My wife and I are looking for 97-99 ES300 for her and we came across one at a small dealer that seems to be what we're looking for. But a couple of things on the car made me suspicious.

note: it has a clean carfax with 1 owner and is a local car from the area.

1: there is no vin number on the driver side door. No labels at all.
2: The rear bumper paint color (when the car was sitting in the shade) looks to be a bit more yellow-ish than the white exterior paint of the whole car.

We were going to buy it later this week, but after reading 1sicklex's post on his GS, I'm a bit concerned here. I'm afriad this might be one of those deals where the car is badly damaged, but repaired out of pocket w/o the insurance companies involved, thus the clean carfax. The interior seems to be very clean and the car drives great (from the 2 test drives that I took).

Am I jumping to conclusions or should I just stay away from this one, because other than the things above, it's a perfect match. Been looking at every ES in town and this one seems to be the right one.

 

The missing vin # sticker is a sign that it was replaced for some reason
I think the best thing is to have a mechanic take a look at it. I think that dealers might even take a look for you, of course at a charge.

 

Some dealerships WILL try and sell a car that has been wrecked and given haphazard or cosmetic repairs hoping you won't notice. Upon inspection, I have prevented my friends from buying cars lie this more than once.

Obviously without seeing the car I can't state for sure but here are tell-tale signs:

Brand-new or recent tires and wheels on one side or end and not the other.

Paint on body panels that does not quite match either in color or texture.

Pinstripes that do not look uniform from front to back....and from panel to panel.

Underhood spray or primer that does not match the insides of the fenders.

Front and rear wheels that look bent, tilted, or for any reason do not line up in a straight line.

Bumpy and wavy panels that indicate poorly or sloppily-applied body putty under the paint.

Trim parts that have the factory logo on one side or end but not on the other....a sign of aftermarket replacements.

Doors and windows that do not shut properly or seal due to being bent or warped.

Excessively unevenly-worn tires that could indicate bent frame or suspension parts.

Flipside.....you're probably pretty good at this stuff. Can you think of anything I might have forgot?
This IMO is a pretty important thread....obviously, GState's money is at stake.

BTW, GState, slightly mismatching paint on vinyl-covered bumpers does not necessarily indicate that they have been replaced or repainted. it is not unusual for the paint on the vinyl to age at a slightly different rate than on metal (or plastic) body panels. If there is a really noticible difference, then maybe you can have some comcern.

 

i will just walk away

actually, a car that has been in an accident, it can still become a cpo car

 

a car thats been in an accident can be cpo... but is that only if it has a clean title and is non-salvage i'm guessing?

 

happened to someone at NorCal VW, but it was a Jetta that was slammed to the ground, and the dealer still sold it as a CPO!

 

Thanks guys. I had them take apart the fender last night and it had a bunch of obvious hammer marks on the fender, as if it had been damaged and someone tried to pop it back up.

I will never trust small dealers again. They acted like nothing was wrong, and then when they took the fender out and I pointed that out, tried to look as shock as I did. The salesperson then started talking about how I didn't have a reason to fear, this car has a carfax buyback, etc. They knew EXACTLY what they were trying to sell to me.

As I was walking out, the salesman followed me and now said that the price of the car was negotiable