And he still managed to break some gears! Hahaha

 

Yeah now it's just trying to get the carfax on it

 

another thing to consider is the 3800 engines are a dime a dozen, GM put them in everything so if there is an issue it can easily be fixed.

 

right, should be lookin for the nice one with blown motor. i would be very weary of a 1k 4th gen. may be a good parts car which would cost you more than its worth to fix. without pictures and more info i would not recomend either way.

 

My 4th gen was only $1200 and didn't have much wrong with it mechanically. Needed a blower motor, fan motor, and a temp sensor. That was it

 

well what happened is the guy hit a deer and it needs a new hood and front bumper, but i have a friend who's a mechanic who's gonna come look at it with me and he said he could probably hook me up with the body work as well. Seeing as the guy originally wanted 2200 for it. I am sort of hoping i get this. He still uses it as his daily driver, which i find as a major plus, except for the miles go up by like 20-30 everyday

 

I have mentioned this before but miles are a terrible way to track the life of a car. Cars should have hour meters but even then how it has been used will have a great effect on how much “wear” the car will see.

Example. I live 32 miles from work. There are 4 stop lights between my house and work. I rack up 64 miles every day. Jay sits next to me. He lives on the south side of Philly about 12 miles away. He has 40+ stop lights between his house and work. Depending on when he leaves his drive can take 45 minutes to an hour 10 minutes. At the end of 10 years I have 140K on my car. He has 53K.

Jay also tend to not do a lot of preventive maintenance, most of his repairs are reactive. Where I keep all my stuff up to date and I even do my own inspection twice a year just to look for future issue and clean off any rust that has started. Just a few weeks ago I broke a sway bar link. Since I was down there I replaced the sway bar and all the mating hardware instead of just fixing the link. In my 64 mile per day my car stays in 5th gear with the motor purring at 2500 RPMs 95% of the trip. The only part of the car that is getting more wear then Jays is the tires and wheel bearings. Stops and starts are much harder on the engine/trans of a car then just maintaining a speed.

So which is a better car at the end of 10 years? We all know which car will sell for more. Even people that read this are more likely to buy the car with 53K because we are all brain washed to think miles are king. His car would be on its 4th set of brakes, with the Philly roads the suspension would be just about done and his motor would have almost twice the hours mine has and they where all harder hours and his transmission, well let’s just say of all the parts on the car urban driving is hardest on the trans. His trans has shifted 10 times for every one time mine has.

I realize it is too late for the OP but for other member that may search, your best bet when buying a used car is to get the car checked but a trusted mechanic that has no connection to the car or owner. Hopefully a family member has a mechanic they have been using for a while. Mechanics like long term customers and are less likely to play games.

 

^ long story short, I want Gorns car.
How can a person tell whether the car has been well kept throughout its high mileage?

 

Personally I always pass on a wrecked car, sure you can make it look right but odds are it will never drive right again.

 

Receipts showing work done and when.