buyers guide, anybody?

Put a deposit down at a dealership on a 2015 SR5 V6, MT Access Cab.
It has 88k miles and the frame looked barely rusted at all. But, I won't have a trusted mechanic I can bring with me so I'm pre-sale checking this myself.

Does anyone have a useful buyers guide that I can reference when I go back to the dealership so can feel more confident I'm not getting screwed?

 

100% bring it to a 3rd party shop. 100-150$ goes a looooooong way.

I've done it to numerous dealers, I'm a tech but I don't let the dealer know.

You need a shop that wont ignore issues like a slow leaking headgasket or small holes in the frame. Dealers will encourage the inspectors to skip large stuff.

The more information you have, the better prepared you are to haggle or walk away.

 

This ^^
Post up a link or some pics of the rig.
Lots of knowledge people on the forum that will spot some positives and negative’s just from a few photos.
But still get an independent inspection from a competent mechanic.

 

a big part of it is paying attention to the details. dirt where it typically shouldn't be. different colored paint(except plastic bumpers. plastic always has a different shade of paint due to the plasticizers included. but the bumpers should match in color difference). markings on things that shouldn't have markings. panels that don't align. fluids on the outside of things they should be inside. a weird smells. i specifically use a small tight-beam flashlight while doing this, partly for psychological reasons-- by highlighting only small parts in a different type of light, imperfections become easier to track and can 'pop' much more.

always run a carfax. but treat carfax like a hall monitor. big/stupid/official things end up on carfax. but really shady people, just like they avoid hall monitors, will avoid carfax. but there's always signs in the quality. people looking to dodge official records don't typically reach to the highest quality levels.

ideally, the carfax will cover any accidents (it's not always important that it happened, it's how it's repaired. a proper repair will outlast the original vehicle), vehicle maintenance indications, and regular odometer updates.


as a recent example i just went through, both of them with enough red flags that neither were purchased:

my dad just wanted to go looking at two 2016 ford explorers. i know nothing about ford explorers. they've got a motor, 4 wheels, and some seats.. both were listed at dealerships. the first was at a honda dealer. the second was a random used car dealer.

the first explorer. we get to the dealership. they do their dealer things, we sit around 30 minutes while they 'pull it around'. they get the explorer in the front of the door and bring us the keys. first wierdness-- the carfax had shown that the vehicle was sold 6 months ago, and then re-listed for sale again at a different companion dealer later with 300 miles added on. maybe it was a dealer trade that got marked in the system wrong...

first real red flag--it's a key-only, with an aftermarket alarm fob on a ring. 2016 for any brand, has a integral key fob/key. now i'm wondering why this was changed (most importantly, aftermarket alarms mean that someone cut into the factory wiring, and i need to know how poorly it was done). we start walking around the truck.
second red flag-- cleaned up, but baked-on brake dust rust on the front alloy wheels. that indicates that someone wasn't cleaning the wheels of brake dust regularly. now i'm wondering about the maintenance history--if wheels can't be cleaned occasionally, oil changes tend to get delayed to.
3rd red flag, i open the rear hatch and there's odd rust on the seat metal hardware that's up and out of the way of direct contact with the floor(only possible if lots of items are jammed/left in the vehicle for very long times for moisture to transfer across the surfaces, another strike against someone that has any mechanical sympathy or cleanliness), the white seat closing instruction labels have random dirt and grime across them, random containers, and a still-mounted correct license plate on the rear that is good into 2025(this is a real dealership. why doesn't it have a "____ dealership" plate/frame?).
4th red flag, the interior reeks of a fabreze bomb(what are they covering up?), and the front console has random fast food straws and misc garbage in it (this is a genuine honda dealer. they don't have a garbage can in the detail bay?).
5th and final red flag, i open the hood, and there's baked/caked on dirt all along the bottom of the hood that was evident they tried to clean it, but gave up because it was caked on from lack of attention for 80k+ miles. the motor is as dirty as the spot they didn't clean. but they cleaned the upper plastic engine cover. typically, i pop the hood to check for wet/damp/water-spots at the seams of everything. i never got that far-- dirt is an indication of a lack of maintenance, and along with the other signs, this isn't worth what they're asking.

after that, we walked away and didn't bother with the test drive. on reflection, i'm partly convinced that the vehicle was repossessed at least once with that dealer, and because they had already done the prep work before the repo, they tried saving time, gave it a fast wash, fabreze-bombed it, and re-listed it without spending tons of time on detailing that middling 'borrower' did to it.

the second explorer showed great online. the carfax indicated regular dealership service interval appointments, and only one incident involving the passenger-rear corner of the vehicle. on getting to see it in person, it didn't have most of the same issues. the wheels were clean, without major blemishes. the paint had scuffs and scratches consistent with the age, but with special attention to the rear passenger corner, there wasn't anything that looked out of place. opening the rear hatch, it didn't have the same rust spots on the metal seat brackets, and it was actually clean. under the hood, there was some typical corrosion, but nothing out of the ordinary for the age. no major leaks, just slightly excessive wear for my standards, but typical for the area the vehicle was in.

the big red flag came when i continued walking around the vehicle. the paint around the rear drivers window caught my light. it was a different shade. they patched and repainted the area around the window, poorly, like someone had smashed the window and damaged the metal around it. the new clearcoat was added on top of it, masking tape lines were easily evident, and the paint color shade was very wrong. that was a large enough red flag, we walked from that one as well. a shoddy repair isn't worth the hassle. any proper body shop could've done the same work and it would've been invisible.

 

Can you even get a good REAL once over at a qualified mechanic these days for $150 bucks. All the ones around me are backed up for days. You ain't gonna pop n and pop out and get a thorough inspection.

 

Flood damage? A lot of them showing up.

 

For sure, always do your homework.