It most certainly does, especially for what they're asking. The listing doesn't address the missing piece. They do say this: It should be possible to verify this rather easily as there should be a derivative of the car's VIN stamped on the engine somewhere. Thus, it would be possible to prove that the car is "numbers matching." The seller is a dealer, so it shouldn't be too much trouble for someone there to take a few minutes and verify this. Then they could say in the listing that the engine IS original to the car.
But only on the passenger side. Because you can never see both sides of the car at the same time, removing the remaining molding pieces only on the passenger side will be good enough to make the missing pieces less noticeable. It's like when you're missing two wheelcovers. Put the two you have on the left side or the right side instead of the front or the rear. Doing this assures that half the world never knows anything is wrong!
If the molding really is gone (as opposed to, say, in the trunk) it will be virtually impossible to duplicate in 2019. You sure can't go down to your Buick dealer and order it.
You'd think that if it was in the trunk, they'd put it on the car. But, yes, the only source of a replacement will be junkyard car.
Plus the molding on the drivers front fender looks to be about ready to fall off, Not sure those are factory anyway. It is in great condition, but rather dull colors. And what is up with the VIN tag? is that surface rust or mold?
That's interesting about the VIN plate. State DMV offices want to see a clear VIN tag, and that's certainly not clear. This might make it difficult to title the car in whatever state the buyer is in. I don't know how easy it is to clean that up. Those are under the front edge of the windshield, and I think they're put there deliberately to make them difficult to get at to discourage tampering. What's also interesting is that the door jamb stickers look pretty crapped up, too. Many DMV offices actually want to see TWO VIN locations, and the door jamb sticker is usually an acceptable second one. But not this one. It's almost as though someone is deliberately trying to obscure the car's VIN. It IS listed in the auction listing, but it needs to be clearly visible on the car in at least two places. I can't read anything in the top sticker here, and that's where the VIN would be. Maybe it's just the reflections that prevent anything on the sticker from being readable, but then what's the point of showing the stickers at all? There should be a way to take a photo at an angle, say, or something like that, that makes what's printed on the sticker readable.
No. There’s definite plastic popping on the door mounted Vin tag. That seems a bit coincidental that both VIN areas seem to be fudged up. I wouldn’t be cozy with this car unless I could see it up close and personal.
I didn't mean to imply that 85 Riviera's didn't have side moldings, but that the moldings on the car in this post do not look original to the car, the stock ones seem to be cut much closer to the door/fender gaps than the one in this post. Look at how close the moldings come to the door & fender edges on the cars posted above, & the gaps on this car. I still think the side molding on this car is a cheap replacement, probably why it is falling off now.
The factory ones are miter-cut, so that there's overlap at each gap. I agree, I think these are aftermarket, and likely applied on top of the wax coat, which is a huge no-no....
