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Old 02-20-2006, 10:30 AM
Eskimo Eskimo is offline
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Florida Big Bend region
Posts: 721
Quote:
Originally Posted by dazsa
I am looking for a diesel MB in North Carolina and this one popped up on Ebay. Please give me some insight or opinions on it. I know I run the risk of someone getting it, but I need to learn more and take that risk. I did do a carfax on it and it came back fine. It does seem to have low miles.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1,1&item=4615229392&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT

Thanks, Don
This has been stated many, many times on this forum, but I'll state it again: Unless solid information is available to verify it, do not assign any extra value to one of these cars solely for showing "low miles" on the odometer. The odometers are notorious for failing spontaneously. They're also notoriously easy to reset to any particular desired mileage.

CarFax can also be of limited value, especially for cars of this age. Depending on the state(s) in which the vehicle was registered, a CarFax report may be very uninformative. I'd still get one - it could reveal a real show-stopper bit of information - but a "clean" CarFax may not necessarily be much better than nothing. It all depends on the records that were available to build the report.

I'm not trying to rain on your parade here, and it might be a fine car. If it were local to me I'd be putting eyeballs on it right now. I'm just cautioning to be careful with how you weigh the information that's most readily available to you.

Since you've already brought the car to the attention of the forum, you might post asking if there's a forum member local to the car who would be willing to check it out for you. A few guys here have been kind enough to extend such assistance to me, and it saved me some grief.

Edited to add: Yes, a car like this could move fast, depending on the actual condition; the seller doesn't have a sky-high Buy-It-Now price. I, too, know the joy of looking for a M-B diesel of that vintage, poring over the ads daily, calling sellers to try to get useful information about the cars, and then finding out that the good ones are gone quickly. Good luck!

Last edited by Eskimo; 02-20-2006 at 10:41 AM.
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