In search of a cheaper car?.

I would RUN from that 3.8 Grand Prix. These cars are horrible. I stopped working on my Nieces. I got fed up fixing it all the time. Rear wheel bearings, CV's at 125K, Brake calipers stick and burn the pads up on a routine basis. Throttle body passages that are too damned small and get carbon'd up and throw an engine code. My personal fav...an auto trans without a dipstick! The tranny's are leakers..and it's SEALED. You have to go to a dealer to have fluid pumped in through a special port. Are you kidding me? The 3.8's have intake manifold sealing issues. Look for a Saturn. High miles are high miles and I look for as few miles as possible. Engines don't fall apart like they used to..but alternators, water pump, brake rotors, seals, mufflers...all that stuff starts failing and eats you up $300 at a clip. People tend to forget stuff like that.

 

We had a 2002 Hyundai Elantra from new to 175k. I changed the oil every 3-5k and the tranny fluid every 30k and it ran perfect. I changed the plugs only at 100k and never changed the timing belt (thought it was a chain).

Anyway it was a great car but it had ac problems twice at the ninth and tenth year of ownership so we got rid of it. You may want to try one of these but try to find a one owner with service records. Just make sure the timing belts were changed lol.

 

Your looking for a car in the 4-6 grand range? I'm looking to and can't find crap. My wife drives a lot and just (on Saturday) totaled out my 2000 Mazda protege. Wasn't a great car but hey. Better than what she has now. I bought an 2005 explorer. So I put my 2000 mist Montero sport in the back yard. I'm giving her the Montero for now, completely rotted underneath. Just did the brake lines. Good luck finding something! In Connecticut every dealer you go to is $10k for something with 145,000 miles. Wtf

Oh and the stupid Montero sport only has 122000 on it. Look on the internet what it takes to do the spark plugs on one of these. I just did them. What a pain.

I was big in the 1988-1995ish cavaliers, and everyone we had needed the head gasket and a resurface at 100000 miles. With the 2.0,2.2. Anyone else run into that? Although that's just a bit old for your mom. She'll be getting something a lot newer, I just don't know how long the 2.2 was put in those. I have a friend with a 99 or 2000 cavalier with 346,000 miles. And still going.

 

Why not enter "hail damage" in search parameters? I've got an '07 Focus that looks like someone practiced their pogo stick on it. I got it in trade and don't have much in it. It only had 75K when I got it and runs great. A of people want cars that look perfect. Plus, when you have hundreds of dents in it already, you don't worry about another one too much. With insurance write offs, you can often get them cheap.

 

We bought a 2000 Grand Am 3.4L with 184k miles on it 4 years ago. besides normal maintenance the intake gasket had to be changed (still indebted to Dave for that). It now has 240k miles on it looks and runs great. If possible buy a 4 cylinder model to avoid the intake issue. Also have a 2000 Buick LeSabre with the 3.8L. Great car but like stated earlier it is a old person car and just floats along. The Grand Am is fun to drive, has quicker steering, better handling but a stiffer ride than the Buick.

 

Good choice