Do you pay attention to car reviews online?

all the time...i do my home work before i spend/buy anything ! and when i think ive read enough, then i really start and look for anything else related !

Yes, that's a great tactic, hard earned money is tough to waste. Unfortunately, it blows when you expend all that energy and something unexpected comes along like the VW scandal or the many oil burning issues that are affecting a lot of cars , including Subaru, these days. Seems that in the world of cars, you can't always trust past performance to indicate what a "new " model might hold. I think that's a pretty good argument to purchase a late model CPO CAR that's proven to be a good car. Do you agree?

recently made a purchase. CarFax doesn't show everything. After having car detailed realized there was more body work than I was informed of. I will give the dealer a couple of days before I write a review. But it has influenced me on these dealerships and buyer be ware. I should have suspected something the car was never really cleaned up. The detail guy picked up on the body work.

primetime49 - Carfax is only a report, although, they're pretty good, nothing is perfect. I always recommend a through physical inspection before you purchase. You mean, it was at night and you couldn't see these flaws? Also, I think that you can increase your chances of getting a better car if it were purchased from a "new car dealership ". Was your purchase from a private party or used car dealer?

Js08016- ditto, agreed and understood. I tend to think that when you have a chorus of voices and and not some disgruntled minority talking that you get a clearer picture of what's really going on. Sometimes, it's obvious, like the VW scandal. Other times, it's a little murkier, for example, could you imagine if every single Subaru Outback or any other of the 30 cars identified by Consumers Reports marked as the "Thirsty 30 ", were all as bad as some people claim. It would bring all of these sales to a stand still and that's not happening. Yes, sure it's a problem and Subaru as well as Toyota and many other car manufacturers /dealers are working with customers on this with the oil consumption tests. Look, I have a 2009 Toyota Prius. I recently took it to the dealer for service. The Prius is NOT one of the vehicles in question, but, I asked the service advisor about the oil consumption test. Here's exactly what he said: "We test cars all the time upon customers requests and find that the cars we expect to pass sometimes don't and other cars pass the test just fine. It's EASY MONEY FOR US, BECAUSE WE OPEN UP AND REBUILD THE TOP PART OF THE ENGINE and get paid directly from corporate. No one wants to spend a lot of time researching all of this , spend $30,000 and wind up with you problem. So, I always recommend getting an extended warranty to 100,000 miles, it's just a great peace of mind. If you're spending that much money, what's an extra couple of thousand dollars or so.

By the way, here's the link to the Thirsty 30 http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/06/excessiv e-oil-consumption/index.htm