Thanks for the replies, guys. The limited edition MC that I was looking at was nothing special..basically just said "LE" on the speedometer.

I'm going to take a look at the car at around noon during my lunch hour...The car has 196k (from a ~90 mile commute for work) miles on it, which is pretty high. However, he just had the intake manifolds done on it less than 5k miles ago. From what I know those are a major repair with the 3800 series motor.
There's a couple of paint chips on the body of the car, but besides that, it looks like it's in pretty decent shape.

Any other things I should look at that might specifically be with the '03 models?

Thanks.

 

AFAIK the cosmetic (high sport kit, diamond cut 5 spoke wheels & le speedo) and mechaical upgrades (suspension & brakes) are what seperate the (non pace/driver edition) limited edition vehicles from the others. All other options will depend on what the original purchaser ordered. If you can get the VIN number you can enter it here and it will tell you all the options the car had coming out of the factory:

Comprehensive Chevrolet, Saturn, GMC, Hummer, Cadillac, Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Geo, Dodge, Plymouth, Jeep, Chrysler, Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Mazda Truck, Mercedes VIN Decoder

 

196K is a lot on ANY drive train. The guys on the Bonneville forum have a formula they claim if applied to a new Bonnie with a 3800 will give you safe passage to about 300+K. I feel that may be overly optimistic, but hey, you never know.

IMO, doing the lower intake gaskets on a 3800 is a BREEZE! But at 190+K, perhaps doing head gaskets just to be on the safe side would have been wise (not a requirement, but something to consider). Also, ask if they used the FelPro aluminum lower intake gaskets, if so, they will probably never fail again.

 

I got one but mine is also a numbered car being a pace car, so mine came with a few extra things, two tone int, high sports package, team mc decal, says pace car on the dash instead of monte carlo,
i still need to call gm and see what number it is

i'm kind of a pic ***** and can't help myself

 

Alright, I just got back from looking at it. Overall the car is in good condition - nothing in the interior seems bad. On the exterior, there's a few spots of rust/paint chips, but this car has been in MN it's entire life so I'd say it's expected.

The owner is asking $3500, which is down about $500 from what he was asking before. Like mentioned earlier, the gaskets were replaced about 45k ago (typo'd above) ... I'm currently trying to arrange a time for my mechanic to look at it, and depending on what he says, I'd say it could quite possibly be my first car pretty soon.

Any other things I should be looking at for a car with that high of miles? I won't be putting on huge amounts of miles/year, but I did want something with the 3800 and this one seems like it could be a good buy.

Any other thoughts?

Thanks!

 

White with silver ground affects? if it is i see it has CAI

196k is a pritty high miles,
deffiniatly check over the trans fluid, if it is brown walk away or plan on putting a trans in it,

 

You are correct, sir. Are you local?
And yes, he had a CAI put on it...kind of a nice bonus feature if I do say so myself.

Noted, thanks. If we get a chance to have our mechanic look at it, I'll see if we can look at this too.

 

High miles stuff wears out power stearing, ac compressor, alternator... not just engine stuff. bright side is for about one year you will need to replace everything at once but after that you will be good for 2-3 years or more. 94 lumina everything crapped out at once every two weeks something broke after It was all replaced no more probs.

 

i'm in the cities, just check out craigslist and found it,

not trying to say beat the living crap out of it but take it for a test drive and push it hard a bit, try to lock up the brakes to make sure the abs is working, give it a few hard 0-whatever the speed limit is to see if there is any bogging or anything, try to get to aleast 55 becuase thats usually when an unbalanced tire will show it's ugly head,

 

We took it for a test drive today, got it up to 40-ish, braked hard. No problem, stopped straight, no pulsing. Accelerated onto a highway and got up to 65-70ish and it cruised just fine. It didn't tend to pull one way or another...

It's definitely high miles, but I'm hoping to graduate college in less than a year, and that's all it really needs to last me...if it goes longer, then that'll be awesome too.