Please do your home work buying a Mark

[bhans40]

I like Marks I really do. In June of 2013 I started looking for a good clean 98 Mark with low miles. I found one nice color,low mileage, no sun roof, (didn't want one) on the net not too far from me but I'd have to fly there. Talked to the dealership and asked the questions I wanted answered. Good to go,flew out checked out the car asked more questions. Thought it was nice they were putting in a new blend door for me......The car looked great......only the passenger door went "ka thunk" rather then "thunk".....needs a little adjustment.....Interior was almost primo......Over the past nearly 4 years I have found.....the door was out of adj. for a reason.....the paint was cracking (a little) @ the seam on the bottom of rt side of the window......Paint was thin (NOT tricoat) on rear bumper and around the pass. rear quarter...... I could go on but I won't.....bottom line the car had been hit. How bad was something the original owner and body shop only knew......Dealership had no knowledge of any accident even saw the #%$@ report showing no accidents (none reported anyway). I found out about most the info when I took it to the body shop I've used in the past because of a scraped bumper.......SO, when your thinking of buying one of these cars especially if your paying a premium price take someone with you who has MORE knowledge then YOU!......The saying "Buyer beware" can Never be truer when buying a used car.....Disappointed....yes that it's not the pristine car I thought it was......Would I buy the same car again? Sure....It's a great driving and running car......just wouldn't have paid the price.....Experience is knowledge.....If I live long enough I'll have ALL the knowledge I'll ever need!......My name is Bruce L. Hansen......Senior Citizen....and I don't suffer fools.....unless I'm doing the suffering

 

[beerdog]

My experience after all these years is that very few of these cars will be problem free. Many have been in accidents and fixed up. If anything is "off" about doors, panel gaps, etc then it was probably hit. This is a popular car to buy on the auctions and fix up for a sale. Plent of people on here have done it.

 

[steve]

The carfax reports are not fool prof. The accident has to be reported by the insurance typically. Let's say someone just pays cash for the repair it will never show up in a report.

 

[SCTBIRD1173]

Sorry to hear about this. I've seen stuff like this happen to a lot of people, as far as clean carfax but the vehicle was crashed. Usually a good body shop can fix issues like this; I've learned that it's not usually the severity of the crash but the poor work of the body shop that fixed it.

 

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Its a 20 year old car. These things have a history. Anymore I put 10k a year on mine and expect to work on it.

Now in 7 years and 100k miles I have just over 7k in the car, a good number of scraped knuckles and it has broken on me AT WORK 30 miles away twice. That's comfortable.

Then again I couldn't even rent/lease a Hyuandi Liability for that amount.

 

[germansheperd]

I hear ya. I looked long and hard before I bought my 97 LSC. I had to have a red or black super low mile, no moonroof Gen 2.
I found one from an 81 yr old man who couldn't get in and out of it anymore and going over it with a fine tooth comb is an underdstatement.
Car has 32k on it now and I've been pretty fortunate so far.