brad2

Hey guys, I just bought a 2004 GT, and I love it.

I bought it from a lot, and it is in great shape, clean carfax. I made a point to look for any signs that the car had been wrecked, and I didn't find any.

Well, I was washing it the other day and I noticed the right side mirror, the windshield and the right break light had little (blue and red) paint dots on them. What does this mean?

Does the mean these parts were replaced? And if they were that means the car was wrecked?

The car is in good enough condition (garage kept, low miles) for me to believe that these may be left over from the factory...but do these dots come from the factory like this?

I've included some pictures.









Thanks for the help.

Brad

brad2

Sorry, looks like the second pictures had some trouble uploading.

Lets try that again.



Thanks,
Brad

Detailer_Dave

Not sure what the dots are for, but the last pic has something kinda scary looking in the mirror!

65Raven65

Man that is weird.

I got nothing. Just wanted to say congrats, and cool color! I miss my '04.

GlassVapor

Some dealers do that so they no it was inspected by the service dept. But I have never seen so many usually just one on the headlight. Compare it with the other cars on their lot?

Mustang Boy

the only theory i have is the former owner had a disgruntled spouse who smashed a few of the parts ei. the windsheild, mirror, and tail light. i think this because i know junkyard mark the parts they sell. now if this is what happened i dont know why the lot would leave the marks on the parts

GlassVapor

Or someone saw the Chupacabra reflection like pic 2 and freaked. But yes the junkyards do mark their parts when putting them into inventory

MU71L4710N

never seen one on the side mirror but i have one on my rear windshield and one of my taillights.

tomm92

Well I aside from the junkyards marking the parts I know sometimes at the plant we'll have suppliers ship us parts that are out of spec. For example the tailight weatherstriping might not have been put on correctly, usually a quality inspector will check each part prior to installation. If the part passes inspection it'll get a little paint dot to show the part was checked and passed. If your installing the part on the car and you know there has been an issue you look for the paint dot, the paint dot will tell you the part has been checked and is good. Sometimes this is also done when there is a process change aswell. I will say this is unusual to see one on something in an obivious spot like the mirror make it to the customer so that makes me wonder.

dastangman

When I was working at the dealership in high school as a detailer we usually had dots similar to yours. I would assume the two blue dots mark the car has been inspected. We'd do a block dot on the front and rear passenger light, so when you walk down the lot you can see it from either side.

Then we'd put another dot on the windshield to let us know if the car had been through detail yet. The side mirror is an interesting location to put a dot, but still possible. Usually, once a car had been purchased, we'd take them back to detail again and remove the dots which were put on with those windshield markers. I would just take them off and not worry about it. I don't think they would mark the parts, and even if they did, there's tons of more cars out there with parts replaced that no one would ever know.