Thanks for having me here. I'm currently looking at a '95 Cutlass w/ 3.4 and trying to decide if I want to bite into this maintenance hungry engine

This was a grandpop's car with 78K miles. No maint records except for memories of religious oil changes. Asking price is $1400 which seems close to fair. I'll feel it out when I look this afternoon. Obviously it is prime time for belts etc. at 22 years. I'm 61 now and no stranger to complex timing gear setups. The many articles and posts are a great help. Wish me luck! Thanks all.

 

Welcome to the forum

 

So, the car is not too bad but I wouldn't be willing to invest in a refurb. I offered $800 and he said he'd think on it. Wants $1000. If it weren't for the sunburned paint and interior, it would be a deal. Most of the window trim rubber has vacated.

Any thoughts?

 

Hello and Welcome to the MCF!

Best of luck on the car. I think he should have took your offer. I would bet as you suspect it will be needing a fair amount of money to get it back up to par. That is probably why they are selling it. There are plenty of more cars out there for $1000. What does the rubber brake pedal look like? Really worn down or like a 70,000 mile pad. People can go to the junk yard and get different lower mile speedometers and put them in. I would have someone run a code reader for a recently cleared computer and such. What do the brake rotors look like, decent or all worn at the edges like a high mile car would have. Guess I'm always the pessimist when it comes to older used cars. It's probably a $500 car plus the 1k your going to put into it...

 

My thoughts exactly, a $500 car. Grandpa just drove it to the store and back, changed oil and that was it... MD cars, ahhh, too close to PA :O