Update for anyone that viewed and is curious:
The car is not in my immediate area but nothing a quick afternoon road trip couldn't get us to, and since the dealer is open on Sundays, the ladyfriend and I decided to make the drive to check it out.
The car is definitely "off."
I hadn't noticed the spot on the driver's front fender in the pics, but in person there is definitely a ding there. It looks a little larger than just a shopping cart incident, but I don't think it's anything more than a ding.
The interior though is definitely weird. It's different and kind of nice looking in the pictures. In person though it doesn't add up. The seats and door inserts are some kind of black leather, but I don't believe they're factory pieces. The dash and console, which did appear to be factory were pretty scuffed up. The floor though was my real issue. In the pictures it appears to be nice looking black carpet, in person it seems like some kind of aftermarket insert. The material didn't seem quite like carpet, more like a fuzzy pad; semi-preformed, and then dropped in kind of like a truck bed liner or something. There was a decent sized hole where the two ends met up in the front passenger footwell. I stuck my finger in and felt around but couldn't feel any factory carpet underneath. I'm not sure what was going on here. I'm not up on aftermarket options for replacing or covering up factory carpet, but this didn't feel or look like factory to me. Given the other odd pieces inside, and the condition of the rest of the interior, it definitely gave off a weird vibe.
Both of us took the opportunity to drive the vehicle around the dealer's little loop around the neighborhood, and this brought up another few questions.
The engine sounded a little rough. I might go so far as to say it was the early stages of rod knock. Possibly FB25 oil consumption, paired with a negligent former owner (CarFax One-Owner!) left the engine oil starved at some point in the past. I did check the oil while we were there and it appeared to be full and very recently changed.
Overall the car drove fairly well, no shimmies or shaking under acceleration, at speed, or while turning, but there was some noticeable shake in the steering wheel under braking. I would almost chalk it up to build up on the rotors and the car sitting for a while, given the lack of any shake while performing other functions, but it felt a little strong for that.
Anyway, we told the salesman, who was actually very pleasant, that we wanted to check out a few other cars before deciding on one, and left.
It was also noteworthy to me, although my ladyfriend tells me I'm overthinking it, that the dealer is one of those types that has a Ferrari or two, a 911 Turbo, a handful of Vipers, Vettes, GTRs, and a couple of odd H1 Hummers hanging out in the showroom. At a Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep dealer, this rubs me the wrong way for some reason. It's not like they brought those vehicles in on trade; they went out and bought them at auction just to display in the showroom almost like trophies or something.
Given our experience today, and relative lack of time to find something (ladyfriend had to take the insurance rental back and wants to expedite the process) we'll probably bite the bullet and look at a couple of the newer, certified options that are nearby, rather than take the time to find a slightly older, but well cared for example.
tl;dr: car seemed pretty sketchy in a number of ways; ladyfriend and I decided to walk. we're probably going to look at some newer, certified examples for a little peace of mind.