I say go for it if it checks out ok

 

well sad news i was suppose to go home tomorrow to get the car, my college is about 4 hours away from chicago talked to the person selling it again, they told me they sold it!!!!!!! so now im back on the hunt all im finding is LS i heard the 3.4 engine is bad so now i have no idea what imma do

 

Just keep looking everywhere .

You should definitely NOT settle for a 3400 powered one

 

In my opinion, being a guy who has worked on a lot of 3100s and some 3400s (the 3400 is a newer build of the 3100, same basic engine with some tweaks and bigger cylinders). From a reliability stance they are pretty good. Biggest pain is the LIM gaskets go bad (oh and the same on the 3800). The 3400 is amazingly more peppy then it's older 3100. If it means anything, I STILL drive a '94 Grand Am with a 3100 under the hood that has 210K miles on it (changed head gaskets for the first time at 180K and did the LIM gaskets for a second time during the repair). The engine still runs like new! I'm impressed. But it's in the maintenance.

NOW, I would still recommend the 3800. It's got a better reliability, more power, more aftermarket mods available. It is a BETTER V6. But if it's not the engine you care about, both in my opinion are pretty equal in reliabilty.

FYI - I believe in that statement so much, last December my wife and I bought an '05 Impala with 150K on it for next to NOTHING! I plan to get another 50K miles out of that car. It still had the ORIGINAL spark plugs in it! We had to change the transmission and an O2 sensor, outside of that, I did a bunch of "just because it's good maintenance things to it before I let her drive it full time".

 

Also, I might add: Have the transmission checked as well. I have yet to have any issues with mine (with ~65K miles on it), but from what I hear, the 4t6e (the trans. in the SS I believe) is known for having slipping problems and the 4th Gear is prone to failure. I'm not sure what the LS has.. Since those have the 3.4 instead of the 3.8, they might have something different.

 

I believe the SS and LS share the same trans.

 

in 1997 I think they all were switched over to the 4t65e

The problems usually aren't found unless you look at the fluid (black and gross instead of nice and pink) or until the transmission is fully warmed up and then driven a little hard.

 

I decided to come home anyway from college for the weekend anyway and i found another Monte Carlo SS navy with black leather interior this one is a 2002 though but it has only 74,000 orignal miles!!! its 4500 just like the last one so we will see what happens!!! here are the pics what do you all think?

 

the car ended up being crap the axle was bent and almost broke,engine leaking,had been in an accident where they had to replace the fender and the color was off from the rest of the car and forgot what else the mechanic said but he strongly advised me not to buy it.

 

I have an 02 SS with 134k and mine is good as long as I keep up on maintenance like tune ups when needed, oil changes etc. Monte Carlo's can be great cars but just as temperamental as a Mercedes or BMW. It was always my dream car too and I plan to hang on to mine for a bit. I've had it about 5 years now. I agree with the other posters when they say get a carfax report. Black on black is sweet though I almost bought one but ended up with a tweety bird yellow one instead lol. But hey, I never lose it in the parking lots!