Looking to purchase a stock and otherwise mint 2002 with 45K on it, but mostly unkown maintenance history.

Here's the only thing "unusual" about the car:

The inside of the exhaust tips are fairly black/sooty. I'm not too familiar with s2000's specifically, but this soot appeared thicker than I'd expect to see on a typical car of this age.


Is this evidence of a larger issue?
Any specific checks to insist upon before buying (compression check, emissions check, etc?)
Is this normal for these cars?



(I tried the search function, but it's broken - sorry if this issue has been addressed previously)


thanks for the help!

 

if that is the only beef about the car buy it. Sooty pipes are very common.

any check you can do on the car before you buy it is extra insurance, depends on how the deal goes I guess.

 

Its an exhaust, thats how its suppost to be.

 

If you think it's a bit too over excessive, I'd see if the seller is willing to run a compression test. It could be the car running rich which can be caused by low compression. But as others have mentioned, it's pretty common and will occur unless you clean the exhaust tips every time you park.

 

Thanks!

The comp.test is definitely something to consider -

- here's another thought: the car is currently at a dealership/shop that does emissions testing - - do you think a standard emissions test would reveal any mixture-related problem I'd need to be concerned about (whether it be caused by bad compression, or faulty sensors, etc...)? This actually might be easier for the seller to perform than the comp.test.

 

If the car is being sold by a dealership I would imagine the emissions test comes with the sale of the car. If this is the case, they would make sure it passes the emissions test in which case you would just have to assume everything is fine. I would still definitely insist on them doing a compression test regardless and insist that you will not buy the car unless it is done and you see the results (better yet, watch them do the test to ensure legitimacy). The last thing you want to do is to buy a brand new car only to have to rebuild the engine, and put it out of service for an extended period of time.

 

My exhaust is very sooty too. On my GPW it's hell to scrub off the bumper but I've been driving it for a year now and no major problems have occurred. Just get some never dull and it will pollish it up really nice. I remember seeing a recent post about this and someone suggested changing the PCV.