That's a tremendous loss in value and clearly, the car was a lemon. Frankly, you had the option of seeking legal redress using your state's consumer protection laws. And, honestly, I think you overpaid for a car that had been a rental and or leased vehicle. An engine with that mileage and those problems indicates serious lemon or total lack of routine maintenance. I have a Dodge Intrepid, 1994, with 184K and it runs well engine wise, needs some suspension work at this point. We always did routine service and didn't need to pay for anything major until the fuel rail went and we had new injectors at 160K!

I learned early in my car search to avoid cars that had been owned by people with too many kids. Esp. women, who tend to know absolutely nothing about cars, and tend to ignore the oil and other essentials. When I hear they had kids, I know that the car wasn't maintained properly, and that goes for people with financial means as well as those without. I say that as a woman, who can verify via all my own female relatives and friends, that women in general are tremendously car-ignorant. I'm considered a freak because I actually know more than how to put gas in my cars.

My mom, who seems to think that American cars are superior [this is an educated, professional woman without a clue], drives her car until the rotors are completely chewed up and once lost an entire wheel entering a highway, because she has no clue about suspension maintenance, or what comprises a front end or what inspections are about. I could go on and on about women who drive their cars until they fall apart or break down, only to blame the car, not their lack of maintenance and routine care.

So in summation, I'd avoid women owned cars like the plague. I also do a Carfax or Autocheck report on the VIN, I ask to see maintenance records and pay close attention to inconsistencies in their information. Lately, I've found a lot of immigrant Russians, East Indians and people from South America are "curb stoning" cars - buying at auctions cheap, dumping for bigger bucks without a license on a corner. Many of these cars were abused by former owners, and the immigrants will lie or mislead, until you pull the Carfax or Autocheck and confront them. So I now avoid any car being sold by recent immigrants who can barely speak English.
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Volvo V70 and Rottweiler - perfect combo!