65riv71

I've been searching for a black/black 5 speed for awhile and recently came across this nice black/black 95 on Craigslist. The car looks nice with a clean title but there's a mileage discrepancy listed on carfax The car had 158K back in 2013 and now in 2018 the odometer reads 124k. The seller claims a previous owner swapped out the instrument cluster due to the LEDs going out on the original. Should I be concerned or consider this a deal breaker?


SF Craigslist link

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iTrader: (1)

looks clean but you virtually have no way of knowing how many miles are on it, could be over 200k on it by now and hes asking 6500 which is a fair price if the car had ~150k on it considering the 5speed and the black/black combo but not 200k+. There is a way you can verify the mileage on it but its gonna be tricky and the other person is unlikely to be cooperative. If you can find out the vin number of the car that the cluster came out of, you can check the carfax on it to figure out the last recorded mileage on it, then subtract that from 124k and youll get the difference of how much was driven between 2013 and now. All of this is irrelevant however if the seller tells you how many actual miles the car has and if you choose to take his word for it. The cluster swap is not unlikely, the early year models of these cars almost always have dash lighting issues. From the pictures i can tell that the leds used in the cluster are not stock, so what likely happened is the owner of the car contacted a vendor that specializes in led conversions for the cluster but instead of shipping out his old unit he bought a whole new one from said vendor. Its a bit shady but if the title is clean and everything else is good on the car then the extra 50-60k miles wont make too much of a difference at this stage. I didnt see him mention anything about lower control arms so expect to have to replace those along with pretty much all bushings through out all the suspension at some point in the near future. Ask if the transmission fluid has been changed at the proper intervals. Youre basically getting the car for the transmission and if it hasnt been taken care of properly you may want to pass on it or try to haggle the price down for future maintenance that youd have to do. If he can show you maintenance records for all the other stuff he mentioned and if the transmission maintenance issue checks out then it may be worth buying. The price of these cars are going up, Not 6 months ago something like this would go for ~5k, it may be the season or it could be because its harder and harder to find these cars in clean stock form, especially original 5 speed with a black interior. Id also suggest having a mechanic put it up on a lift and take a look under it before you buy.

Sorry i rambled a bit but i think this should cover all the bases. Im sure others will chime in as well.
Best of luck on your search

OneJay

iTrader: (14)

Looks like he updated the ad to state 164k miles. I'd offer $5500 or so.