Public Service Annoucment From LS1Tech: Buyers Beware!

This WS6 isn’t SteveWs6’s actual car, but rather a clean example we pulled from the forums.

While the majority of people in the car community are good, there are some that well, aren’t. It’s an unfortunate reality, but making sure we have our ducks in a row when buying a used car is paramount, as member SteveWs6 sadly found out. We’re not making an example of SteveWs6, but rather we sympathize with his story and hope that by sharing it with the LS community, it might save others from similar misfortune.

Read the thread for the full story, but the high notes include SteveWs6 selling two cars and saving cash to buy what he thought was a ’98 WS6, of which he spent the last year driving and fixing back to perfection. He recently had the car smogged only to have two police officers appear at his house weeks later who notified him that his WS6 wasn’t a ’98, but instead a stolen ’02 that had been “posing” as a ’98. The VIN tags and stickers had been covered and everything even slid through the DMV without trouble, it was only when he took the car to get smogged that the shop read the VIN in the ECU and it came up as the stolen ’02. Of course the police were able to peel off the new VIN stickers to reveal the ’02 numbers below.

It’s truly a crying shame and further proof you need to do your homework before buying a car. Things like Carfax, a certified inspection by a dealer or qualified shop that includes pulling the VIN from the ECU and a close look at all of the VIN tags/stickers are crucial. Things like comparing the RPO codes on the door to the mods on the car also helps, as does identifying model specific things like AIR pickups and other things that changed throughout the model years can also help ID a car.

If anyone has some good advice for SteveWs6 please visit the thread.

Be careful out there!

https://ls1tech.com/forums/racers-lounge/1666338-well-tonight-nightmare.html