Need some car buyer guidance

[Taylortractornut]

Tires wont be a problem if one get a screw or nail, I beleive in the vulcanizing patch/ plug when the landfill we run was for a trailer plant every day you had a new screw in a truck tire or car tire from sheet metal screws.

I do know if it did lay down a roll back would be needed a friend hit a deer in his new murano and and called for a roll back. He had gone to the hospital and the officer over the wreck called a buddy with a wrecker and sent the car 200 milles fried all the transmission and axles.


The only thing about other brands of MV like honda or Toyota the nearest dealer ship is 60 miles away and the local shops wont even talk about a toyota or honda repair. Ive got a 4 runner now waiting a trip on a trailer to get the started changed. I have a friend with an Oddessey and l really like it but Im in the used market now lol

 

[dmccarty]

Tires wont be a problem if one get a screw or nail, I beleive in the vulcanizing patch/ plug when the landfill we run was for a trailer plant every day you had a new screw in a truck tire or car tire from sheet metal screws.

It can if you tear up the sidewall.

With the Volvo we had the manual was very explicit that all four tires had to be the same size aka the same wear and age on the tires. Replace one tire, replace them all or risk messing up the AWD. Really bad design that is not repeated by other AWD designs.

Later,
Dan

 

[flyingcow]

I run an auto repair shop. 3.8 is a good motor. One thing that can occur, doesn't mean it is going to, is the cam bearings going out cutting off the supply of oil to the rocker arms.

Oil does go up the pushrods but only to oil the tip there is no hole in the rocker arm to allow the oil to flow to the rocker pivot . There is a seperate oil passage which feeds oil up one of the rocker stands to feed the pivots. Cam bearing goes out or turns this passage is blocked. Pretty much new engine time then.

The AWD is just one more thing to go wrong although to be honest we have never had to work on the AWD portion of one of these.

I would put on a lift and inspect brake lines closly for heavy rust, inspect rear steel heater lines under passengers feet area for heavy rust, common problem. Also check to be sure AC works, most common problem is the rear AC lines and or evaporator and expansion valve leaking. This is not a cheap fix.

I would also check ball joints, inner and outer tie rod ends before putting on the road. If you hear a clunking noise everytime you hit a tar strip or little bump look at your frt. stabilizer bar bushings, the ones that attach the bar to the frame. They get loose. Pretty cheap to replace, just a couple of rubber bushings that are clamped around the bar where it hooks to the frame.


If you have to replace the steel heater line set under the passnegers feet area it is not as bad as it looks. You can remove the complete wiper unit and housing under it to gain good access to the rear of motor.


What is it worth? Not my business but I always try to get my intial costs down to a dime mile. Not easy to do. Drive a twenty thousand dollar car 100,000 miles, and then sell it for ten grand and your costs are a dime a mile.

At 3800$ you need to drive it to 198K to reach a dime a mile, certainly possible. I would give you better odds at making it then the fellow buys a 40 K car, he has to drive it to 400,000 miles. (-:

ROYGAGE--You know your dodge minivans. We've owned 2. 3.8 is leaps and bounds over the 3.0 Only thing i would add, change the trans fluid. See what that and the filter looks like, should be all set, but alot of people never change the trans fluid. i do it every 30,000 miles. Not that much more expensive than an oil change. do that every 30,000 miles and trans should stay as long as anything else.

The AWD would make me concerned, unless you really need it. But I put winter tires on, and we can push through alot of snow with just the front wheel drives. We get low to mid 20's for mileage. A few trips to Fla we got upper 20's, but that was in the southern states where you could maintain a steady speed. The AWD will lower the mileage some, and could give you some serious $$$$ problems. IMO keep looking. If you still got wheels to ride on, look around more. I think you can find a newer unit for the same dollars.
Good luck in finding a van.

 

[Taylortractornut]

Well we bought the van, i told Amy if it did give trouble id give it the Willie Nelson treatment as in On the Road again. I pulled an oil sample fro mthe motor and sent to a friend that does oil analysis for Cat. He said it was clean normal wear but clean. The dealer let me take the car to a friends shop and go over it. We looked at every thing and it was tip top. We drove it about 8 hours and got 23 mpg. It had one littl pin hole of rust thats was normal even for one down here.


This was the best out of 6 months of hard looking. I all the ones we were finding we either floaters or rotten and had lots of work done to them. I found out our parts dealer has one identicle to the one we bought and its got 350k on it. Its smoking a little now but that may be because it has the rear seat removed for hauling equipment parts from sales.

I was a little leary but after we combed over it and realized it hadnt been patched or just topped off I decied to purchase it. I figure if we can run it 2 years it will be replaceable. It seems cars from up north have been serviced better than most down here. Im not knocking the south but lots of folks that I know that buy new cars will run them into the ground with almost no maintenance.