Anyone purchase a used car via this newsgroup? With a positive result?
In July of 1998, I purchased a 1995 Toyota Camry DX 2 door 5 spd with
106 K, that I found via this newsgroup. The car was 200 miles and over 4 hours from my location. I cc'd the owner and we discussed the car several times. We arranged a meet at a mid point, I drove the car for about 10 miles on the interstate, and found everything as the previous owner had said. We went to a branch of the bank that I used, using my ID I was able to get a cashier's check for him and we concluded the purchase.I drove the car until latter January '08 when I hit a deer with it for a total loss. I had only liability and 0 deductable comprehensive for insurance at that time. Cruise was set on 65 but the deer impact was just above the bumper on the passenger side, so the air bag did not deploy.
Driving the car for a few months under 10 years, I can only remember replacing the radiator (car came from far North in Ohio and I think the salt ate the aluminum core of the radiator from the outside in), original brakes at 150K, batteries, oil, oil filters and air filters. With 222K on the car when the insurance company bought it, I do know it still had the original fuel filter, muffler, struts, and cv joints. I think the struts were gone as you could feel it when you ran over the paint stripes on the road, but on a good road it still was smooth riding.
The difference between what I paid for the car and what the insurance co gave me was about 6100. And people wonder why Toyota sells so well.
I was considering selling the car, but doing a lot of driving at the time and gas rising as it is, I was letting the 08 RAV4 sit most of the time. Camry averaged around 31 and the RAV4 is averaging about
25.