Defiantly over thinking. Don't worry about the wheels. You don't have a problem getting them on or off. They look like the one's meant for dirt track and stick out less than the 3rd gen wheels I have on mine. It wouldn't be worth the expense to change the pattern, so you're good on that.

The button with the squiggly line is for the rear defroster.

Check the dipstick see what the oil looks like on it.

Give us some pics of the Stang so we can get a idea of what you're trying to trade. How's the interior in the Camaro? Dash in one piece?

 

Did I miss something? Why do you think you can not put standard wheels on it? The camaro bolt pattern has not changed, changing it to another bolt pattern would be a huge and costly undertaking. He my have damaged a lug if he forced the wrong pattern on the car but lugs are like $2 each.

If he forced anything inplace chance car the car would shake real back at 60 MPH.

Any time you buy a used car without a warranty you should take it to a mechanic to have it checked out. When your buying a 12 year old sports car it is even more important and when you buying a car and you know the last owner did some dumb stuff your a complete fool if you don't get it checked out.

When buying a car you want to find maintenance records and you want to see that everything is as it should be. All repairs where done by a pro and most of the car is as it was when in left the factory. These cars don't sell for much more then junk one and they can last for years if you keep up with the maintenance.

 

I bet it sounds terrible lol. The white inside the oil cap is what scares me. That's the only sign at all that I had that I was losing coolant. Well that and the fact I was losing coolant lol. Is there a way you could keep it for a few hours before deciding so you can watch the coolant use?

I dont like the wheels either. In fact, I only like stock wheels on camaros. That's just the way it should be Does all the wiring look stock and not messed with? Under hood and down under the steering column? I'm just thinking of the things that screwed me.

 

Thanks guys, and ya I'm over thinking on the wheels.

The exhaust sounds pretty good actually, has a nice deeper rumble.

The wiring does look a little messy, but idk how stock looks. They had to fix the horn so ,maybe electronic problems?

Dad said he can check it out Saturday so I'd have to wait a extra day, I'm scared someone else will buy it though, howrver tomorrow is snowy so maybe no one will buy? this the nicest csmaro I seen in my area, the others I looked at were rusted bad and disgusting.

 

just found another guy on craigslist, 99 camaro, black nice wheels etc, says every things fine and he is selling for medical bills, but when i offered to trade my stang he said he is interested - hope he isn't a dealer or something...he says he has all service records.

it has 186k milage though O.o but looks pretty nice, hoping to check it out - what y'all think?
edit: want to buy the white one though, if its a lemon i'll tell the dealer that i trusted him like dumbledore trusted snape, I TRUSTED YOU!!!! I TRUSTED YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

also the white camaro, the switch i was talking about is the ASR (traction control) or something - I'm guessing it doesn't work since the light doesn't come on when i click it....should I walk away or is that minor?

 

If you have ASR there should be two buttons right above your radio and below the vents. The left one is the fog lights which has lines and light on the button. Then there's one to the right that would say ASR.

Either way, if it doesn't work, it's not a huge deal. I don't have fog lights at all and get around fine. ASR is a personal preference. Some people like it, some people hate. I wouldn't know because I've never owned a car that's had it.

 

right on, i'm still thinking about it. while test driving again the service engine light came out, the codes said catconverter, o2 sensor, fuel system and some other ones.

but he said those codes are common in cars and nothing major and he cleared out the service engine light and it didn't come on again. he said it mostly got kicked on because it was raining hard and i went through a puddle. legit?

 

No, not common. A wheel could have fallen off the car on the test drive and he would have said that. The only way a motor get several codes at one time is because there is something wrong with the car and someone cleared the codes for the tests drive. Cars don't just pop up multible codes during a 5 mile test drive. This is one of the reason I said take it to a mechanic they can check miles driven with SES light on and how long it has been since the last rest. The trick to buying a car is finding one that was well kept any time anything goes wrong it is fixed right away. The people that trade these cars in just get bored with them. The car your looking at sound like a car that was driven until into the ground, the guy knew the car was about done and traded it.

If you are looking for a sweet deal the best deal is cars that have been well maintained and now have one problem and the owner just does not want deal with it anymore. When dealing with these cars that are not maintained you can rack up tons of repairs you would not expect on a car with that mileage.

Let say a kid owns a car for 3 years, he does nothing but change the oil and just drives it. Front tire goes out of balance the first year and he gets a tiny coolant leak. He just keeps driving it. By the second year he needs to add coolant to the radiator once a month and now it needs brakes so he slaps pads on it. On the third year he gets a miss and a check engine light on but the car seems to be "OK". At the end of the third year he takes it to a mechanic because it is almost undrivable. The mechanic breaks the bad news. Since he has been driving with the wheel out of balance he need ball joints and tie rod ends and most likely shocks. Running the coolant low has cause a failure of the headgaskets and and a bad spark plug wire (the miss) caused a coil to fail and now the car needs a complete tuneup new O2 sensors and a new Cat. The rotors are shot and the calipers at almost frozen because the fluid was never changes. Estimated cost $3500. He asked if the mechanic can make the car just run enough to trade in. Mechanic installs a single plug wire and coil clears the codes and the next day its on craigs list or traded in. Now you buy it and you think Camaros are junk.

This is not a completey made up story, as a mechanic when I break news to customers about a lot of problems I get one of two responses, Either "well it needs fixed do it" or "I will just dump it".

On the other side of the coin you have people that are nuts about maintenance. The second the car does something funny it is in the shop. We had some older people I would see two - three times a month. These cars have never driven more then a few miles with an issue and in many cases have never had an issue. They have had every fliud changed and wear part replaced per the factory recommendation. Let say the transmission goes out at 120K. The owner does not do his own work so he is looking at $2500 repair so he decides to move on to a new car. These cars the cars that are gold mines. They are basicly sold as parts cars, Swap in a, nice, low miles, with warranty used transmission and you have a car that could run 100K with little or no issue.

The trick is knowing the difference between the above. Someone who has training and has spends 8-10 hours a day every day under hoods can easily tell the differents in a half hour or less. It is easy to shine up a engine to make it look good, any detailer can do that but to fool a mechanic would take days and someone that knew what the mechanic would look for (another mechanic). I used to get paid to check out cars as they went through the auction for dealers. I have seen a 72 mavrick I think would have no issue crossing the US and and back and I have seen 5 year old cars 20,000 miles out of warranty cars I would not want to cross town in without a roll back following me. Once a car is over 10 years old, make, model and mileage means much less then how it was maintained.