Buying A Car

You should go with him to transfer the car in your name. He has to pay any tickets first then do the paperwork and pay him then.
As to the car no idea, maybe look at receipts?
Try the car feel it over not great roads and smooth roads, use the air the whole trip and check for leaks inside the car and outside.

I was thinking that, Thanks Rey! Also, how does the Marbete work? Can it still be valid once I take possession? Or is it like the states where everything starts over when I become the owner?

I took it on a 30-40 minutes test drive. No smells, no creaks or clunks, no leaks no smoke. It's an old car with low miles. Sat in traffic for a while, got it on the highway, punched it. I assume it needed those things due to one nasty pot hole.

I have not purchased a car in PR in over 40 years, check for radiator smell both outside and inside the car, get under dashboard in driver and passenger side and check for leaks into the inside. Run into a few puddles and then look for wet carpet inside and the trunk also to make sure rust is not eating the underside. Check the muffler and pipes.

Cant help much with procedures, sorry.

Marbete stays with the car and gets transferred to the new owner when you do the paperwork to change the owner. You should definitely stay with your money and go with him to get the paperwork done.

Thanks everybody! We're about to go look at another car before making a decision

Go to the CESCO office WITH the current owner to do the transfer. The owner is responsible for paying any fines. CESCO will not transfer the car until is clear of any fines. My strong recomendation is to do the deal at the office, don't give any money up front.

The ac repair and the mileage doesn't add up to me either but the struts do. The last car we bought was a Toyota as well but we got burned on the ac. Guy filled it up with freon just before showing it to us, a week after we bought it, bye bye ac. There tons of other little things he didn't disclose either but we were in a hurry (just started new job, needed car yesterday) and bought it on faith. In hind sight, we should have just kept the rental for another month. Just check everything twice, especially anything electrical. Do you have a mechanic that can check things over for you?

Hey everyone I never got notice of the replies here. Well I still haven't bought the car yet. Yesterday me and the owner and his broker/friend went to a lawyer to sign everything over to me. The owner had to go to DR for two weeks. He does 2 weeks there and 2 here for work. Cool guy. They signed everything over to me and I'm going to go to DTOP to finalize everything alone. Once everything checks out, then I'll pay him and get the keys. I didn't see the harm in doing it this way.

Also, I'm very much mechanically inclined, it was just a few things that were new to me, like the steering wheel and the suspension and AC which, since I've been here my old car has developed a serious clunk already. tie rods are shot. One bad bump can ruin an AC compressor so that's likely the issue. Or a pin hole leak from something else. An old fender bender. It was in an accident in 2005, which after 12 years, little things like that can show up. Happened to my old car.

I set a budget and this comes in at half of that, so I have some extra for a little project car of my own which I also may have found.

Thanks for the replies!