I’m looking at a Lexus IS 250 in the Dallas TX area and I’m in Houston. The car has been wrecked, but the title is clean, no salvage title. I know eBay offers auto inspectors, but is there one that is well known that could be preferred nationwide? I have a great mechanic in Houston, but, he’s in Houston. Any help would be appreciated.
I’ve used Davenport Motors in Plano to maintain my ES300, they specialize in Lexus. I don’t know how they might be able to get the IS inspected, but if I had a Lexus to inspect, I’d take it to them.
I’m not sure what you mean about eBay offering auto inspectors - unless you mean that someone is selling their “car inspection services” on eBay where you pay them to go and inspect the car for you. eBay itself does not offer anything to do with auto inspection.
98caddy, when you look at cars on eBay, there is a link to an auto inspection firm. Don’t know anything about them other than they work with eBay as a contractor I guess. Texases, I can call them and see what they can or would do for what price. The car is in Irving. I think that might be a good bet or at least worth a try.
I’ve never seen a link to an auto inspection firm on any eBay listings myself, but it could be one of the ads that various outside companies run on eBay. Being familiar with buying and selling on eBay, I’m rather certain that the company is not affiliated with eBay, however. If you have a company name or a link, it would be interesting to find out what it is. There’s always a chance that I could be wrong.
@98caddy Look right under the big gray box where it shows the existing price and the box where you would place your bid. There is a link that says Order an independent inspection. I don’t know if it’s available on all auctions, but I know I’ve seen it on most of them over the last several years.
@MG McAnick After checking several more listings, the only thing I see there is “Get low monthly payments”. I use an ad blocker, so perhaps it’s being blocked.
My main point was that many scams originating outside of eBay advertise “eBay Purchase Protection”, so if the seller of the car is saying that eBay is going to inspect the car, then it is probably a scam.
@98caddy it must be your ad blocker. After all, it is an ad. I just checked three BMW motorcycles and five BMW M3s. None of the bikes offered an inspection, but all of the cars did. I did note that the offers for inspection popped up as each auction listing finished downloading. I don’t know if a seller can opt out of offering the inspection. I have bought three cars off of ebay. I probably should have had 2/3 of them inspected before bidding. They were OK, but not quite as good as they were said to be. The third was as imperfect as advertised.
@MGMcAnick
“The third was as imperfect as advertised.”
Surely that was a typo?
@db4690 Nope.
Here is a link to what popped up when I clicked on the inspection option. http://www.inspectmyride.com/?client=ebay&id=230944399828
I don’t put a lot of faith into inspections like this. Note that they don’t really delve into an engine and only inspect it “visually”. The only thing that means is that there’s a motor sitting on the mounts. Whether it, along with the trans, is any good is debateable.
A cut and paste from their site shown below.
This is not a mechanical inspection, which generally requires the use of certain tools and diagnostic equipment. Mechanical inspections typically cost more, take more time, and require the car to be brought to a garage and put on a lift.
EBay is chock full of scams and it should be kept in mind that their so-called vehicle purchase protection plan is also chock full of loopholes as many buyers have discovered after the fact.
Wow - they’re expensive for what they do! An experienced local mechanic charged me $65.00 for a “used car inspection” which includes about 30 minutes of putting the car up on a lift and performing various mechanical checks.
I guess a follow-up question would be, do you think a Lexus dealership would perform an inspection? I know the basic one listed on eBay would be a minimum, but I think if a dealership would probably do a better job.