Based on my emails with the seller and reading through the report I've spotted five possible red flags. I'm not really a car enthusiast, so I'm not sure if these are big issues or just normal stuff that happens to a car over its life. The car is a 2005 Saab 9-2x. http://dallas.craigslist.org/ndf/cto/4714912157.html
1) The first owner is shown to have taken the title 1 year after the car was delivered, at 5,639 miles. I've heard these cars didn't sell very well, so I thought maybe this could have been a salesman at the dealer using the car as their personal car?
2) The service record is very spotty. It lists some early minor work, then nothing until 50,000 miles.
3) The car seems to be driven, and not driven, in huge spurts. From May 2005 to October 2006 it was driven for 36,850 miles. Then from March 2007 to April 2012 it was only driven under 8000 miles total. I'm worried it might have been in storage at some point during these years.
4) The car failed, and then subsequently passed, 3 emissions inspections in 2008, 2009, and 2010. I know literally nothing about this. Does this usually mean a bigger issue? I've read that modding a car can cause it to fail the inspections, but the ad specifically says the car is 100% stock.
5) When I asked why he was selling the car, he mentioned that he's only owned it for 2 months and that his wife wants him to get rid of it. That said, there's no record of the car being sold recently, and the carfax only lists 1 owner.
My first instinct is to just forget about the car and keep looking, but it's almost exactly what I want, the seller lives really close, and it's probably the best deal I've found for this type of car, so I want to give it every chance. I emailed the seller with these questions to see if there are reasonable explanations for any of these issues. What do you guys think?
1) The first owner is shown to have taken the title 1 year after the car was delivered, at 5,639 miles. I've heard these cars didn't sell very well, so I thought maybe this could have been a salesman at the dealer using the car as their personal car?
2) The service record is very spotty. It lists some early minor work, then nothing until 50,000 miles.
3) The car seems to be driven, and not driven, in huge spurts. From May 2005 to October 2006 it was driven for 36,850 miles. Then from March 2007 to April 2012 it was only driven under 8000 miles total. I'm worried it might have been in storage at some point during these years.
4) The car failed, and then subsequently passed, 3 emissions inspections in 2008, 2009, and 2010. I know literally nothing about this. Does this usually mean a bigger issue? I've read that modding a car can cause it to fail the inspections, but the ad specifically says the car is 100% stock.
5) When I asked why he was selling the car, he mentioned that he's only owned it for 2 months and that his wife wants him to get rid of it. That said, there's no record of the car being sold recently, and the carfax only lists 1 owner.
My first instinct is to just forget about the car and keep looking, but it's almost exactly what I want, the seller lives really close, and it's probably the best deal I've found for this type of car, so I want to give it every chance. I emailed the seller with these questions to see if there are reasonable explanations for any of these issues. What do you guys think?
