Is this a good deal?

[tmanz13]

My buddy sold his 72 Chevelle and we've been out looking at cars. We found a 99 2-door Alero for $3,950. The thing is in awesome shape. I don't know much about the Alero but I think this is a GLS. It has leather interior, CD-Cass, moonroof, v6 3400 engine, power everything. The prob is it has 98k. The dealer said they just got it in from a guy who lives in Chicago and used it to drive around Pittsburgh and back. He didn't really impress us with telling us much about the car, we think it may have been since we were 3- 21yr old guys. I checked coolant clean, oil good, tranny fluid good, fan kicks on all that stuff, it drives really well. I couldn't tell much of a difference from my 96 grand am.

The catch is, the car has no inspection, I guess they don't do it in Chicago? They do here in PA. My bud asked them to look at it and tell him what it needs for it to pass, they said the front 2 tires are miss-matched, needs new pads and rotors. Which I guess within 18 months of owning you'd expect to replace anyways... But my friend feels weird buying a car that is not inspected. The guy said they could do it for $700. Does this all seem on the up and up? I told my buddy about the intake gasket probs on these cars, and from the outside it looks fine on both block ends. I just can't figure out why they don't have it inspected to begin with?

Should we pressure for the inspecton before-hand? I know they're not going to pay for it. What do you guys think?


Any replies would be most helpful, take it easy guys.. and gals!


:bow:

[Jordon'sGrandAm]

wow if i had a 72 Chevelle i would never sale it. it's a classic car.

[redgrandam]

Up here they have to go through a safety inspection before you can liscence it. Usualyl most people sell it 'certified' which means they are or have taken care of any saftey check , and e-test, and fixed any of those problems. Sometimes people sell as is, and it is up to the buyer to pay the 50 bucks to get the check done, and hope there isn't any problem. You can save money by not getting it checked before, pending there are no problems, cause people will charge more for a certified car obviously..

[TheLamonizer]

i wouldn't buy it unless it was inspected...and also even w/ that many miles i would be kinda suspicious of a car that cheap.

[tmanz13]

Originally posted by Jordon'sGrandAm
wow if i had a 72 Chevelle i would never sale it. it's a classic car.

Yeah I know, tell me about it.
But sometimes college hits you in the wallet pretty good, and for a car you can only drive for like 5 months out of the year I think it just got tough for him. A guy in CA bought it off ebay, so atleast it'll get to see some real sun and open roads, not the hills of Pittsburgh. :D

If he buys this Alero I think he's forced to join the club, are there a few Alero owners here already?

Hopefuly we can talk some sort of sense into the dealer it's a nice looking car.

[jayhawk]

Only if you live in a town or suburb bordering Chicago do you need inspections.

[4kQuad]

The goofy front tires seems like a hint of front end problems there trying to hide. Look over the front end real good, It's easy to drop 2 to 4 hundered in parts and labor with front end problems.

Grab the front wheels at 3 and 9 Oclock. try to wiggle them, try hard. There should not be any movement. Kind of like the back tires. If you can move the wheels there is hidden problems.

[RedGASE97]

98k on a car thats 4 years old is alot. I went through the same thing when I was looking for my first car three years ago. I saw a 4-door black 98 GT for only 8,000. Thing was beautiful, fully loaded, but it had between 90 and 100k on it already, not to mention my parents said it had an engine knock when we started it. Needless to say, that car was NICE.