Most recently I made an offer on a s2000 $14750cad ($11000USD). The owner informed me of the vehicles history, that a rug in his garage fell over and that he ran over it having not noticed. Upon running the VIN today it shows a $4000 collision ($3000USD). I write to ask you today if this seems like a fair estimate or if Its suspect of something worse. The owner has been honest with me thus far but as i get the ball rolling for a sale I've become nervous of this detail. He pointed under the ratiator to a bar replaced by the front bumper.


My own photo, hood popped, closes fine.









I have no plans to race and I consider myself a fairly tame driver. I know people say they never drive the same after a collision, but I don't plan to push it to the limit often. Plan to just to repair some wear and tear on body and enjoy her as I've painted 2 civics and a jeep. It drove quite nicely for my tastes upon test driving. 165 000km (100 000miles)

 

Hard for me to imagine $3000usd worth of damage from a rug while coming out of the garage, especially something that would damage the lower radiator support enough to warrant replacement but parts aren't exactly cheap for this car either...

 

POS...run,run away.

 

You made me look under my bumper. I did not see any obvious "bars" to replace by hitting a soft rolled up rug at 1/16th a mile an hour. I can see dislodging the bumper from its retaining clips or even having a dent in a fender or hood from the thing falling on it but most of the time someone is not going at register speed limits in a garage. If the VIN check shows the accident, is it in the time frame of the owner you are negoitiing with?

That top is going to have to be replaced and it needs to be factored in.

Run Forest, run.

 

I smell fish. Unfortunately I have lots of experience in paying for body repairs on this car. Although it is easy to rack up three thousand bucks in damage on this car I'm not sure how you can do that running over a rolled up carpet. It would more logically occur if the carpet somehow fell onto the car and slid across a couple of panels.I need a better explanation than that. Also was the damage calculated in cad or usd?

 

I don't see many options in my budget. Every car I've seen around this price in Canada have all been in a front end collision anyway, all of them. Does it really matter if it's been fixed? The way I see it, hitting the rug would be a bit like hitting a curb in a lowered s2k and then rolling onto the curb, rugs are not exactly soft tied up either and maybe it rolled a bit as he drove over it in the process so it was less sudden, i don't know. The whole front bumper was replaced and there's a bar you can see when you look at the gap looking down at the radiator. wish I could drop 20k on a car but I really can't.

the bar looked like a flat lip going across, black.

Claim was
4000$ CAD = 3000$ USD

 

You ask for advice and knowledgeable folks say rum. However, you try to rationalize buying a sketchy car anyways. You claim it's because of your budget but a sketchy car raises the chances of going over your budget in the long run. Just saying.

 

I suppose, however, I will ultimately be paying for an independent inspection for peace of mind. Shops in these parts are notorious for trying to get every dime they can from insurance claims so I'm out here looking for opinions, not personal criticisms.

To be honest, at this point in the thread Its not yet obvious to me as it still feels mixed.

 

A properly repaired car tbat was ina serious accident is never going to be a best in show winner once these cars become valuable as collectors, and its always going to have diminished resale value. But there is no reason it can't drive exactly like a similar car, similar miles.

There is certainly damage that can make a car not drive right again. But its usually not something that can be fixed for $3k.

The seller is disclosing something happened. But it seems unrealistic that running over a carpet could cause damage that level of damage. To me, that is what makes this deal iffy, that seller may be trying to make the accident seem like a smaller thing.

But, if you're going to make up a story, who thinks of ran over carpet in garage? It seems silly that would ever happen, and how would you not notice. So silly perhaps its true.

Here is what I would do. Look for the vin tags on hood and both fenders (I wouldn't worry about bumper. No big deal if that was replaced). If they're all there, buy it. Any front end accident it had couldn't be that bad if original panels still there.

If they aren't all there, I wanna see what kind of carpet takes out a fender or hood at 1 mph...

 

Stop to ponder the odds that the "rug story" could even be true. Where did the rug fall that the car would have run over it? It sure didn't roll underneath the car as only something the size of a rolled up bath mat would have a chance of fitting under a S2000. If the rug fell in front of the car then this probably only happens if the car was backed into the garage and the carpet was being stored right by the garage door. It's not like anyone launches hard when pulling out of the garage. I just don't see how anyone is going to run over a large rolled up rug unless they happened to pass out just as they released the clutch with the accelerator pedal smashed down.

It's great that you have the skill set to take on bodywork and paint, but with the cars you are looking at there could very well be a number of other expenses that will offset the lower purchase price. It seems that it would be worth saving up a bit more money to get yourself into the group of cars the next level up. By the way, maybe not a big deal in the overall scheme of things, but the trunk lid gaps also look off on this car.