Update
At Wilde Honda, I was treated with more respect. (and the car was there)
Bob Gregory was my salesman.
He was respectful and didn’t go through the motions of turning on the lights to show me things that didn’t matter. Instead, he let me inspect the car on my own, without interference. This was welcome. He treated me like a person and not a sale.
*Note: I am under no obligation to write about this from any source, I am just trying to help make the process of buying a used car less painful.
Upon inspection of the car I found some shoddy paint on the bumper which heightened my awareness. I couldn’t find any other damage… But I’m no mechanic or auto body guy. Still, I thought it was a good deal on a good car so I put some money down to hold it.
My wife and I had a date that night so I couldn’t take the time to complete the process that evening.
The crappy touch-up paint and my inexperience gnawed at me for the rest of the weekend.
I contacted a client, John Hackett, who is Diminished Value Auto Appraiser, http://www.diminishedvalueappraiserflorida.com
He told me that all car repair parts are bought from a central database so he could look up and see if anything had been purchased for this car. It was clean.
When I wen to pick up the car, I first, took it to an independent auto body shop down the road.
South Trail Auto Body Inc.
6040 S Tamiami Trail
Sarasota, FL 34231
(941) 925-2296
Dale helped me out. He was fantastic.
Here’s a map to find them.
They looked over this car throughly and found nothing out of place and suggested that the mark on the bumper, and another paint issue I didn’t see, was typically from a garage door. There was nothing to worry about.
Back to the car lot
Time to talk about a trade in.
