Indyken

Let me just preface this post with the fact that I admit I'm pretty **** when it comes to cars, but glad I am. Also, in the past I wasn't a big proponent of vehicle history subscription services like carfax because they can miss quite a bit but I have to admit Experian's product was the single most useful tool that saved me earlier last month from a lot of future headaches. Combined with the other stuff I put together, maybe this could help somebody else as well looking for an IS300.

On Feb 1st I totaled my 02 Sportcross that I LOVED(not my doing, another moron decided to pull out in front of me) I received a check from the insurance company and started searching on cars.com, autotrader.com, carmax.com to get an idea of just where in the world I would find another mint condition IS around the same model year with the money I had from the insurance settlement. I spent an entire weekend sifting through over 700 different cars online to only locate a grand total of 28 that were worth contacting. Here's the main criteria I was shopping for.

I developed quite a knack for entering VIN numbers of "for sale" vehicles into the experian website and ran history reports on every one of the cars where a VIN was provided. It came out to over 700 history reports which equated to over 700 emails. I was quickly able to narrow my search down to just over 110 cars. Here's the main criteria I was using.

• Nothing that was owned or originated in a state that salted it's roads in the winter.
• Less than 75K Miles on it.
• Never been in a "Reported" accident.
• Non-smoker.
• One Owner.
• Clean Title.
• Within a reasonable price range for all of the criteria

I next manually backloaded each of the 110 ad's basic criteria (mileage, asking price) into a spreadsheet. I did some analysis of median values of the market and compared it with edmunds blue book values which stated what the IS300 was worth. I was able to finally determine the price range I was willing to work in and went shopping within the 30 cars that qualified using my criteria. At that stage, I knew more about what was a fair offer without even seeing somebody's asking price. Here's just a sample of a chart I created.


If you're wondering if I got a good deal on the one I ultimately chose, YES because I used this at the end of the negotiating.

So I wouldn't waste any more of my time and then money flying to Florida to to get the car only to find out the owner was lying, I sent a nearby relative with the attached checklist prior to making any offer. Everything checked out and now I have the sedan version of the IS with 30K less miles than my Sportcross had on it. I hope this info can help somebody else looking for a decent IS300.

Sincerely,
Ken

LittleGz

Wow, you really did your homework. Good looking out for those on the hunt

2002GGPIS3

Wow, very good info. I would like to see your chart applied to other cars like the Supra, I bet the results will be interesting. Anyway, enjoy your new IS.