It’s a 2006 Mazda6s V6 with power everything, has 61k miles. Has clean carfax but has had 5 owners. The fellow selling it bought it from his friend 5 months ago but he is moving back to India and needs to sell it. He said it had been in an accident previously though the carfax doesn’t report it. Some work was done near the rear passenger quarter panel according to his mechanic, and there is a small dent there. The dealership mechanic I took it too said it needs filters changed, headlights cleaned, alignment and has a leaking oil pan gasket which alone wold cost $300 but he couldn’t guarantee there wasn’t another leak without inspecting it further.
The KBB value is 9900 so it seems like despite these problems its still a good deal as I don’t see comparable vehicles around my area selling for that cheap. Do you guys have any thoughts?
Five owners? I’d pass on it. 1) There’s probably a story that you don’t want to learn about after purchase. 2) I’d lay good odds that none of those temporary owners took care of the maintenance very well.
I don’t know where you are, but I’m in central VA & there is nothing special about that deal - although you never said what the asking price was.
I’m also suspicious of anyone selling because they have to leave the country. It certainly happens. But it sounds like sell and run.
Five different owners in 5-6 years?
Yikes!
It is hard for me to conceive of a worse history for a car than 5 owners in that short space of time.
Okay–I can imagine a worse scenario–a car that had 5 owners in 5-6 years AND had been in an accident of unknown severity.
I really hope that the OP realizes that a “clean Carfax” report does not guarantee anything, other than the likelihood that much relevant information was not entered onto Carfax’s records. Anyone who relies on Carfax is…naive in the extreme, due to the unreliability of its information.
And then…based on the mechanical inspection, at least the last owner–and possibly all of them–were lax or totally absent when it came to maintenance.
Based on all available evidence, I suggest that you RUN from this deal, no matter how good the price seems to be.
Count my vote also as running from this deal. There’s a lot of question marks including the numerous owners, leaving the country, and an oil pan gasket leak.
An oil pan gasket leak would be highly unusual which leads one to wonder why and “leaving the country” can often be defined as “when you leave here with the car don’t bother me anymore”. Everyone has a story; some are true and some are not.