New guy here - questioning repairs on a potential purchase (2 Viewers)

[stonepa]

Scam - leaving the country is code for "good luck getting a hold of me once something goes wrong"

Not really. There are a lot of H1-B tech workers that were laid off and have to leave the US immediately. Pull their kids from school, sell everything, and move home. All under duress.

 

[dpeshkin]

Take your time, figure out what your looking for and go from there. I’ve been looking for about a year. I wasn’t aggressive and there’s not too many in my area of the woods, NE made the no rust hard. Shipping a cruiser to me was the best option I had without traveling and losing time off work.

Different price points on different years, there’s more than this but here’s some common ones.
5 speed 03+
ATRAC after 00+
VVTI 06+

My conditions were no rust, overall good maintance history. What I sacrificed for price was interior and paint. Interior is easier to fix than rust. Some faded paint doesn’t bother me.

Those options/price points were the only reason I traded my 80 series for an 06. Mostly the 5spd and VVTI after being underpowered for so long.

 

[shtbrwn86]

Besides throwing a brick through a guy’s window I’m not sure what recourse there really is when buying a car from any private party.

More than anything, it's nice to be able to reach out to the seller, not specifically for recourse, but just to ask questions. For example, mine had this really weird rattle/squeak from the front wheels and I asked the owner (after the sale) and he remembered that it was just a loose wheel cap. Or I could ask him what kind of oil he used for oil changes, etc.