3.) Tail pipes - if these are shiney, then you have someone who is likely to have looked after the bodywork. However dirty exhausts don't necessarily mean they don't you just need to pay that bit more attention when going over the condition of the bodywork.
Lol my exhaust pipes are horrible but I probably have some of the best condition paint on here.
normal GTI pipes are mild steel and will rust in a matter of days once they've gone past a certain point.
At end of day I remember looking through Ebay etc when I was buying my GTI. I looked at loads, 7 I think in the end, one from this forum.
The one from this forum was by far the worst car I looked at!!!! Complete waste of my time.
At end of day if you are counting pennies you are going to always end up skimping on the condition of a car. Buying from average joes is always worse.
Selling my car standard (if it were on normal suspension, Monzas and my 'Rocco's leather seats), obviously leaving on the colour coded bits and the Stage 2 software I'd list it for £6750 with a view to take between £6000 and £6500. This is fairly high for a car with the miles but it has a good spec, sunroof, folding mirrors etc, and is in a very good condition with a complete and thorough service history, every mark on the car (and there are only a few) I know about and everything which has broken has been uprated.
Now if you wanted to spend let's say £5k on a car you may find that it has curbed wheels, or a few "car park scrapes", maybe it doesn't come with electric folding mirrors, perhaps there are some issues that the owner wasn't aware of.. you pays your monies, you take your choice.
