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How Much Should I Pay?


Myotis1134

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Dad found a guy who has a 1994 lumina euro in town, who is willing to sell. Problem is that the guy dropped one of the heat shield nuts into the piston and apparently forgot, because he told me that he did turn it over, and remembered about the nut when the engine made a horrible sound. The car has been sitting for a year in his yard.

 

When I was talking to the guy and mentioned him selling it, he also remembered that he had just put new tires on the car, and got it tuned up. He wouldn't name a price, and kept asking me how much I would offer. I'm going to take a look in a day or two, and see what kind of shape the rest of it is in.

 

This car's ultimate purpose is to become a donor car for my 91 euro, and possibly for the z34 I'm picking up on friday.

 

I'd like advice from both ends of the spectrum - how much if the car is a piece of crap, and how much if it is in decent shape. Regardless of the body condition, the car doesn't run, and won't until someone (me) goes in to see how badly the engine was screwed up when it was turned over. The guy wants to get back something on the tires, and I can respect that, but I'm poor and want to get away with paying something reasonable considering the car's current condition.

Edited by Myotis1134
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Well, since the engine had a nut in the piston and he turned it over to a horrible sound, the engine should be considered shot. This would negate most tune up parts as well. The tires might have been new, but sitting I would check for weather checking (cracks in the tread and side wall) as that can cause premature failure of the tires. Also, as stated, if it was sitting in the same place the whole time, the tires could have flat spotted, which makes them unbalanced and usually can't be re-balanced after that, and causes the car to shake or wander if driven on. With the engine being down, the transmission is a gamble. He can tell you it's good, but all you can do it check the fluid and look for signs of leaking at the axle seals and pan gaskets. Rust and interior condition should be obvious. If the battery is in there, check the radio, windows, wipers, lights, etc that don't rely on turning the engine on to see if they work. If the battery is dead, consider those a crap shoot. If the car is on Pavement or another hard surface, you can push it up and down at each corner to check how bouncy the suspension is. I forget how many bounces it should be before returning to level, but it can't be more than 2 larger bounces for that. Look at the brake discs and see how much rust is built up. if it is a lot, or there is pitting that's deep, those might need to be replaced.

 

Overall, not running, but ok shape otherwise, $300-350 seems reasonable. Just look at it and consider what is usable to you and determine if the cost of getting those parts is worth your offer.

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Well for $300 it is a good buy for the parts anyways. So just curious, if you bothered to pull the heads, what exactly was messed up inside the engine?

 

Ya know, the reason you got it for 300 is this guy probably was trying to sell for like 800 on CL like a lot of people do when their car will "be a good car once the engine is replaced" and no one would buy.

 

But yeah, use this car as an opportunity to get all the extra parts that you might need (like brakes, lights, etc) and m,aybe do a crash course practice run on changing the timing belt if it's DOHC, of course not with an actual replace but just to take things apart and see how to reassemble. If you mess up badly in the practice, you learn something at no cost.

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