My best advice is, pretty much this. If the exterior and interior are in good shape, then the previous owner probably cared for the car, atleast at a minimum he changed the oil on time, and occasionally had it checked out.
But if the exterior or interior, or both, are in bad shape, showing alot of neglect, dont buy it, People that are that careless dont change oil when they should, dont care what kind of oil they use, it's just...enough to make "me" nervous.
When I say exterior condition, I mean, broken mirrors, mix/matched tires/rims, molds falling off, missing tail pipes etc etc. Interior wise, it's tough to say, but if it's kept really dirty well, obvious. Prob is a person will clean a car up before selling it.
One last thing, NEVER, under any circumstances, buy a car without having a mechanic look at it. "their" mechanic does'nt count, get it looked at. Not even just mustangs, but any car, it's lazy and ignorant and impacient not to have it checked out. Like compression test, oil leaks, checks for accidents, people will try to hide welds. I'm very carefull when buying a car so, I guess almost paranoid. But, I have 160k on my Capri, redid the top end at 147 when I did the cam and all, but it ran perfect then. I've had two mecury grand marquis that both went over 200k, one hit 337 before cracking a head, casue I didnt have enough antifreeze in it, the plug popped but so did the head.
K enough i'll keep typing for hours.
Just get it checked out, if there's a stang shop in town, golden, if not, a trusty mechanic will know what to look for. For me, I can tell just by driving it.
In my history, 5 5.0's and my new 35th anny. I've test drove many, owned a few, so. For me, it's been the tranny. It's easy to tell if a tranny is abused. If you feel any teath or any griding at all during normal driving, dont buy it, especially if downshifting. Go to 50 mph and try to downshift to second, if it does without a problem, the tranny is good, very good....usually.
:SNSign:
