New to me advice

OU812IC

OU812IC

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I am on the hunt for a Mark and seem to keep finding less than desirable vehicles or showing up one day too late. I had one 10 years ago and traded it in. I have been kicking myself for years and now I have decided to get one back.

I want a black and black car. 1998 LSC with the chrome wheels would be my top choice and stock suspension, the link below is exactly that but a I would like to be under 100k. Variants are acceptable but color combo is not negotiable.

I am half way between Chicago and Milwaukee so you would think I have a pretty pool to pull from but I am coming up empty. I drove almost 400 miles round trip on Saturday and came back empty handed, still had the check from the bank... not my intention but the guy just shy of lied about the car.


What do you guys think of the one below? One owner car bone stock. I am thinking of driving out on Friday to put it on the trailer and bring her home. It is 245 miles oneway.

My wife is great she says "do what you want".. we all know what that means, I better love the car and get it for the right price. Right!

Thanks in advance for all the help!

http://www.foxfordusa.com/used/Linc...i-a210f39c0a0a0065040020d8fca068bf.htm#photos
 
Welcome to the forum. In my opinion, it's way overpriced. I would say top money for it may be $4000. In my area, they would be lucky to get $3k.
 
I think it is too. Everything I see in the 3-4 range is ok but not quite as clean as I was hoping. For 3-4 I have found crappy paint jobs, seats that don't work, whistling sunroofs, air ride delete, air bag modules that are a different color from the rest of the interior, wheels with the chrome peeling or clear worn off, oil leaks and more.
Don't et me wrong all of the above and more are to be expected with a vehicle of this age and average mileage. The toughest is I'm finding cars with a higher ratio than one would expect for the money.
That said I did miss out on one that was priced pretty good that had high miles. It sold before I could get there. Grrr.
Keep the thoughts coming.
 
OU812IC said:
I think it is too. Everything I see in the 3-4 range is ok but not quite as clean as I was hoping. For 3-4 I have found crappy paint jobs, seats that don't work, whistling sunroofs, air ride delete, air bag modules that are a different color from the rest of the interior, wheels with the chrome peeling or clear worn off, oil leaks and more.
Don't et me wrong all of the above and more are to be expected with a vehicle of this age and average mileage. The toughest is I'm finding cars with a higher ratio than one would expect for the money.
That said I did miss out on one that was priced pretty good that had high miles. It sold before I could get there. Grrr.
Keep the thoughts coming.
Click to expand...

Being from the same area as you, go south. Anything up here is going to be rusty at this age, there are exceptions but the majority are that way. It sounds like you want a particular car that has good bones, no major issues, original and are willing to pay for it. Just be patient.
 
That car is nice but as mentioned above, it's a bit on the high side. Mileage IMO isn't bad @ 106K and the interior looks nicer than most I see. Like (Lownslow) said, go south if at all possible. Sometimes they can look nice like this one does but the underside, which they aren't showing could be a complete rust bucket and then again, it is possible that they were one of the few that actually knows it's best to put the car away for the winter and keep the salt from attacking all the metal under there. I personally wouldn't pay 7K for it but if it's rust free and was placed in the garage for the winters, I'd say $5,000 is where I'd be, or less but only if they were willing to go less. If I had it for sale, I wouldn't have it at 7K. Maybe $5500-$6000 but I'd be willing to come down to maybe $4800-$5000 and I'd also polish those headlights a lot more than they have been. I can tell that they can be a lot clearer than they are.

Then there's the reviews of this place. I find it hard to believe that 99.9% of them are 5 star rating and some of them look to be made up by the salesmen.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Fox+Ford&lrd=0x88184d15deb41d1f:0xc911957349f280fc,1

Again, look more to the south and with time, you'll find what you're looking for but I wouldn't hesitate to go see this one and lay down and look under it. Look and see if the evaporator tray is rusty, look at the brake lines on the rear for rust. If it has seen winter driving on salty roads, it's going to show the signs and the signs won't be hard to find, just by simply getting under it and if you don't see any, they shouldn't have a problem with putting it on a lift for you, so that you can really get under it and look for yourself. I'd still work on bringing them down to as close to $4500-$5000 as I could. That's my $0.02
 
Clean ones are getting hard to find.
 
I'd be willing to say there are very, very few Mark VIIIs left in the world that are worth $7000. Almost all of them would be heavily customized.
 
Thank you all VERY much for all of the insight. Please take this sincerely. For a group that have nothing to gain but good karma I truly appreciate the effort you have put forth to get me on track.
I talked to the sales manager early this AM and they were going to put it on a lift and get me videos or pictures. I guess the guy bought it from the Lincoln dealer down the road and had all the service work done at their ford store. They have records in their system going back to 2003. Prior the dealership was owned buy someone else. According to the tech the owner before he died was a real pain in the butt when it came to this car. Very particular.....
I figured it will run me about $400 in expenses to go out and back. They are not willing to deal much. They just finished getting it cleaned up and the phone is blowing up from across the country with interest on the car. I am thinking if I could score it for 5000 plus tax I would be paying a little too much but sometimes it is OK to a little too much. 7k is way to much....
Thanks to you all I am going to hold out and see what comes of this car and look a little farther out as suggested.

Again thank you all very much for the guidance.
 
OK.. here we go again...

The sales manager will entertain a 5500 offer.. please tell me that sounds a little high not too high. A little high I can deal with.

Any other time I make a decision and don't look back oneway or the other.
 
I think it's still too high. Maybe if it had 80k~, not 100k+. BUT if it was meticulously taken care of and they can prove it there's no hurt in checking it out... Minus a day and gas money. If it looks as good in person as it does in the pics then I'd consider 5500 out the door. That's assuming all the common problem areas are still functional. It would still kill me paying it though as they probably have <$3k into it.

It's exactly what you want though. :)
 
I agree, they likely got it for less than 2000 bucks.

For the price it would have to be pristine, they don't show the drivers bolster for one thing.

If it matches what you want, are willing to put out the cash for it, then that is all that matters.
 
Take 'MyGreat 8's advice. Come South (or at least look south) as there have been some nice examples down here in the $3-$4k range.
 
You could negotiate a better price if you have the opportunity to seek and point out any electrical issues (moonroof, seat adjustment, heated seats, cd, neon, doorlocks and windows), not to mention the common climate control blend door issues associated with '97-'98 Marks.

All the fixes for the above have been covered here before.
 
Whatever they're charging you know they're making a killing. If it's exactly what you want my concern would be, among others, verifying that the blend door issue has been addressed because if it hasn't already failed it will, 10 blocks off the dealer's lot at that mileage.

Also for that price it better still be on air and with newish OEM suspension replacements. I doubt that, but it'd make swallowing the bill a lot easier. In my *personal* experience, the MN12/FN10 front suspension has always been wiped out by the time 100,000 miles rolls around.
 
Also, for the price they're asking, I would make sure they have two key fobs and two pats keys. This would be to your benefit if making another set of pats keys later on and I'd have a mechanic perform a compression test on all engine cylinders before you sign at the dotted line.

The check lists goes on but I'm sure you already know the basic stuff to look for. Good luck to you and welcome to LvC!
 
I settled for 5200. I think it is a little high for the miles. If my memory serves me BoB had the highest production number. No offense to anyone with another color but I love the BoB and want no other color. It is kinda hard to find. By the time I buy a plane ticket and drive it back from CA or FL for example I am not sure that I will be saving that much.
I cannot put an exact value on it, what does a single owner vehicle, dealer maintained add to a "normal" car? Trade in wise likely none in reality. Resale I think it gives a bit.
Besides.... it is an LSC with the cell phone too[emoji2]
I head out Friday to pick it up. If you see one on a trailer with a big ewd super duty that is me. BOLO about 2pm saturday
 
Cell phone doesn't work anymore, FYI. The frequency bands it operated on have long been shut down as obsolete. You probably knew that.
 
Tow rig shot

I figured soup can nano string technology replaced the phone by now.
uploadfromtaptalk1429736408933.jpg

uploadfromtaptalk1429736408933.jpg
 
Did you ever get the pictures or videos of the under side? Seems a little fishy that they started off very firm on the price then miraculously dropped the price by almost 2k... hope all works out for you.
 
All loaded up! Grab some grub at Denny's and on our way back 250 miles[emoji53]. Wasn't quite what I was expecting. They knocked some more off. I almost drove away.ImageUploadedByTapatalk1429919012.070869.jpgImageUploadedByTapatalk1429919024.980470.jpg
Wish me luck on the way back. Hope I strapped her down good enough! [emoji16]

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1429919012.070869.jpg


ImageUploadedByTapatalk1429919024.980470.jpg
 
Thanks for the compliment in the truck. I will pass it on to Bruce, he will appreciate it. My daughter named him.

Home sweet home! Got stuck on the tri-state (294 chicago. Just south of westmont) waiting out an accident for an hour. Did not look good.
Rained almost the whole time.

Truck didn't do too bad. 9.5 on the way out and almost 8 on the way back. I have to say the built in trailer brake is slick. The 37" tires and gas motor not so much for road trip gas mileage.

The car overall is pretty good. The interior is almost showroom. The top of the steering wheel is pealing a little, i am going to call it clear coate.I even have the LSC floor mats.

The tires were wore out. A few door dings but that didn't both me, they are perfect candidates for the paintless dent team. Wheels are almost perfect, no peeling or rash, I even get all the center caps!

I got the cartridges for the cd changer. I did not get the cell phone, the holder and wiring but not the phone proper; antennae is still there. Kinda kool.

She runs, drives and shifts perfect!

The down part is that it has a little more cancer than what I was led to believe and their detailed should be fired. They didnt do a very good job. There are some like scuffs on the front and rear bumper that would have come out with and ounce of effort.

The following in the last year or so. New front and rear chassis/suspension arms, bushings and links not bag or shocks/struts. New pads and rotors. Blender door actuator motor thing.

All the bells and whistles work except the truck neon, can see the condensation on the inside.

Forgot... PRICE .... under 5k.
 
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