sonyman87 Posted June 5, 2004 Report Share Posted June 5, 2004 sorry this is long but alot happend both cars had exactly 120,000 miles on them first the malibu, 3100 auto ac was dead, radio buttons are warn to the point you cant read the numbers and i looked under the hood and i could have fainted. It looked like chaos the intake manifold and valve covers looked like someone dumped acid on them! and the hood heat sheild was half burnt off. It drove ok but the condition of the motor exterior scared me so i took it back and picked up a 97 grand prix se 4door 3800. The Prix all i have to say is that its a beautiful car i drove it to a gas station(1/5 mile). The ABS light was on, check engine light was on, and had a flat tire(reason for stoping) so i filled the tire while the engine was running to heat it up. Now i go in and wanted to feel that awsome 3800 power.. didnt impress me at all (had a cone intake) and i drove aproxamatly 1 and 1/2 miles and stoped and shut the motor off. Thats when i noticed a huge problem! Smoke started to spew from under the hood. Holy hell i only drove 1 mile from the gas station and i only floored it 2 times to 70mph from a 30-40mph roll. I opened the hood and oil was leaking from the exaust manifold, from the valve covers and really it looked like the headgaskets also. The 3100 malibu could have walked on this prix ass thats how doggy it was. so i got in and took it back and said thanks and bye.. ohh get this. the best part is they wanted 7k for the prix and 5.5k for the malibu. LOL i got my lumina with less miles for 4k(although it had problems) If you ask why i am test driving its b/c my sister wasnt to buy a new car and we cant aford to be fucked on a shitty car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sl3196 Posted June 5, 2004 Report Share Posted June 5, 2004 Sounds like somebody didn't take care of those cars very well. I almost bought a different gtp until I opened up the hood after the test drive and it was smoking. (Leaking intake and who knows what else) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
White93z34 Posted June 5, 2004 Report Share Posted June 5, 2004 sounds like someone beat on both of those cars prety bad. i would not walk, but run away from both of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THe_DeTAiL3R Posted June 5, 2004 Report Share Posted June 5, 2004 sounds like a shitty dealership! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian P Posted June 6, 2004 Report Share Posted June 6, 2004 wow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbtk2 Posted June 6, 2004 Report Share Posted June 6, 2004 Sounds like somebody didn't take care of those cars very well. I almost bought a different gtp until I opened up the hood after the test drive and it was smoking. (Leaking intake and who knows what else) Intake manifold gaskets and valve cover gaskets leaking is very common for L67's. If thats where it was leaking from it wouldn't have scared me away any. Not to mention the gaskets are cheap (like $10 or less) and the valve cover gaskets are a 20 minute job to replace, and the intake manifold about 1-2 hours, but I can understand not wanting to buy a car with leaks and stuff...it kind of makes you think the car wasn't previously taken care of well. Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supreme_style21 Posted June 6, 2004 Report Share Posted June 6, 2004 Sounds like somebody didn't take care of those cars very well. I almost bought a different gtp until I opened up the hood after the test drive and it was smoking. (Leaking intake and who knows what else) Intake manifold gaskets and valve cover gaskets leaking is very common for L67's. If thats where it was leaking from it wouldn't have scared me away any. Not to mention the gaskets are cheap (like $10 or less) and the valve cover gaskets are a 20 minute job to replace, and the intake manifold about 1-2 hours, but I can understand not wanting to buy a car with leaks and stuff...it kind of makes you think the car wasn't previously taken care of well. Shawn That, and you can talk the unsuspecting seller into thinking its a godawful problem. Horrible problem = Cheaper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sl3196 Posted June 6, 2004 Report Share Posted June 6, 2004 The funny thing was it was at a dealership. I was talking to the salesman for a while then I asked if he knew who owned it before. It was his car. It didn't seem to be well taken care of and I didn't want to fix shit after buying it. I found a way better car and deal! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThunderBat Posted June 6, 2004 Report Share Posted June 6, 2004 when I went shopping for a GP I found that the 97-98 year models had lots of issues...which is not unusual for a car to have growing pains in the first couple model years of production...and finding used cars that have been cared for is always harder than finding one that have been generously abused. It probably wasnt a fair comparison, but both the cars you described sounded like overpriced dogs. From my personal experience and IMO, the 3.8 in my GP makes my Lumina Euro feel like a delivery truck...there is no contest between the two. But your experience also proves that you dont always get what you pay for...especially when it comes to cars! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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