The day we were leaving found a car with 25k miles at the local Toyota dealer that although had a few scratches the Toyota dealer promised me ""was in pristine mechanical condition"". Given the age of the Toyota and limited time I was tempted to skip the independent Toyota inspection however I quickly checked google and found Elite Lexus Repair Center down the street. I called and spoke to ""T"" to explain the situation. Although It was a Saturday, they were closing in a few hours, and T understood I was from out of town (ie wouldn't likely be a repeat customer) he told me to bring the Toyota in and they would squeeze us in.\r
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Fast forward 2 hours after the dealer dragged their feet in letting us take the car we were at Elite Lexus Repair Center. We pulled in and before I know it three mechanics are going over this Toyota like they are about to purchase the car for their mother. They viewed the Toyota from every angle and ran their fingers over every inch (looking for body work), put the Toyota on the lift, hooked the car up to their Toyota/Lexus computer, took the Toyota for the test drive,etc. Best part when they were done they typed up a whole report to take back to the Toyota dealership of what they found and walked me through the details of what they were seeing, what they think caused the issue, and an estimate of how much they thought it should cost to repair the Toyota back to mint condition.\r
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T even asked if I minded telling him which Toyota dealer was asking and then used his system to determine actual fair market value of the Toyota . He told me he thought I was getting a pretty good deal, especially if they would fix the items found, which made me feel even better about the purchase. I took the check list back to the dealer who didn't flinch when I told him about the checklist of items I found in his ""pristine"" car and he agreed to fix them all.\r
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In summary for $79 and an hour of my time, T and his mechanics saved me about 2000 dollars in repairs and helped with my piece of mind on my first used Toyota purchase. Highly recommended!
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