I can get a 1997 2-door Cavalier.
72K miles. 5-speed. dk grey interior.
New Battery / tires / timing chain / Pioneer CD player / Muffler. Reciepts for all, everything bought within the last year.
It's in great condition, except the paint on the front bumper is chipping off, the heater only works on the 2-highest speeds. And a couple minor dents, the largest is on the back of the trunk. You can see it up-left of the bowtie.
No A/C, no power anything, no cruise.
$1,300 US dollars sound like a good deal?
What are common problems I should look for?
I took it for a drive and the front wheel(s) seem to make a low "slight-grinding" type sound. It's very faint. I wonder if it's the wheel bearings?
Other than that it seemed perfect, except the clutch engages pretty high up.
Fan speeds you can fix yourself by buying a 14 dollar resistor and replacing the old one. Visit the maitenance forum, there's a sticky on that. Very common with cavaliers.
The grinding you hear is a wheel bearing most likely. It should be fine for a while, but if you let it go for too long it can become incredibly annoying, and it will slow your car down giving you less gas mileage. Easy and cheap fix if taken to a local auto shop
However, no A/C sucks, plus no power anything and cruise?? More suck. Even though it's got 72K on it, I'd offer 1,000 cash and see if they'd take it. Overall it's not a bad deal for 1K. The engine still has a fair amount of life on it if taken care of properly. I would ask about the history of the car as well as check the spark plugs.
My vote is go for it if you can get it for 1K flat.
I got a 98 2.2 just like that except with A/C and cruise, stock stereo and no locks/windows, 94k miles for $1800... so I would say you could bargain it down a little bit.
I was happy when I heard my car ran 10s. Then I found out that was 0-60.
thos ehub caps make alot of odd noises , i know my 97 had them , i tried tape and the only thing that work was taking them off
also if the car hadnt been driven in a while there coulda been some rust build up on the rotors causing a off noise
doesnt seam like a bad price for the car , it looks pretty deceent
blue book value is about $1,400 witth the same options and condition youve listed. (i have too much free time...) so yea, its about normal price, but you may be able to get him down a bit, like maybe 1200, or 1000. its low, but its a decent price for this car. id get it, especially if its got a 5 spd.
Thanks for all the input.
Carfax was clean, and it was initially bought for personal use (not a rental car).
I ended up buying it for $1,300. I was the first inquiry on the car, and he had a lot of people calling about it.
It is the best price / niceness ratio car I have found around here. Plus the mileage is decent. So it was either this, or a car almost 10 years older with a lot more miles for the price.
Great buy, now get to modding.
i got my 96 auto, power everything, just no ac for 1700
same mileage
why was the timing chain replaced for any apparent reason? sounds like a good enough deal tho. id also buy it for that price and resell it
RandomGuy 171 wrote:Great buy, now get to modding.
Hah, actually I need this car to be reliable and good on gas. I'm sinking all my money into my other car that is in the garage and will be in pieces soon..
Brandon Schmidt wrote:why was the timing chain replaced for any apparent reason? sounds like a good enough deal tho. id also buy it for that price and resell it
That I don't know.
All I know is that it has the reciept/work order in th glove box.
I did get one littel "supise" today. The engine, when sitting idle for a while will get almost 3/4 of the way to hot. The cooling fan does not turn on. The fuse & relay is good (swapped w/ the blower relay).
I imagine it is the fan itself, or it's ground.
that happened on mine and it kept getting worse and i had it taken in and the head gasket had to be replaced but they told me there was a recall on it and did it for free.
tarnation sauce wrote:RandomGuy 171 wrote:Great buy, now get to modding.
Hah, actually I need this car to be reliable and good on gas. I'm sinking all my money into my other car that is in the garage and will be in pieces soon..
Awww c'mon man, It'll still get good gas mileage if you intake/exhaust. In fact you might get even better gas mileage.
Have fun with it though.
