Ok, Im getting a pretty decent deal on a 2002 Lancer Oz. Heres the deal, at just over 4,000 miles the car was involved in a mild front end colision with a post or pole or something (the damage did not go past the core support and what was damaged was the hood, grille, bumper, core support, and air bags/sensors (obviously)). While waiting for the body work someone tried to steal the car and when they couldnt decided to just strip what they could off of it. From what I got out of the situation, the fenders were taken, the oz body kit pieces were taken, wheels, and a few other items. By this time insurance decided to just write it off. The owners opted a buyback and sourced the required items and had a professional shop repair the damage, replace the core support etc. Then because the insurance company wrote it off, they applied for a 'rebuilt' title and had it inspected by Ohio State DMV to verify that it was indeed rebuilt to factory specifications and safe for road use.
The car had its alignment checked and done at 20k miles along with other maintenance. It now has 27k on it and is for sale.
Normally I would be very scepticle about buying a rebuilt vehicle, however this has had 23,000 miles on it since it acquired the new title and has ALL reciepts from the life of the car. I have run a carfax on it and it checked out exactly how it was described to me.
Residual value means nothing to me because this is a long term investment where I plan on keeping it until it basically doesnt run anymore.
Here are pictures of the car, its basically mint except for some rock chips on the hood and the front lip.

My question is what should I look for in this car? I am very good with cars, used to be a VW tech and know just about all I need to know so I of course will check for even tire wear, make sure the car doesnt track off, slide under it and look for any crumples, or chipped paint on the rails, core support etc... but my question is, what are problem areas of these cars that I should be sure to check before my purchase of this car?

Thanks for your help, pics of it are here. http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/sflint.../ph//my_photos

 

no one?

 

I can't think of anything major to look for in the Lancer more than any other car. Perhaps checking TSB's (if you know where to find them because I have no clue) would give you a good idea? Aside from somewhat noisy valves (absolutely normal on the 4g93 and 4g94 head) I can't think of any mechanical failure in the front of the Lancer. Rear control arms may be worth checking out, but the failures on those were few and far between, and damn near impossible to predict from what I remember. The paint is ****ty on the Lancers. Expect to see wear on the door sills and potentially along the door frames on the doors and body. Some wear, some chip, all our paint sucks in every color code. Some just chip more noticably than others. Other than that I can't think of anything.

So I guess in summary just look for the same things you look at in any other car.

 

The most important thing is to make sure the supporting frame is straight and it will steer straight. A car is usless with a tweaked frame. You can always take it to a certified frame tech at a body shop to get it checked. They usually charge 75/hour. And another thing, make sure the body shop you take it to has a frame rack not a random body guy which is going to look at it.