stpete

In early November, I was rear-ended by an inattentive driver in a pickup. Because the trunk structure was mashed in above the bumper, my '98 GS300 with 230K was totalled out by the insurance company. It was a fantastic car. It has been in my family since new. Bought by my parents and passed on to me. It was dealer serviced while they owned it. They did everything the dealer suggested. Needless to say, it's been a great car for me. I do my own maintenance and repairs and had kept the car up well. I took the settlement from the insurance where I keep the car and planned to pick up a parts car or some junkyard parts and have a body shop cut/weld the trunk structure. I figured I could do it for the settlement price and be back in business with the car. It still runs and drives perfectly fine.
Then I started looking at parts cars and junkyard parts. Part of my savings was I wanted to get a trunk and rear bumper that didn't need paint. Most of the parts cars or junkyard parts in black had rough paint with peeling clearcoat or just weird circles of missing paint. I was spending way too much time driving all over the mid-Atlantic area and realized it's getting cold and I don't have time to make this happen. So, I started looking at replacement cars. Ughhh. Just as bad. There's a lot of crappy old GS300s out there.
I almost pulled the trigger on a Mazda 3 instead. I test drove it, made an offer, and the owner accepted. While I was counting the cash in my truck, someone else pulled up and wanted to drive it. The guy said OK and gave them the keys. I started the truck and left. Don't know if the other person bought it, don't care. At that point, I had looked at 4 GSs and 2 Mazdas.
I was taking the family down to Fla to visit my parents so I looked at the Craigslist ads there. Found an '01 GS300 with only 140K and full dealer service records organized by date in a binder. Drove it home the other day. Need to swap my good tires on it, but it's another nice driving car.



The neighbors love me right now . Both cars are in the driveway on jackstands while the wheels are at the shop getting tires swapped.

Not quite sure what I'm going to do with the old car. I still want to get the trailer hitch off it (bike rack). Once I get the tires and trailer hitch, it will go live at my buddy's farm for a few months while I figure out what I'm going to do with it.

kevin3344

Wow, that's a nice find. I was just telling my sister the other day if for some reason something happened to my car I would look for the best example 2GS I could find and buy it. There isn't anything else I want to drive.

Luxurious

aren't ya glad you got the gs instead of the mazda? :P