Well, that's good to know. Thanks for the welcome guys. I got the car off the truck yesterday, I couldn't see any hail damage at all, nor any dents and the stone chipping was minor, so I initially felt pretty good about the car. The windscreen was shocking however, full of chips on the passenger side. Apart from being dirty it looked pretty good. But the battery was flat and even after letting the car run for 20 minutes, it wouldn't start on it's own. The guys at Toyota confirmed the battery was cactus so that's been replaced. They also confirmed there's no way the windscreen's roadworthy, so that's getting replaced. The weirdest thing though is the steering wheel is broken and needs to be replaced for the safety certificate. I asked did it look like it'd been in an accident, and they said no the previous owner spent a lot of time with his hands in the same place. That's just wrong. Lastly during acceleration they heard a slight rattle which they think is the catalytic converters. I don't have to fix them for roadworthy. Toyota quoted me, $3000 for replacement, which was interesting. Another place quoted $400 and confirmed that $3000 might well be the price for genuine parts. I'm leaning toward getting that done as well after reading up on it. Apart from that the car's tip top. HA! It has full Toyota service history and the services were done at the correct times. If it weren't for that I wouldn't have bought it. When I asked Toyota about the trans service they didn't know what I was talking about. The guy there even asked around and then said you don't have to do anything. Anyway he couldn't find any record of it having been done and said things that were supposed to be done and not done would show up in the system. I asked them to check a bunch of other things and the guy said that it'll all be done as part of the roadworthy. So who knows. When I look at the details for the services done it seems I have nothing to worry about. eg they changed the fuel filter at 150,000, replaced plugs at 180,000, belts are inpected/adjusted every service, fluids topped up/changed, filters changed, etc etc. HT excuse my ignorance but what do you mean by a full engine and gearbox service? Just a major service? Non-service items that were replaced,.. don't know unfortunately. In terms of wear and tear in general I'll get it registered tomorrow, then it's a good clean, then another clean, and then I'll be able assess condition. I haven't had enough time with it yet.
