VIN i n Carfax and low and behold,
ODOMETER rollback detected! The Carfax doesn't say so specifically, but the
e-check in Ohio records your mileage, and the car had about 100,000 miles at
the last e-check.

I was at home and my girlfriend was over, so I called her in to see the
Carfax. She had been with me on the test drive of the car. After seeing the
Carfax, she said she noticed that the word "Brake" was backward on the dash
when I put the parking brake after driving, but she thought maybe it was
supposed to be that way!

Makes me think I should have her checking out cars from now on!

I politely said I was not interested...I did not discuss the issue with the
seller.

But wait, there's more!

A few weeks after seeing the car, I was searching the web for UrS4's and
stumble across another Autotrader S4, near my office. The VIN is in the ad
and...well what do you know, SAME CAR! The seller must have traded it for a
new Audi. I called the dealer to ask about the car, and get a salesman who
says he will check out the price and call me back. He calls me back and says
the car is already sold, it was a trade/sell type deal. I ask the mileage, he
doesn't know, and I leave it at that.

I have a friend in the Auto business (Ford Dealership), he tells me "Call
them back and tell them what you know!". So I call the salesman back, tell
him about the Carfax, potential odometer rollback, etc.

He says, "Well, I don't know much about the car, but Carfax is only as good
as the information that is input...yada, yada..." He kind of doesn't seem to
care. So I thought my work was done, then...

BAM...

http://www.autotrader.com/findacar/vdetail.jtmpl?car_id=105234530&dealer_id=&
max_price=&start_year=1982&end_year=1999&address=44134&search_type=used&
make=AUDI&model=S4&min_price=&distance=200&advcd_on=n&advanced=n&color=&
car_year=1993

I think this is the same car.

I thought I would mention it as I do not want anyone to get burned if this is
the same car. As I stated earlier, I DO NOT know the VIN of the car in the
ad, but the description, mileage, and city (only 5 minutes from the dealer
where it was traded/sold recently) makes me believe it is the same car.

Again, if someone wants to call for the VIN, we can compare it to the Carfax
I have saved...

Rob Eagleye