Of course.

Someone else who isn't so mousy has made a trade offer. They are more open to making the trip down here from further north to see it. They want to come on Wednesday so I told them to call or text me in the morning so we can set up a time. I will provide them with the location at that time.

They did say though: "I just renewed the tabs on the Subaru, and sent for a new title, as the old one still had the bank listed on it. It will be here in a couple weeks. The new registration reflects my sole interest in the vehicle, though. "

It sounds like they just paid it off and now want rid of it. Hmm. I'm not sure what to think about that. If we agree on the trade, I can mark it "pending" on Craigslist and once they get the title in hand, we can make the actual trade. No "I'll get the title to you later" funny business. I've done that before on an old Honda scooter that I just wanted for parts so I didn't care, but the guy never sent me any title nor did he ever answer any of my calls after he had the cash. But I expected it. You have to assume the seller is lying to you. I have enough sense not to do that at ALL with cars. At least you can get away with scrapping a bare scooter frame without a title by just mixing it with other scrap metal.

On the subject of lying sellers, the seller of the car I have now told me "We tried to have the A/C charged but the mechanic said it would blow up or something if we tried." The car has no A/C equipped on it. Only heat and fan.

Anyhoo... their offer is a 140k mile, 2001 Subaru Outback Wagon VDC which was *THE* top of the line vehicle Subaru had that year. It has a 3.0 V6 with a 4-speed AWD A/T that gets 25 hwy mpg hwy and can tow up to 2,000lbs.

At first I was thinking "no, not a station wagon again" but the more I dug into the specs, the more I am warming up to it. I don't know which engine the Montero has (3.0? 3.5?).

Here's the side by side comparison of the V6 Outback (it's listed as "Legacy") vs the both Montero engine sizes: Compare Side-by-Side

If the Montero has the 3.0 it's not too awfully much lower MPG wise. The 3.5 has a much larger gap of 8MPG hwy(!). I don't really need 4WD as such. I have no interest in going mudding, but full time AWD would be nice for getaways to the mountains, driving down forest roads and especially if I want to go to the mountains in winter time.

While being 2 years newer, the Montero has about 10k more miles than the Outback. Plus it has body damage the woman said. I haven't seen any pictures of the Montero either.

Below is one of the pics the guy sent me of the Outback. So yeah, I may end up going with that. I'll just have to see. He sounds more on the level, or at the very least less frantic and disorganized. He hasn't said weird things like "will you take payments?" or "you can park it on land I know of to save on storage costs!" and other bizarre things the Montero lady has said.

 

id bet she spends as little as possible on maintenance & preventative maintenance... probably none. I try to stick with people that take their vehicles into the dealer for regular maintenance and repairs. Records available of svc repairs etc. I take as much risk out of the deal as i can and it has worked well over the many years

 

Darn, I just failed THAT test. Haven't been to a dealer since warranty expired 10 years ago and I never had Jiffy Lube do any maintenance (thus no official records of any maintenance). But then, lucky for me, I'm not selling my Monty

 

Im sure you know nothing is 100% There are ALWAYS EXCEPTIONS to every rule, All Im saying is reduce your risk when you buy a car from a stranger. Given 2 identicle cars and one is for sale by an engineer or surgeon vs one that has had 4 owners and a homeless person lives in it,Ill wager from a mechanical standpoint one will cause you fewwer problems than the other. Ill let you figure which is the least risk to purchase.