CLIFF'S NOTES: Run car fax/auto check, get mechanical inspection, don't trust anyone or spend $15,000 on your $9,000 Evo "deal of the century".
I have rebuilt the Transmission, Engine and Turbo. I replaced numerous accessories. Ran car fax last week, found out car has salvage history.

So last January I went home to visit my mom for a few days. I checked Craigslist and saw a 2005 Evo 8 w/78k miles for $11k. I figured that I should check this thing out. I saw it and it was dirty and not well kept up. I drove it and it was obviously it either needed a new clutch or transmission. I asked if the car had ever been in an accident and if it had a clean title. Response was no accident and clean IL title. I got him to come down on price some and made a deal. I jumped through my a$$ to get a quick loan from USAA and they over-nighted me a check. I drove the car home from Florida to North Carolina.

In my rush I decided that at this price, I can afford to fix it up some and if it's running, then it can't be all that bad. Stupid idea on my part. Normally, when I buy a car, I run a car fax and at this point I get them inspected by a mechanic "cuz race car".

I initially had Spec-Ops do ALL the maintenance, tuning, rebuilt turbo (HTA71 upgrade), upgrade the transmission to a TRE stage 2 and a nice clutch. $5000 and three months later I drive the car home and it immediately spun a rod bearing. Mind you I am cruising home from work on Fort Bragg, so I was not stressing the engine. I took it to spec-ops and they told me what I already knew.

I opted to take the car home and try to swap the engine myself. This is where it gets interesting. I found an engine from a Marine at Camp Lejeune who even agreed to help me do the work. He brought over the engine and we spent several weekends working on this car. I had never seen so many small things wrong with an Evo before. It looked like someone had modded and unmodded the car with cheap autozone parts. Disconnected the engine harness and it was apparent to me that this car had an engine fire at one point which explained a lot of its condition.

I gave up on the car when I tried to swap out control arms and one of those really big bolts that goes into the sub-frame snap since it had seized inside the sub frame. I took the parts and the roller back to spec-ops. So now, I find out that the "NEW" ENGINE HAD A SPUN ROD BEARING! So, that forced me to have it rebuilt.

The engine was rebuilt and tuned again. The alternator pulley failed on the way home so I had to take it back and Spec-ops courtesy repaired it by swapping in my spare OEM alternator. I get home and I noticed the car is leaking some sort of oil, likely not engine oil. It got real bad too, the power steering got loud so I figured they were related. I got the car back to spec-ops and it was a seal in the power steering pump that had failed cause someone had previously worked on a non-servicable part. They put a Subaru power steering washer on it and now it only leaks a little.

After all this, that got me thinking that I have a hard time believing that this just happens to be a lemon with a clean title. Sure enough the car was DECLARED A TOTAL LOSS IN 2012. I am assuming this is do to the engine fire because the body is in surprisingly good shape and the paint seems all original.

I have one more trip back to spec-ops to eliminate the leaks and an alignment, but then I think I've had enough of Evos forever.

 

Man that is crazy. Talk about bad luck. You trust people to much is what I got out of this! I always assume if it has to do with money you better know if you can trust them or not.
Had you seen the title to the car? I know in Iowa it says if it has been compromised.

 

Wow how much did all this cost?

 

When you get the title to the car shouldn't it say "Clean Title" or "no branded title" or something along those lines?

 

the title should say rebuilt or salvage on it.
not all salvage is bad.
lesson learned, cant trust everyone.

 

OP, don't be disheartened on your experiance, this could happen with any performance car, even worse if it was a boxer motor you had to pull down.

Evo's are still the best bang for buck car out there, so don't give up.

 

Please don't take this the wrong way, but this thread should be stickied.

No, not schadenfreude, not at all, rather so that others can learn from the experience. Every day, it seems, we get newbies making threads in which they are intent on having exactly the same experience as you had to go through. Typically, this experience starts just like yours did, even if it involves some totally inappropriate modifications on the way.

In my case, I had that experience long before I bought an Evo, it involved an air-cooled Beetle. In the end, it became a good and even fast little car, took me on several cross-country trips without a hitch. To the extent I learned to fix cars, it was because I was tired of paying good money to make things worse. I also was lucky that an air-cooled Beetle is about the cheapest and simplest car known to Western Man, at least as far as repairs go. That car is still running today, well over 250,000 miles. But getting it to that point was a hell of a learning curve.

No, no schadenfreude. I've been there, too.

 

Glad I'm not the only one who has been thru hell. Like you, lesson learned and never again buying a used performance car, too many unknowns.

 

The title was clean... meaning it was not branded. Some states do branded titles and others do not. You can wash a title by simply registering a car in a state that doesn't recognize branded titles.

 

The real sad thing here, is that I have been driving Evos since March 2003. I've owned 5 other Evos and never had these problems. They have all been great. I made a rush assessment and I paid through the nose for violating my core rules on buying used performance cars.

I have a 2015 Audi S3, so if this Evo goes, then I won't likely need to buy another Evo. The S3 is the first car I've driven that really fits me besides the Evo.

 

My evo odyessy has been chronicled on here. That should be a cautionary tale for anyone buying one. I always tell people to have about 2500-5000 for "unexpected repairs" so they don't caught with their pants down.

Sucks man. I don't trust any evo that is stock. I assume that all evos have been modified. Sadly people buy they platform, get sticker shock on how it costs to do things the right way, decide to cheap out, then bandaid the car to get rid of it. Then the next owner that truly cares is saddled with all that poor judgment and more then likely gets out of it with a bad taste in their mouths.

Sucks dude.

 

@Smurrfzilla: preach on, brother!

 

My friend bought an evo with a failing fourth for 22k.. he got ripped and had to trade it in only got 16k for it..

 

Case and point. Sucks for your friends. Sadly I think these stories will happen more and more.

 

Wow what a trip man. Really what this tells me is that if you are buying someone elses "tuner" Evo you dont know what you are getting until you start unscrewing bolts and opening things up . Thats why you see a stock Evo like mine value more than something that was "tuned" guys go OEM go stock, save youreself a headache!

I am selling my Evo btw, all OEM , all stock