I'm an active member in a Custom Vintage VDub forum and I know how we respond when some newb comes in and posts crap in the wrong place, so hopefully this is the right place for this, if not feel free to tear in and let me know where it should be posted :P

So I screwed myself...er...bought a car without properly researching it and now i'm curious how big of a mistake I made..
I did do a carfax and it came up with no major issues, but I made the biggest mistakes by a) not taking the car to a shop for a pre-sale inspection b) buying it "as-is" and c) settling..
That all being said, please understand that I know I made these mistakes, let's try not to focus the thread on them since there's no way to undo any of them..

After taxes, fees, and what not, I paid about $4,000 for a 1996 base model, has power steering, but that's about it (manual windows, locks, etc.), V-6 3.8L 5-speed. Don't know what other specifics are relevant..
The shiatty little dealer said it was mechanically sound, I test drove it and it seemed alright. I drove it for about 10 days before it was overheating and losing refrigerant badly. Took it into a shop who told me the water pump was bad. I probably could have done the work myself but I was already at the shop, and figured I may as well shell out some cash and let a "professional" handle it.. so almost $300 later, i'm back on the road.
Forty-four (yes, 44) miles later, I've got the SAME exact symptoms and problems so the shop tows it back and tells me the "heater inlet pipe" broke. I ask how they didn't catch that when they replaced the water pump and they say "it's a hard plastic pipe there's no way to tell if it's going to crack like this, it probably just cracked because of the sudden pressure increase of having a working water pump." so i shell out about another $200 to have them replace that as well.
Now it's been about 2 weeks since that, and on saturday the car lurches forward a couple of times and the "service engine soon" light comes on. I take it to a shop monday afternoon (didn't drive it at all sunday) and now the MAS air sensor is bad. Pay about $500 to have that replaced and have the injection system cleaned out, pick up the car, and get about a mile before the light comes back on, take it back and it's saying both banks are too lean. Mechanic thinks that's just from the leftover injector cleaning fluid so we let it run and try and burn out what's left of that ****, then I take it home.
Today, i get about half way to work when the light comes on again. Luckily, this last shop I took it to seems to actually give a damb because he called me this morning to ask how it was doing and if the light came back on or not. so I'll be taking it back to him after work so we can get to the bottom of this.

Oh, i almost forgot to mention, when I picked it up yesterday, he mentioned that as far as he can tell, my plugs are 12 years old, that's right, they're original, the previous jackasses who've owned this apparently never gave it a full tune up. Also the diff. fluid looks bad and the power steering pump is leaking.

Now I know I'll never get anywhere near the $4,000 I paid for it, but how much does anyone think I would be able to ask if I got it running properly again. Nothing against Camaro's, it's just I already disliked modern cars and this is leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

Or does anyone here think it's worth it for me to keep burning money on this thing and keep it?
I would like to keep a second car for when my bug has problems, but i think it's ridiculous to have a second car that requires more money than my bug..

sorry this got to be so long.. try not to bash me too bad

 

Well sorry you had the get it done to you like that. But those things that you mention or more of the basic stuff to look for with a car that age. It does suck that it wasn'tcare for. If I were you I'll keep it because most likely you're not going to get the money back you paid so get it up to par and and you than will know what you have and keep it. Keep us posted.

 

Yea, I figured this stuff is probably just par for the course with a 12 year old car. My 'rents are trying to convince me to get rid of this and buy something else with a warranty but the way I see it, in order to sell it it's going to need more work, and eventually everything will be fixed so why should i sell a running car that i've already dumped too much money in for a new one with problems i don't know about?
personally though, i just want this thing reliable so i can get my bug back on the road. nothing will ever replace it in my heart as a daily driver, the camaro was supposed to be a back up car i could drive while saving for parts..

 

I feel you man. After the time and money you put in to it you know what you have. By the way how many miles are on it?

 

the mileage is the other thing the 'rents didn't like. it's got about 128K but the way I figure it is that it's also 12 years old, so that equals about 10K a year..

 

wow bro im sorry......honestly though the worst is probably over and it sounds like youve got a decent shop now and at least your getting codes out of it now so you can get a direct dignostic of the problem but your exactly right why fix it then sell it that would just be a huge loss of money and sending away a working car for one that might have other issues warrenty or not i imagine your probly sick of the lonsome treck to the shop....sounds like somobdy just beat the **** outa the poor thing and didnt service it in the least....

 

i feel like 90% of your experience with an old car is in the shop you take it to when it breaks. just ask baseballer [:-]


if you are dead set on selling it u could get that 4k back out of it, assuming nothing is going wrong when you try to sell it er um.... everything is fixed [8D]

 

I feel for ya man, but you won't believe the deal I got on my car. I got a '95 3.4L v6 with 70k miles for only $1200, and it runs smooth ($1200 due to some heavy bargaining, and the seller was a dolt, but took care of the car well).

Check out the thread I made, but **** man, I'm sorry.

 

so the idiot light coming back on was apparently due to a faulty MAS sensor. they put in a second new one today and it seems alright now. once i get back in the country i'll deal with the 12 year old spark plugs but for now i just need to to run for another 3 weeks or so..

 

MAF's are pretty hardy, u managed to screw 2 of them up? I would bet something else is up. expect another failure if this is the case