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Javelin
Javelin GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
9/24/13 1:50 p.m.

Continuing on the Wheeler Dealers / car flipping stuff, I had the opportunity to purchase this little number:

Not bad, huh? 99 RAV4 L, 4 cyl/auto, 2WD. Leather, moonroof, A/C, PW/PDL/PS, etc.

The interior was even half-decent:

Except for one little niggle...

That's mold on the glass, a sure sign up here that not only does the car park outside in the winter, but that it also is parked in the exact same direction every day, and rarely, if ever, washed.

A much closer inspection reveals a car you should run away from as if it was packed with agent orange. Shall we?

Starting with the wheels:

At the end of the pen, you can see some funny looking white scratches. That is aluminum corrosion. Basically, it's rust for aluminum. It's a strong indicator that the car was never washed and often spent time with brake dust on it's wheels (which accelerates corrosion).

Further inspection shows that although it has matching tires, they have uneven wear and two different styles of valve stem. A cursory look in the glove box reveals the dreaded wad of yellow, meaning this owner took the car to the cheapest discount chain in the region and bought 2 tires at a time and never an alignment or rotation.

While we are down there, we notice some missing fasteners on the bumper. This is a warning sign of potential collision history.

Further inspection of the front bumper reveals a bad spot of orange peel in the paint and clearcoat. This could either be sun/weather damage and/or a flaw in the respray from a sub-standard repair.

This is not isolated to a single spot, either. The whole bumper is showing signs of an extremely poor repair.

The rear bumper is a little more disturbing. That's silver overspray in the reflectors. The body shop didn't bother to remove the reflectors, just masked them, and the paint went through the seals and got inside the lens.

Here we have a nasty hole and crack in a taillight. (You did notice the nearly-new headlights earlier too, right?) This is a very unusual place to have damage like this and is most likely from a rear-end collision that was incompletely repaired.

Up top we can see a "sunburn". This is where the clearcoat is burned completely through from sitting outside in the weather and not being regularly protected (wash and wax). The roof is the original paint, meaning this car has had only a partial respray.

The respray obviously didn't help though. In the rear door we have this gnarly dent behind the spare tire, showing that it's been hit again, that was fixed by cheapo parts store touch up paint with a brush, and not even in the same color.

Here's the easiest to spot sign of a respray, overspray lines where a panel shuts. In this case, it's the sides of the fenders underneath the hood. Notice the line where the new paint entered the gap. On a factory finish, the fenders are painted with the hood up, and will have a nice, uniform finish all the way down and past the hold-down bolts, which will be painted as well.

Moving on, we find flaking paint around the door handles. The handles have a very thin black rubber/felt gasket in between them and the door. This gasket should be bare, not painted. The repair shop once again failed to do any disassembly and painted those gaskets. Now that paint is flaking off. It gets worse!

On the same door, we find some serious chipping on the top of the plastic cladding, showing the bare black plastic underneath. The repair shop should have primed this panel with an adhesion promoting primer before laying the silver on, this is another sign of shoddy, substandard work.

Here's where it starts getting really interesting. See how the paint has a texture to it on the cladding?

A look inside the driver's door shows us silver paint on smooth plastic.

A look in the passenger door reveals bare black textured plastic! The repair shop used the lower-end models textured plastic:

On this L Special Edition version and just painted it! Not only did they totally cut corners and botch the paintwork, they didn't even use the correct parts. Yes, that means this car has smooth body panels on one side, and textured ones on the other. It gets worse.

This is the cladding and panel join on the rear passenger quarter panel. Notice how ill-fitting it is and the bubble in the metal above the plastic. A tap on this tells us this is either a rust bubble forming or a blob of body filler.

A further look into the wheel well reveals even more damage. This is either grinder marks or more botched filler where the outer and inner panels are joined. This quarter panel has likely been reworked in favor of a total replacement. That shows how hard one of the multiple hits on this car was.

The almighty Carfax on this car was completely clear, no accident history at all! A talk with the owner let the cat out of the bag. It's been hit hard, taking the front end out and the passenger doors and rear quarter. The owner did not have collision insurance, and so she paid cash out of pocket to have a local cheap repair shop do the repair work. This repair work was obviously done very sub-standard, and any dealership or mechanic will spot it immediately. Further, it is evident that the car suffered mechanical damage as a result of that shunt, which has never been addressed.

So the reality is, this car's owner thinks she has an "Excellent" condition (by KBB) car that she's trying to get top-dollar for. The reality is, it's a near-totaled car that's been improperly repaired with lingering mechanical issues that likely has a compromised crash structure, bad suspension components, and a chassis/unibody that is out of alignment and needs a frame rack. Unfortunately, an unwitting buyer will see the new headlights and paint and think it's a nice car with a clean history report and drive away completely ignorant to their horrible purchase and impending disaster.

I hope that won't happen, but it probably will. At least we can all learn something here. Inspect, inspect, inspect! Your eyes will tell you far more than any "vehicle history report" can. Needless to say, I passed on this purchase.

Sky_Render
Sky_Render Dork
9/24/13 2:26 p.m.

Wow, nice write-up!

Can you explain the mold thing a little more?

Nashco
Nashco UberDork
9/24/13 2:47 p.m.

After nearly purchasing one car and actually purchasing another car that Carfax claimed were "clean" and in reality BOTH had been totalled and had "junk" titles (in California), I no longer bother with Carfax. A call to the CA DMV is how I found out that neither vehicle had a clean title; Carfax refunded my money in both occassions, but that didn't even come close to making up for the hassle. Fortunately, I didn't lose my ass on either deal, but it's only because of my distrust in Carfax!

Accident damage and respray work is pretty easy to spot, especially if it's aged a few years, unless the work has been done very well. If the work was done very well, then you generally don't have much to worry about...if the details you can see are done very well then usually the same goes for the details you can't see. It's very difficult to remove/repaint lots of bodywork without leaving a trail of bread crumbs, so I'm always impressed when I dig into a vehicle and find evidence of a very well done repair from a long time ago.

As far as the mold goes, I'm going to have to argue that part about it being due to not being washed. I've lived in the Northwet most of my life and have seen what you're pointing to on many of my own vehicles even if they are washed regularly. The example you show above is easy to see from the inside, where the inner door felt is lower than the outer door felt. Even if you wash by hand, those door felts make it tough to scrub behind them, and automatic car washes certainly don't get the job done. So, unless you're an extremely detailed cleaner, you're going to see that stuff behind most window molding as well as many door jambs and nooks and crannies around the hood, hatcht/trunk, etc. on lots of different vehicles. I don't take that green bit there as any sign of concern on its own. Many people use automatic car washes, which are better than nothing, and it's extremely rare that anybody actually opens and wipes down door jams, etc. If you buy a used car where somebody lived somewhere very moist and also paid attention to those details to avoid leaving green goop behind, you're extremely fortunate.

Bryce

tuna55
tuna55 PowerDork
9/24/13 3:27 p.m.

Hey Jav, can you come down and inspect the truck I am about to buy?

-Tuna, Summer 2006

Javelin
Javelin GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
9/24/13 3:41 p.m.
Sky_Render wrote: Wow, nice write-up! Can you explain the mold thing a little more?

Up here is very wet during the winter. If you don't wash your car, it will grow that green mold everywhere. Most cars that are cleaned even semi-regularly will not have it grow that bad. You will still get it in the really hard to clean places, especially if the car sits outside and in the same orientation every day (that's why I rotate my cars weekly).

This was significant, because as you can see this car has obviously just received a very thorough detail job in preparation for selling, but more obviously, it's the tail end of summer. There's been a solid 4-5 months of sun and great weather, that mold should have been long gone before the detail job. It's basically showing complete owner malaise.

Not a deal breaker on it's own, just another clue.

Javelin
Javelin GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
9/24/13 3:41 p.m.
tuna55 wrote: Hey Jav, can you come down and inspect the truck I am about to buy? -Tuna, Summer 2006

I do vehicle pre-purchase inspections! (Usually for free, too)

Javelin
Javelin GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
9/24/13 3:45 p.m.

In reply to Nashco:

Bryce, all good points. This car is at the end of summer though, not in the middle of spring. The mold should have been long gone, even after just a couple of auto-washes.

And I agree, if I find evidence of well done bodywork, I chalk that up in the positive column. SWMBO's Grand Prix had some work done on the rear bumper after the smallest of fender benders, and it's flawless. I know what's been done and I can't find 99% of the work.

tuna55
tuna55 PowerDork
9/24/13 4:03 p.m.
Javelin wrote:
tuna55 wrote: Hey Jav, can you come down and inspect the truck I am about to buy? -Tuna, Summer 2006
I do vehicle pre-purchase inspections! (Usually for free, too)

Do it in 2006 and prevent me from buying my project GMC

Vigo
Vigo UberDork
9/24/13 4:19 p.m.

Good stuff, but it will be much more useful on a new car that was worth something. This is all par for the course of 14 year old DD-type vehicles and anyone who has something better and KNOWS it's better is going to be asking enough that you won't be able to get a 'good' deal off them. The only way you do better than this on a 14-yr old car is spend a lot of valuable time sifting through cheap listings rather than paying the actual value upfront in dollars (instead of dollars + value of your time in dollars) on the one old car that is actually nice and is priced as such.

But if you're shopping newer vehicles that are still worth a lot, i think this is good info. I just have to hope people don't get the bright idea to go around picking over every cheap 15 year old car with a fine tooth comb. That's a recipe for constant disappointment.

Javelin
Javelin GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
9/24/13 5:46 p.m.

In reply to Vigo:

Um, okay? That was the oddest and most pointless rant I've read in awhile. Shoddy repair work is relevant whether the car is 5 minutes or 50 years old.

pimpm3
pimpm3 Reader
9/24/13 7:16 p.m.

They way I look at it all the stuff you pointed out is a great reason to offer them a low price. In 13 years of flipping cars / buying for a car dealership I never bought one of those RAV4s. They simply bring to much money / are to popular to export to get a good deal on. What were they asking for it if you don't mind me asking?

SnowMongoose
SnowMongoose HalfDork
9/24/13 7:28 p.m.

Good info!
Two questions though:
How did you end up with a pen from Florida?
Was this your first time hand modeling?

jdbuilder
jdbuilder Reader
9/24/13 7:51 p.m.

]

SnowMongoose wrote:

Good info!
Two questions though:
How did you end up with a pen from Florida?
Was this your first time hand modeling?

Apparently the Bic pen from the first photo got let go... hahahaha.

I appreciate the time you took to get this info out there. When I was 18 I bought an integra that was wrecked worse than I had initially seen. Lets just say the hatch never sealed due to to a nice U in the body. Cant say I got burned but it was a really close one. Never hurts to read refresher info like this.

Trans_Maro
Trans_Maro UltraDork
9/24/13 9:18 p.m.

I used to be the guy on the other end of this scenario.

Rubberised gravel guard, SEM trim black spraypaint and a can of pledge furniture polish can make any car look much better.

For about a month.

I don't do this anymore and haven't for a long time.

spin_out
spin_out Reader
9/25/13 8:01 a.m.

I'm glad you posted the photos and descriptions. I often find the quickest way to find bodywork is to look for tape marks. Even the best shops don't remove something like a windshield, they just tape it off. But Really good shops are really good at taping.

You had one photo where you were pointing out the plastic cladding, and right above your pen were 2 runs in the clear coat. Add that to the list of signs of a re-paint.

kanaric
kanaric Reader
9/25/13 8:13 a.m.

if you keep doing this you should do a youtube series.

Nathan JansenvanDoorn
Nathan JansenvanDoorn Dork
9/25/13 8:23 a.m.
Javelin wrote: In reply to Vigo: Um, okay? That was the oddest and most pointless rant I've read in awhile. Shoddy repair work is relevant whether the car is 5 minutes or 50 years old.

I see where Vigo is coming from. I expect shoddy workmanship on a cheap car. I don't even mind it, depending one what the car is for.

I get pretty annoyed with nit-picking buyers looking at cars being sold for, lets say, 'well under market value' who then expect a new car. (You did say that this was being sold at a higher price than that)

You make some points about a crooked chassis or bad alignment, or mechanical issues, but that is conjecture, no? For the right price, I'd jump on that RAV, if I was looking for one. I'd request that I take it to an alignment shop and then decide on the purchase depending on the results. Cosmetics are just that.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker
Giant Purple Snorklewacker MegaDork
9/25/13 8:32 a.m.
Nathan JansenvanDoorn wrote: For the right price, I'd jump on that RAV, if I was looking for one.

+1.

Nothing about a bad respray sends me running away as long as the chassis is straight and the powertrain checks out.

Pointing out those issues to a seller are how you get an appliance car for way less than market value of a perfect one.

Good write-up though, I never think things like "Gee, how did they manage to bust a tail light w/o denting the ..., DOH! " . (Added to toolbag).

Klayfish
Klayfish SuperDork
9/25/13 9:17 a.m.

Very nice write up, great pictures. Definitely some serious red flags on this car that others likely would have missed. Frankly, I probably would have missed some of them myself.

I agree with Nathan also. Definitely don't want a car with serious structural or mechanical issues, so definitely check for that. But at the same time, when looking for an old beater, I know I'm looking for a "beater". My last few I've bought, I'll admit to not looking as close as I should have/could have. I did the same thing when I sold it, I made it clear that it's a cheap used car...don't come looking for a Concours winner.

But still an awesome write up with lots of great info. And just how much did Custom Cast and Chrome pay you to feature their pen? Nice that you've got sponsorship.

Tom_Spangler
Tom_Spangler GRM+ Memberand Dork
9/25/13 9:21 a.m.
Nathan JansenvanDoorn wrote: I see where Vigo is coming from. I expect shoddy workmanship on a cheap car. I don't even mind it, depending one what the car is for.

It depends on the price of the car, obviously, but what Jav posted is Used Car Inspection 101, you should always do it, no matter the price level, unless you are buying a parts car or something. Now, if you find evidence of poor repairs, that's not necessarily a deal-killer, but it means you need to inspect the rest of the car very carefully, perhaps even take it to a frame shop to get it checked before buying it. Think of it this way, what if some unsuspecting soul buys that RAV4 for their teenage son or daughter and it has a compromised structure?

I remember a friend of mine buying an early 90s Firebird that had overspray on the tires (!), a fender that was a different shade of blue than the rest of the car, and various other warning signs. The rest of us tried to warn him off, but he was in love, so he bought it. Honestly, other than typical GM quality stuff, he didn't have any particular problems with the car, so you never know.

fornetti14
fornetti14 GRM+ Memberand HalfDork
9/25/13 10:11 a.m.

I always use this stuff to seriously beat down the seller's price (if I like the car and all the other stuff is OK).

The0retical
The0retical HalfDork
9/25/13 10:25 a.m.

Thank you for the write up Javelin I threw this in my bookmarks along with a couple other really good write ups from this forum.

Now back to finding an FD RX-7 that hasn't been crashed at least twice using your info

failboat
failboat SuperDork
9/25/13 11:36 a.m.

Javelin your write ups are pretty good! Very informative!

Vigo
Vigo UberDork
9/25/13 11:54 a.m.
I expect shoddy workmanship on a cheap car. I don't even mind it, depending one what the car is for.

Yes, and MOST of them have repairs at least this 'bad' or worse on them by that age. If you want something better than this on a low budget on an old DD-type car you have to accept one of two situations: You will spend a lot of time (which equates to $$ if you value your time at all) going to check out a bunch of used cars that will not hit your standards AND be cheap, or, you will pay on the very high end of what those cars are going for. If you go into it thinking you can get an old car with no body damage or very high quality repair work at a low enough price to make money flipping it, doing that any kind of quickly requires luck, and being able to do it consistently would be nearly impossible. Unless you do bodywork yourself (in which case you're looking for UGLY cars), the only easy money on flips of cars with beautiful bodywork is in major drivetrain repair the PO didnt want to shell out for.

They way I look at it all the stuff you pointed out is a great reason to offer them a low price. In 13 years of flipping cars / buying for a car dealership I never bought one of those RAV4s. They simply bring to much money / are to popular to export to get a good deal on. What were they asking for it if you don't mind me asking?

Exactly. That car, in truly EXCELLENT condition, is still worth 5-6k down here and if you bought one at that price you wouldnt be able to make any money flipping it. On the other hand, this car, with the damage and repairs it has, i would still consider a good deal and a good car for $2500. It all depends on price point.

So, for example, i went to check out an 08 civic at a honda dealership for my brother's gf yesterday. I did this same kind of stuff and came up with similar results. The way i explained it to him was "i dont see anything that makes me think its a bad car, what i see just tells me it's incredibly overpriced". As i told him, if you were not able to notice these things i just pointed out, they never would have bothered you anyway. So the thing is not whether a car is a good or bad CAR based on body repair, as much as it is a good or bad DEAL for the $.

JohnRW1621
JohnRW1621 PowerDork
9/25/13 12:02 p.m.

Like!

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