"Mercedes Streeter" (smart)
08/20/2020 at 14:47 • Filed to: Car Buying
5
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"Mercedes Streeter" (smart)
08/20/2020 at 14:47 • Filed to: Car Buying | 5
| 19 |
Update: It appears the oil pump fully failed yesterday while she was trying to see if she can salvage the car and not donate it. The engine now has a rod knock and it sounds like the timing chain is really pissed off. It also smokes like an old Detroit Diesel, ha. Yeah, she’s definitely more confident about cutting her losses now.
Seems to me the seller knew this thing was scrap and just wanted to find someone to pay him more than scrap price for it. He knew it would run well jusssst long enough to pass a short test drive and sniff test. Oh well, if she can get the tax deduction she was offered by the organization she chose she’ll consider it a win. Taxes are going to be fun for her next season anyway.
Original:
It’s not uncommon for me to find absurd deals like my
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or the old
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Wagon. It seems by nature of my job I am able to snipe up cheap vehicles before anyone else can.
Usually they’ll have a small issue the owner doesn’t know how to fix, thinks is terminal, and lowers the price to reflect that. The Audi needed a starter, the VW a boost hose. But both cars were priced like they’d never run again.
In an upcoming article I’ll have on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! I go in depth about my madness. Unfortunately, not all deals have worked out.
Once I made the mistake of trusting a seller, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . And once I bought a vehicle without a test drive, only to find out the seller lied about everything about the vehicle’s condition. These lessons have made it easier for me to not end up with a total junker, lessons my girlfriend is learning now as she starts her own adventures in trying to find cheap rides.
Until this summer, I had a somewhat strict $1,000 limit on cars and motorcycles. The idea being if they break I won’t lose money on them. If I fix them, I make money on them. But this meant I was solidly outside my list of dream vehicles and essentially forcing myself into crapboxes I liked, but didn’t really want. Nowadays I don’t have a dollar limit so I can get dream vehicles, but I still try to find the best deal possible.
My girlfriend started her cheap car quest with an $800 Bronco. It turned out to be a far bigger project than expected and she sold it for a small profit. The new owner has a welder and cutting tools. He’s reportedly already replaced the floor, rocker, and is going after the tone ring next.
Her 1999 Camry has been an absolutely stellar daily. Cold A/C, plenty power, good unibody, and has never let her down. And after she put a new cat on it the car drives so buttery smooth. I’d rank it near the top of the $500 range car purchases I’ve seen in a very long time. The sunroof even works without leaking. It’s a car we’d hop in and do a road trip in without a second thought. In fact, we’ve done that twice already!
Because of the Camry’s smashing success she’s decided to copy my old idea of assigning an arbitrary dollar limit to vehicle purchase. Hers, however, is far more stringent than mine was at $600. But she has the caveat that she’ll spend about a thousand on something worth it.
Recently she found some killer deals that I’d rate similar to mine. There was a beautiful supercharged Pontiac Bonneville that just needed a new rocker panel (which came with it). A crazy low mile supercharged Buick that needed minor TLC, a couple HHRs, and another supercharged 3800, this time being a pretty minty Pontiac Grand Prix. There was even a rare Buick Reatta that just needed a battery. Most of them needed minor stuff, but she knows the 3800 in and out so she wasn’t scared.
Unfortunately, she’s not nearly as snappy as me and all of these cars sold before she could get to them. That is until she spied her eyes on a suspiciously cheap 2004 Nissan Maxima. The only noted issues were a bad wheel bearing and a sorta melted rear end. She decided to go for it.
Why the Maxima when all her favourite vehicles are GM barges? The Maxima has a pretty reasonable spec sheet for her desires. 0-60 in roughly a similar 6-ish second time as my Audi, well-equipped for its day, and she likes the style.
The Worst Used Car I’ve Ever Driven
!!! UNKNOWN HEADER TYPE (MULTI-LINE BREAK?) !!!
Sitting in the owner’s driveway the car seemed pretty serviceable. I checked out the body while she observed the engine and interior. The rear bumper, trunk, and taillight were partially melted by something. However, their mounting surfaces were undamaged and the damaged parts were all bolt-on. Easy fixes. Tires had enough tread and all the lights worked, too. The rest of the body had tiny just barely surface rust spots in a couple areas and the underbody was mint, even for normal people standards.
During her part of the inspection she popped the hood to witness a beautifully smooth 3.5L V6. Even more surprising, the engine bay plastics haven’t been lost to time. The seller told us there he just changed the oil and topped off all fluids, so the levels weren’t checked. I hopped in and found no ominous lights to accompany the smooth engine. While my short drive in it revealed some odd rear end noises it was nothing too crazy. Temps held, no warning lights. I attributed the noise to the rocky dirty road. It seemed to us that it was indeed just a high mileage warrior that needed some TLC. And for the princely sum of $300 she thought she was getting away with a gem. I elected to drive the car home to give it a full evaluation of what needed fixing.
That all changed when the engine temp exceeded normal range only minutes from the seller’s house...
Well, wait a minute here. The seller said he topped up all the fluids.
While the needle never actually touched the hot line it certainly liked flirting with it, so I turned on the heat full blast.
Pretty much immediately after I rapid fire discovered two more problems. Whatever that rear end noise was during the initial drive became a frightening soundtrack of something that sounded like it was going to fall off. Meanwhile, when coming to a stop the oil pressure light illuminated then stayed on until I hit the throttle again. This isn’t good..
Finally off gravel roads, the car drove even worse on pavement. It felt like I was going to uncontrollably veer off into the cornfields at any second. A new issue also presented itself. Each gearchange was excruciatingly harsh. So harsh the car sometimes chirped the tires on engagement. I’ve never driven a vehicle that made me fear for my life, but this one did it. I was getting ready to ditch it somewhere, maybe have her call for a tow.
We limped it to the nearest fuel station where we discovered the seller was a big fat liar. The car had no coolant (the bottle is stained the colour of coolant), the dipstick was dry, and I had no idea what was causing the bad rear end noise.
Something told me to check the wheels again. I shined a flashlight at the first wheel, saw five lug nuts, then moved on. The second wheel had five nuts as...wait a minute, something was fishy there. I got on my knees and noticed that one of the nuts was NOT a nut but a really shiny stud. The other four nuts were present, but two of them weren’t auto grade nuts. Indeed, this dude installed regular old nuts.
Startled at what I had driven for the past ten minutes, I checked the other wheels. They too were missing a nut and had two regular nuts as substitutes. Checking even further, EVERY nut was not even hand tight, and one nut on the wheel that actually had five matching nuts was not all the way on, rounded out, and cross-threaded. I debated with myself about calling it quits and going home. Someone was going to get hurt.
Over the next hour we added coolant, oil, and tightened some new nuts we had on hand. Of course, the car congratulated us by barely starting up for no explicable reason. But now with the newly added fluids the car kept cool and the engine was even more smooth and even quieter...though the oil pressure light at idle remained. Thankfully, with all four wheels now nice and snug the car transformed from a deathtrap to remarkably tight. Absurd night and day difference.
Thinking about it, the hard starting, occasional stalling when decelerating, and hard shifts could be a dying camshaft position sensor. Nissan forums seemed to support this idea. As for the oil light, well that was likely either a clogged pickup screen or a dying pump. The scary part is that the cheap fixes immediately escalate to multi-thousand dollar work if they don’t do the job.
If the cam sensor doesn’t resolve the hard shifting and hard starting, the transmission is junk (common problem, anyway).
If the oil pump isn’t clogged, it would need replacement. The car decided to kill its parking lights during this thinking session. *sigh*
At least with the wheels nice and tight the car actually became fun to drive. It corners flat and it has enough power to make several highway passes with one punch of the pedal. And most amusing to me, the transmission actually shifts fine when you drive it like a hoodlum. Only when driving easy does it shift like the transmission is a really pissed off caged animal trying to escape. Without the lag of a turbo it feels even faster than my Audi. It even sounded decent enough at high revs. For how awful this thing drove, it was kiiiinda nice when it worked? Even the gobs of awful torque steer made me laugh.
Since it was increasingly looking like the transmission is junk and the oil pump living on borrowed time, I suggested turning it into her Gambler car. Send the car out in epic fashion. Maybe take the Sawzall and make a Maximute. She felt different. She didn’t want to kill the car. She wanted a project but the prospects of trans replacement and a new oil pump left a sour taste. And perhaps as a middle finger to us, the car decided to gush all of its power steering fluid out upon arriving home. Yep, that fluid trail is from the Maxima.
Ultimately, she decided this unfortunate sack of car will be donated for a $500 tax deduction. Even if her problems turned out to just be sensors and a dirty oil pickup tube, these cars are apparently notorious for eating auto transmissions anyway. So she had to decide whether it was even worth trying to fix, just so it could break later. It’s a shame because aside from the sketch engine and transmission it’s actually pretty nice.
She feels it’s technically making a profit on the car. Fine enough with me.
SO, new items added to my personal used car checklist will now be “check the oil even if the seller says he changed it” , “check wheel nuts because the seller may not care if you live or die” , and “take it for the longest test drive possible” . I normally always check the oil immediately, but you’d think if the guy says he just changed it you could take his word for it. Nope, not going to trust like that again.
Meanwhile, my girlfriend has learned that scraping the very bottom of the barrel is risky. Some cars may end up like the Camry, but thus far most have not. She for now is just going to enjoy her Camry, maybe save her Gambler car dreams for later and more money.
This concludes a story of how a Nissan Maxima tried to kill me last night. A part of me wonder how these cars are like with a manual. Shame they’re FWD.
CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever
> Mercedes Streeter
08/19/2020 at 18:04 |
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Important life rule: Never trust anyone who drives a maxima.
ranwhenparked
> Mercedes Streeter
08/19/2020 at 18:07 |
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Those ‘90s Camrys are amazing cars, I don’t remember if we properly appreciated them back then or not, but they should be getting some recognition now. They’ll probably be a couple of them in the funeral procession when we all die.
dogisbadob
> Mercedes Streeter
08/19/2020 at 18:09 |
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Congrats on the
upcoming article you wrote! Your adventures
are always fun to read
Other than the Maxima, you seem to have done well with your flipping. The real surprise is that you haven’t lost money on it more often. Situations like your Maxima are rather common, where there are more problems than you initially thought.
And yeah, the Camry is awesome.
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dogisbadob
> CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever
08/19/2020 at 18:10 |
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I used to have a 4th gen Maxima. OK, it was an I30
I didn’t sell it to a person. Instead, I took it to the junkyard
Just Jeepin'
> Mercedes Streeter
08/19/2020 at 18:11 |
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In case you didn’t see this...plus you make a cameo appearance in the comments.
https://oppositelock.kinja.com/southern-indiana-meetup-a-modest-proposal-1844736167
Snuze: Needs another Swede
> Mercedes Streeter
08/19/2020 at 18:20 |
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I love reading about your adventures, and am happy with your success in flipping. I have a feeling Im going to end up taking a small bath on my 850.
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Mercedes Streeter
> Snuze: Needs another Swede
08/19/2020 at 18:28 |
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Funny enough it’s not even like I’m intentionally trying to flip things. I find something that’s interesting for too cheap of a price, play around with it for a few months, then see if I can at least get back what I paid.
Thus far I’ve really only taken a bath on Chinese scooters (all of them), the Suzuki that lost its 5th gear, the Kawasaki with the bad title, and arguably the TDI I gave up on.
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Mercedes Streeter
> Just Jeepin'
08/19/2020 at 18:29 |
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Omg, I’m so down for that! I was near-ish the Indy area over the weekend and thought about an Indiana/Illinois Oppo Meet.
BrianGriffin thinks “reliable” is just a state of mind
> Mercedes Streeter
08/19/2020 at 19:01 |
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I’m sure you’ve done your homework, but i wouldn’t give up on the Maxima yet. They’re freaking cockroaches.
If you / she has the time and space, why not try a transmission fluid drain & refill x3 with generic fluid, plus a bottle of Motul engine clean or (ugh) even Seafoam? Can’t hurt, and might fix the problem well enough to make it salvageable to a buyer.
Also I’m coming to Indiana for my next cheap car. You can’t get anything running around here for less than $1500.
Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
> Mercedes Streeter
08/19/2020 at 19:18 |
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“The car had no coolant (the bottle is stained the colour of coolant), the dipstick was dry, and I had no idea what was causing the bad rear end noise.”
“I got on my knees and noticed that one of the nuts was NOT a nut but a really shiny stud. The other four nuts were present, but two of them weren’t auto grade nuts.”
I personally looked at cars that turned out to have
missing lug nuts from shadier sellers.
And yeah... you have to verify/check everything yourself. And buy nothing without taking it for a spin that includes a mix of driving situations.
The worst car I looked at was a Mazda 3 that was in “excellent” condition that was actually a flood car.
And about the rough shifting... the transmission as a whole is probably fine... you likely just need a new valve body... along with a fluid/filter change:
And here is a document on how to do it yourself:
http://my6thgen.org/f107/2004-2006-valve-body-replacement-18681/
And here is a Youtube video:
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Mercedes Streeter
> Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
08/19/2020 at 20:29 |
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Yeah, I do think it’s possible to save this car. T hough, it’s her project and her money so she feels she’d just cut her losses, take the tax deduction, then run. Use it as a lesson learned.
I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker
> Mercedes Streeter
08/20/2020 at 11:50 |
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So you bought a Nissan, what’s the issue again?
Sending it on to Copart for tax credit was a shrewd move
. However, replacing transmissions really isn’t that hard, even sans lift. With TLC, these cars are good dailies. One thing I like about Nissan is that they like to shove VQs into every place they fit. I think that was the 255 crank hp version in there. It’s a shame most Nissan owners abuse and neglect them til death.
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Mercedes Streeter
> I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker
08/20/2020 at 12:17 |
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She bought the Nissan, I’m more into complicated German cars . lol
That’s definitely a thing I like about Nissan as well. A comparable Toyota or Honda from the same year doesn’t hold a candle to this engine. We took a crack at fixing it yesterday and the engine began making some horrifying noises halfway through the day. Something tells me it’s been starved of oil for a very long time. At this point she’d want a pro to figure out what’s wrong with both the engine and trans. And since these aren’t really worth anything in our area, she thinks she’s better off taking the tax deduction then running.
A charity is supposed to pick up the car today. Never really thought about what happens to donated cars, they get sent to Copart?
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I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker
> Mercedes Streeter
08/20/2020 at 12:40 |
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Yeah, generally they go to insurance auction. Most of the “clean title” stuff at Copart is donated vehicles- they’re usually listed as “source- donation”. Copart makes money as the public-facing sales mechanism for various organizations selling cars that are otherwise un-marketable. They make profit by charging to list vehicles and collecting buyers’ fees. They also charge for escrow I think.
Unless you’re guaranteed a $500 tax credit for donation, you might get less than that. Usually, the title is transferred to the charity’s name, then goes to Copart
, then when sold, the charity gets the profit and you get the same tax credit you would get for a donation of the same dollar value as the profit from sale. It varies state by state, though.
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Mercedes Streeter
> I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker
08/20/2020 at 14:25 |
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That actually makes a whole lot of sense. I figured donated cars were usually so broken that they weren’t worth auctioning off, so I’ve been kinda curious what happens after the truck rolls away. Certainly puts some of the Copart listings I see into perspective!
She has a laundry list of folks that have threatened to kill her (par for the course for the type of lawyering she does) and she pondered if the seller perhaps knew her and wanted her dead. Nah , I think it was just a seller that knew his car was basically scrap and wanted to fool someone into paying more than scrap price for it.
Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> Mercedes Streeter
08/20/2020 at 14:49 |
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All of those cars are too large for you.
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Mercedes Streeter
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
08/20/2020 at 14:51 |
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It’s weird having a backseat and a proper trunk. That Passat felt like a yacht!
Ash78, voting early and often
> Mercedes Streeter
08/20/2020 at 15:00 |
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I donated my ‘98 Passat to a women and children’s shelter — it had a bad window regulator and was generally not quite safe enough to drive my family around, but it worked fine as a daily driver if you’re not too picky.
This particular place has a staff that helps maintain them, and they usually lend them to the women so they can go to jobs and get back on their feet.
Most charities — especially nationwide ones — just crank them to auction and send a receipt with the actual sale price (which sucks) to the donor. If you donate to a charity that keeps it, you can deduct Fair Value (KBB) which is much better for everyone.
This is what we'll show whenever you publish anything on Kinja:
> Mercedes Streeter
08/20/2020 at 16:32 |
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B uy the cheapest running pile on CL, cash, and screw the paperwork. Then poke a hole in the oil pan and dump the thing in the Nissan sellers driveway.
Good luck getting rid of it budz.