Everything made after 04 has potential emission issues that are hard to diagnose and expensive to repair. They can't sell them cheap enough to deal with the issues. A 2010 at $1k should concern you.
I echo 01marc here... A few years ago I was looking to buy a car and had had fairly good luck with ex-police cars before. Looking on Public Surplus, I found a decent-looking '05 Impala with 130k that needed some cleaning, but otherwise looked great. "Runs good, was turned in for newer vehicle" on the listing. Bid was at $700 for several days.
I usually snipe auctions like this to avoid running the price up on myself, so I waited until the last five minutes to bid, figuring I'd go $1100 on it in case it needed anything to pass inspection. When I returned to the listing after placing my bid, I saw a new sidebar menu that wasn't there before I logged in. "Two questions have been asked and answered about this item." Interesting....
The first was some idiot expecting a $700 car to have functional A/C. The answer, however, was somewhat ominous, alluding to the car's A/C cooling, but needing to be charged (a complete lie, as I found out later). This answer went on to state "Has upper engine noise." Naturally, the second question was, "Does it run good as the listing states, or does it have engine noise?" At this point it got very vague. I crossed my fingers, hoping I'd be outbid. No such luck.
I wound up paying $1180 for a used police car with the worst rod knock I've ever seen (had a 2" magnetic drain plug with 3" of bearing material stuck to it). Well, now I know why the bidding had stopped at $700. After changing the oil with 20W50 motor oil and Lucas additive, you could hear the rod knock at a fast idle, even when cold. Fortunately I was able to get a low-mile replacement engine for $1800 installed, the only reason I bothered was the service records indicated the transaxle had around 20k on it. I learned MY lesson -- NEVER AGAIN will I buy another auction vehicle without checking it out for myself first.
In the long run, I had $4000 in the car over the 2 years I owned it, and I got just a tick shy of that when it was totaled last year. So in retrospect, I can't really complain as I came out ahead, but not all situations will work out that well, and I didn't really have the money to spend on the engine.
Just a tale of the reality when buying government auction vehicles. You usually get a good egg, but sometimes an agency isn't being straight-up about the vehicle. A strangely low bid can indicate a bid was placed before inspecting the vehicle, and now AFTER doing so, is simply waiting to be outbid. Not saying that is true in all cases, but not everything that glitters is gold, either.
I would be especially cautious with light-duty diesels from '04+. Engines with EGR-only were enough of a PITA, but DPFs and DEF take the stupid to a whole other level. A gasser, I might consider, it depends on the circumstances.
In the meantime I saw this one on craigslist. He is asking way too much right now imo, but he dis say he would take off 1500 for the front cab ac unit issue and I would think maybe 5k would be closer to where I would be at. Keep in mind I have not seen it in person and would be coming in from Saint Louis, MO.
