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Hi, team. I'm looking for some guidance on a used car.
I'm looking at a 2019 Subaru Legacy Limited with tons of features and under 6,000 miles for what seems like a very good price.
I asked the dealer for the Carfax report and they told me that all their cars have a salvage history due to water damage, but that they provide a 12-month/30-day power train warranty and a report with their repair findings.
Still, it's a good price with lots of features I would really like. Aside from getting a pre-purpose inspection, what should I be looking for?
Thanks in advance.
The most important thing to do is find out how deep the water was, some insurance company's will total a car even if the water only floods the interior floor boards, that wouldn't be that bad, pull the seats, carpet, padding, and check the seat belt explosive charges for corrosion and damage.
anything higher that the bottom of the seat I would not take the chance, unless they were giving it away really cheap.
I dont think I would ever buy a newer car with flood damage, but I did consider picking up some of those classics from Copart that had been submerged in Florida during the most recent hurricane.
One reason I would is because I am an experienced and capable mechanic. I don't want that particular car, but if I needed it I may buy it, depending on just how cheaply I could get it. They seem to go for around $22,000 around here.
In the OP's case I would call and get a price a rebuild of the transmission and the installation of a wiring harness, just so I would be completely informed.
I keep my cars a very long time, and in very good condition. '08 CR-V with 200,000 miles and '90GMC K1500 with 400,000.
Have you ever worked on a water damaged vehicle? I get where you're coming from.. but water damage (And as others have mentioned, salt water especially) is a whole 'nother beast.
Water damage can leave even the best mechanics sitting in the corner sucking on their thumbs.
Reminds me of a vehicle I was looking at for a nephew.. He kinda had his heart set on an Xterra.. Found one that.. I didn't think was that good a deal.. But, I went out and looked at it. Should have seen the woman's face drop when I broke out my scan tool. Every monitor was reset and hadn't been run.. Which is a huge red flag. I looked under the hood and this thing was SPOTLESS. You could eat off that engine. Problem is.. It had nearly 250k miles on it.
I started poking around and saw that the radiator and transmission had been replaced.. I knew what had happened then. They had bought this at auction because those Xterra's had the transmission cooler that, when it broke, sent coolant into the tranny.
She then said "Oh, there's a warranty on the transmission".. I got the paperwork and looked at it.. First off, the transmission was a junkyard transmission with no providence. The warranty wasn't worth the paper it was written on. I think it was a 3 month/3000 mile PARTS ONLY warranty. And at the time I was looking at the vehicle, a month of that was gone. As if a parts only warrant on a tranny is worth anything.
I lowballed the crap out of them and they declined. Which I was happy about. They had invested so much into getting the vehicle running, they couldn't sell it at a price that would make sense. But.. I'm sure they got some sucker who came along and bought it.
Anyway.. Water damaged vehicles often just have weird crap.. Green crusties all over the place.. Things like the seat bladders failing.. I suspect OP will wind up in the red over the course of ownership just dealing with all the crazy problems.
All will be well for a few months, maybe even a year or more. And then the gremlins creep in. A chip failure here or there as salt water eats, eats away. Eats away. Here. Then over there. Then you have a pyramid of problems and even the best mechanic has no idea where to start because the issues are cumulative.
IF you insist to go down that route, understand that effectively there is NO warranty, that you should halve the price they are dreaming about, and understand that to keep it going for a reasonable period of time you are going to double what you spend originally.
I gather it was listed, went over reserve, and then someone (either the buyer or seller) torpedoed the sale after the fact.
BaT is screwy, not really a fan of it as either a buyer or seller. It's fun to look at cars on there as they've got a high density of interesting cars but as far as the service it's really not good. Basically the seller pays a $100 fee ($250 for photos) and then the buyer pays 5%. And that's really it. There's nothing binding on the sale, BaT takes no part in the sale, nothing. They get their listing fee and they get their 5% and put you in contact with one another and wash their hands of the process. If the buyer torpedoes the sale, so what. If the seller refuses to sell, so what. Those aren't BaT issues. Caveat emptor.
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