Buying used cars, argh!

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Buying a used car from private party off Craigslist is full of suspects nowadays.

My dad needs a new van, so I was looking on Craigslist, and found a couple candidates. I went with a friend. When I got there, the guy has no less than HALF DOZEN vehicles for sale. Alarm bells started going off in my head. This ain't "private party" at all.

Then he said he doesn't have room to park all his vehicles, we'll need to go to a "lot" about 15 blocks away to see the vehicle in question. Hmmm... Okay, I'll bite.

Once we got there, the vehicle is in immaculate condition... In places that are visible. However, my friend is an old hand at this. He told the guy to check on something else, while he checked under the hood and unscrewed a cap with a hose going into a reservoir... Outside the cap the hose is pristine. INSIDE the bottle, there's a TON of crud attached to the hose. In other words, the engine compartment was steam-cleaned multiple times, but the cooling system is in serious need of a flush, with a lot of crud inside. In other words, this vehicle is a ticking timebomb. I'm surprised that the water pump actually works.

We thanked his time and got out of there.