The Hunt for a Quality Ride

Tonight (Thursday) Matt thought he had found a great deal on a car. After work, I drove to Richfield to pick it up. A Russian family owned the car. The wife was driving the car, and the husband was a mechanic, so things were looking good despite the fact that the car was stated to have sustained some superficial damage a couple years prior. So I drove to our house for a quick dinner break and a chance to check out a CarFax report before heading to our mechanic in Blaine.

The mechanics looked under the hood before even beginning the inspection. They found a number of places where corners were cut during a variety of repairs, so they let us think about whether we actually wanted to do the inspection before charging us a penny. (Did I say I love this place?) We had taken the time to get the car, so we went ahead with the inspection. Good news? The frame looked to be in good shape. Bad news? Everything else had minor problems: Missing chunks of foam, pieced tied on with wire, low quality soldering jobs, break job needed, alignment issues, a major component filled with "Stop-Leak" that needs replacing, and overly dirty air filter, all 4 tires worn in an unusual pattern (indicating further issues), all 4 tires needed replacing, and the list goes on. So many corners were cut...

So we drove the car back to Richfield, dropped the keys in the dropbox, and headed home for bed.