Hi all,
Sorry in advance for this newb question. I need to buy a car soon and am very interested in the Protege5. I found an '03 one that looks pretty good but has a few things that are raising red flags for me, and I was hoping to get some feedback from you knowledgeable folks.
The current owner bought the car at 77k miles with a bad engine, and had it replaced with an engine with 52k miles and also replaced the timing belt. The car also has some minor bumper damage. Autocheck came back clean, no salvage title or accident record (although obviously there was at least something minor for the bumper), although it does show the title having changed hands a number of times which is a bit concerning.
So basically, I'm wondering how concerned I should be about this. Should I assume that a previous owner took really poor care of the car? Is it possible that the problem was limited to the engine and with that replaced everything else is fine? If the car was previously abused would a mechanic be able to tell from inspecting it or are there problems that might be hidden now but get bad later?
Thanks!
Will
Sorry in advance for this newb question. I need to buy a car soon and am very interested in the Protege5. I found an '03 one that looks pretty good but has a few things that are raising red flags for me, and I was hoping to get some feedback from you knowledgeable folks.
The current owner bought the car at 77k miles with a bad engine, and had it replaced with an engine with 52k miles and also replaced the timing belt. The car also has some minor bumper damage. Autocheck came back clean, no salvage title or accident record (although obviously there was at least something minor for the bumper), although it does show the title having changed hands a number of times which is a bit concerning.
So basically, I'm wondering how concerned I should be about this. Should I assume that a previous owner took really poor care of the car? Is it possible that the problem was limited to the engine and with that replaced everything else is fine? If the car was previously abused would a mechanic be able to tell from inspecting it or are there problems that might be hidden now but get bad later?
Thanks!
Will