The life lessons learned here; always trust your gut, and not everyone is an honest person.
We had a 2012 Forester with 190K miles on it, and it burned a quart of oil every 400 miles. We saw a 2013 for sale on our road with 50K miles less miles and a nice leather interior. It ran fine during the test drive, but wasn't 100% good. I should have walked away when the seller didn't even have the title signed in his name, so he was likely making a quick turn around. I should have done a compression and leakdown test before buying.
The car ran down the road fine, but at times wouldn't idle for shit or during short trips wouldn't start. I fixed a vacuum leak at the brake booster, and I wonder if that had been leaking for quite some time. Finally doing the compression test, 3/4 cylinders only had 60-90 PSI :O Leakdown on #1 was 65%+ and was coming out the exhaust.
We should have just originally kept the 2012 and then spent the $$ that I just ended up spending on a junkyard pulled engine on that. So after about 16 hours, we now have an engine with 78K, and it runs and drives great! Leakdown test before I installed came back with like no loss. Upon tear down of the original engine, the exhaust valves are toast. I'm guessing the vacuum leak made it run lean? The carbon build up on the pistons and heads didn't look normal either.
All that to say I've been pretty busy with home and work, so I haven't had much time for range visits or editing :D