Does this history of this car seem questionable?

Looking for a 1st car for our daughter & found this. The car seems solid and the price is right, but there's no way I can check it out in person. However, the fact it's had 2 owners in the past year, and the owner before had it repainted, seems a little questionable.

Buy or pass???

http://bit.ly/19B7H87

It's a '00 Echo with 135kmi for $2k.

I dunno. I think I would pass unless I could inspect that one in person. Unless the price is so fantastic that it would be acceptable with a blown motor and poorly done body repair work, and for an Echo, I think that would be in the sub 1 large range. But that's just me.

KBB private party is $2200 for Fair or $2800 for Good...FWIW.

Does the Toyota 1.5L have any known issues? I presumed they're pretty much bulletproof.

My spidey sense tells me, that thing has been hit hard. It's a little TOO clean, if that makes sense. The pics aren't great, but the panel gaps appear off... and I'm not 100% certain those are OE hubcaps.

2 owners in a year? Meh. How many cars have GRMers owned for days/weeks/months and then sold? Repaint could have just been failing clearcoat, slap a Maaco job on it for a few hundred bucks and the car looks 100% better.

Could also be a total disaster. But, on a 14 year old car, I wouldn't be too worried about that stuff.

Looking at the AutoCheck... 08/06/2012 136,937 Auto Auction
Since then, it has been in the hands of a S.Bend dealer and a Mishawaka dealer or business. Note the statement of "exempt" with their registration. I suspect this exempt means that the dealer is exempt from paying sales tax on the purchase since they bought it for resale. Today, the ad says it has 135k miles. One of those mileage statements were likely estimated or guessed at.
Almost exactly a year later, the car goes from a S.Bend owner to a Mishawaka owner and there are now less miles on the car that a year earlier???

My experience is the car will increase 40% in the last hour. With 1.5hr to go, the car is at $2,281. I expect this will end just over $3k.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Toyota-Other-base-coupe-2-door-Toyota-Echo-2-Door-Coupe-NO-RESERVE-/131080093300?forcerrptr=true&hash=item1e84fb7e74&item=131080093300&pt=US_Cars_Trucks

Make sure the floor hasn't rusted out of it. The early ones had some undercoating issues.

JohnRW1621 wrote: Note the statement of "exempt" with their registration. I suspect this exempt means that the dealer is exempt from paying sales tax on the purchase since they bought it for resale.

Nope. Certain states will declare any vehicle that is 10+ years old to be "Miles Exempt." This means that on the physical title, rather than listing the vehicle's mileage, it will say "Exempt" or "Miles Exempt." It is NOT indicative of any odometer tampering, it's just a state requirement.

Personally, I would be more concerned about the 7 owners it has had. The chances of it being wrecked or abused by at least one of those owners is pretty high.

HERE YOU GO, here is the previous ebay sale from Nov 24th where it sold for $3,500

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Toyota-Other-base-coupe-2-door-Toyota-Echo-2D-Coupe-/301021824799?forcerrptr=true&hash=item46164c871f&item=301021824799&pt=US_Cars_Trucks

For the past 14 days (or longer) the car has been up on CL for $4,500 http://southbend.craigslist.org/cto/4249765018.html

Other quick finds I would recommend for the princess:
http://peoria.craigslist.org/cto/4260049418.html
http://peoria.craigslist.org/cto/4262247571.html
http://peoria.craigslist.org/cto/4239975927.html
http://peoria.craigslist.org/cto/4262789283.html
http://peoria.craigslist.org/cto/4262021494.html
http://peoria.craigslist.org/cto/4257223449.html

No, I would not buy it. The previous owner was a smoker. Not only does the car smell but I've found that on average smokers neglect their cars.

Well...did you?

No, when it went over $2200 I passed.

the echo is the most soulless of Toyotas anyway. I got stuck driving one for a week.. it was better than walking

petegossett wrote: KBB private party is $2200 for Fair or $2800 for Good...FWIW. Does the Toyota 1.5L have any known issues? I presumed they're pretty much bulletproof.

I just want to clarify something. KBB private party has nothing to do with reality. How would they track it? They take a 2 month old auction data minus a risk percentage and the retail reported mainly in California and average the two. KBB itself has nothing to do with any auto transaction in the business. They either go by Blackbook or pull straight auction data from Manhiem.

Blackbook is available to give you real auction data.

Remember condition has alot to do with it and judging from the description it would come in well below book auction/trade in value.

I bought an almost identical car for my sister a few years ago for around $2,000. It had slightly more miles on it. She drove it for three years pretty much problem free and then sold it recently for about half of what I paid.