Hello everyone,

I currently own a '96 Monte Carlo with 194k miles and have been very satisfied with it till now, but I think it's about time to retire it as it's become a bit of a money hole.

That aside, the car was otherwise extremely reliable, and I had very good luck with the '96 for the 5 years I've had it. I'm a recent graduate and am now looking to purchase something a bit on the frugal side. Specifically, I'm considering a 2003 Monte Carlo SS:

2003 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS - Hatfield Pennsylvania area Toyota dealer near Philadelphia Pennsylvania

The car has 86,741 miles on it, which seems not all that bad for a 2003 at an average of 9,000 miles/yr. The Carfax shows no reported accidents, and my visual inspection and test drive of the car seem to indicate that it is in pristine condition. My intuition tells me that whoever owned it last took very good care of it.

The only thing that worries me is that I noticed on the Carfax that 3 years after its purchase date, the ignition switch was replaced; 6 years in, the catalytic converter was replaced. I'm no expert, but both of those seem awfully soon after purchase for those types of repairs to be necessary. I was under the impression that the latter is supposed to last roughly 10 years before replacement.

For those of you more technically inclined than I am, would you see that as a bad omen? I'm emotionally attached to the Monte Carlo and would very much like to own another one, but the market is scarce in my area and I'm trying to avoid falling too deeply in love with the 2003 SS I'm looking at if its history indicates that purchasing it is a bad idea...

Thanks for any advice,
-Evan

 

check for damage near the cat maybe he ripped it open on something but see what kind of money you can get off

 

If the last owner had a lot of keys on the ring with the car key and didn't take the car key off the ring, that would cause excess stress on the the ignition, causing it to fail! I found a good number of Monte SS, 2000 - 2005 with bad or replaced ignition switches. The fact that it is in the dash and not on the column makes it a little more susceptible to damage. In my opinion!

 

I wouldn't let that worry you too much. Both are common failures on these cars, especially the ignition switch. There are other weak points also such as the abs wiring harness (cheap and easy fix) and the plastic coolant elbows leaking on the 3800. Just do some reading through the forum and you will get an idea of what frequently goes wrong with these cars. I think everyone would recommend the 3800 engine over the 3.4 for sure. It's more reliable and of course has more power.
It also has the benefit of having a lot of aftermarket performance upgrades available if you want to modify it later on.
The problems these cars have generally don't reoccur once they are fixed correctly.

 

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

I think I may just go ahead and purchase the '03. It's one of those "this-is-the-one-I-feel-it-in-my-bones" sort of things, the same way I felt when I bought the '96.

If I do, I don't have to feel guilty about junking the '96... it's just being reincarnated =P

The only thing that still concerns me is that the car may have only ~86k miles (comparatively low given the age), but it is still a 10-year old car.

Can anyone comment on how reliability generally tends to hold off with age vs mileage?

Also, does anyone have an idea of how well these cars tend to hold their value over time? I plan on keeping this car for at least the next five years, so it will be around 2018 by the time I'm ready to replace it. I wonder if it will have any value left by then... =/

Though, I guess when you're buying a car for under 10k, you can't really expect to have much resale value five years from now...

 

8,999 is very high for that car.

I would rather see you buy it at 6,500.

There are a few suspension issues that you may start to run into, since it's around the time for those parts to wear out. But it also really depends on how well that car was taken care of. If all of the routine maintenance was kept up on, you should have a peach. If not, you might have some work to do.