Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Common Interests It's my birthday!!! Wanna help me out?

Well, in Europe, sure. Also, I bet you'll find that environmental regulations there probably whack the necessity and price for 4x4s.

So... I test drove the car today... does not have ABS! Fully loaded except that, which I found out was only in an $800 option package with stability control and side airbags.

Has the following issues at the moment:

Been repainted (front at least)

Missing strut tower bar

Wheel bearing

Carfax shows a new title issued May 2006, which contradicts the dealer saying it has been sitting for 5 months.

Drives excellent except I noticed a whirring noise similar to a wheel bearing. It would get quieter when I turned slightly left at highway speeds, which further makes me think it's a wheel bearing. Dealer says flat spots on the tires, but that would be a constant sound, correct?

A good eye in my shop noticed it has been repainted. You can see the mask line and also notice that the original paint has no orange peel while the new paint has a slight orange peel.

It's also missing the strut tower bar (which is factory) shown in this picture:


The strut tower bar was the mounting point for the cruise control diaphram and something else right next to it, so those things were flopping around in the engine bay.

The passenger side low beam healight is out also.

Otherwise the car is in excellent shape. Not too bad I say for 77,000 miles, but is not in good enough condition (floppy stuff in engine bay, to warrant the retail pricing they have on it.

Didn't get a chance to talk to the salesman after the drive, so will talk to him tomorrow.

Guys in my shop told me to attempt a low ball starting at $5000 and going to an absolute max of $7500. I think $7500 is reasonable for a car with minor problems...

Kelly Blue Book says $9185 for a "good" condition car at private party value... so going to work off this... maybe can do the "$3K below book" on that? Yeah right

EDIT: damn Mazda forums! Still haven't "approved" my account, so I can't post anything there... I'm sure they would know where to start!

Quote:

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Carfax shows a new title issued May 2006, which contradicts the dealer saying it has been sitting for 5 months

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not necessarily...
Jess titled the 71 hearse almost a year ago.
it has been sitting ever since i bought it, never registered.
but we titled it to get it in her name and to avoid tax penalties when we do actually register it which may not be for another year.

run away big dady kane, run away. The car needs work, seems like its been in an accident, probably was treated poorly... Even if it runs and drives great and the fixes are easy, it sounds a hell of a lot like you are dealing with a horrible car dealer, and this is a nightmare waiting to happen, continue your search, there are plenty of cars out there.

Yeah, I know what you're sayin... I'm not "set" on this car since I doubt the dealer will bargain that low with me...

But hey, it's worth a try to pick up a car for 1/2 of book value!

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag!

So are you selling the Contour? I could use a car down here.....

An international license is not going to be worth much. You can drive with your American Passport and American drive license for three months, all an international license does give you another three months on top of that. I know here in Austria all I have to do is give my state drivers license and 80 euros and I can get an Austrian F�¼hrerschein (drivers license). See if you can do that in Germany, it would be a lot better.

I've got a USAREUR (US Army in Europe) German driver's license already that is good for 5 years. They force us to test on European laws/signs/etc before letting us drive anything here.

The international license I got is good for 5 years, and expires the same time my USAREUR license does.

I don't have a passport , but I'm working on getting one!

Oh, and not trying to sell the SVT if at all possible, but I know for a fact that some guys in the UK would die for it (just like some guys in the US would die for an ST200), but I've talked to a guy that owns an SRT-4 up there, and he said it's not worthwile to sell to a UK citizen due to the seller having to pay the customs taxes and stuff.

Not sure how it is here and Austria, but I think the buyer pays those fees...

But hey, I'm here for a LONG time, so I'll keep you in mind!

Yeah I am sure there would be lots of taxes. I am pretty sure I would rather wait a few years and get a used ST200 or better yet ST220. Also public transport is great here.

So I went looking at this place "US Military Mart" for cars.

Apparantly they are brokers or something. All they do is try to sell your car for you...

On that site, I came up with a few options (like a $5000 Cherokee), but most of the good ones were sold.

So I'm narrowed down to these cars there:

2003 Focus ZX5 - $9999 - 43,500 miles, but looks like it wasn't taken care of.

2000 Focus - $4900 - 81K miles, haven't seen but scheduled a test drive on Thursday.

And the Mazda in the above posts is fixed now... Local Mazda dealer changed the O2 sensor, adjusted some suspension parts, changed the headlight, checked out the wheel bearing issue and some other stuff that came out to a little over 100ââ??¬...

Mazda is now running smooth with no CEL, but was idling at 1200RPM, so I think it hasn't finished the drive cycle. Gonna test it tomorrow and see if it'll finish the cycle and throw the CEL again (and check the wheel bearing issue).

So far I'm leaning toward the Mazda because it's cool and things are getting fixed on it, but the cheap Focus sounds appealing (except the lower-than-average reliability I've heard about)...