1985 Z28, T-tops. The guy is asking $4,000. Mileage on the engine is 10,000. Mileage on the body was unknown at our first meeting.

My thoughts are this car may be worth a serious restoration undertaking, but wouldn't nearly be worth 4 grand because of the money to put into it. Honestly, as much as I'm dying to get my hands on another 3rd generation, and something with more power than my RS...I don't think this car is worth it for a newbie with no huge shop to go work on it in. What do you guys think?

Notes about the car;

- Rust spots on exterior AND interior
- Dash pad is cracked pretty well
- A/C does not work
- No stereo at all
- Needs new catalytic converter (needs to be fixed to pass inspection)
- Lights work but the seat for them on the passenger side is rusted to the point it's cracked and needs repair (needs to be fixed to pass inspection)
- Paint needs to be redone (in the pictures taken they do not take pics of the front for that reason)
- No lock on the passenger side door on the exterior (how the hell does that even happen?!)
- No light cover inside
- Seats are original but are torn up badly and covers were put over them.
- The fabric on the interior on the roof and drivers side near the truck space is damaged (starting to droop) or all together missing.

And that's just what I saw, my fiancee went through the engine and under the hood and he said the engine looks ok but seems to be a little rough.

My thoughts are the paint has been redone at some point (though not recently with this owner), it appears to be they may have hidden the rust BY trying to paint it. And here's the catch 22, the battery died before we got to start it. Completely crapped out. He'll be getting a battery so that we may start it, everyone (neighbors included) say it runs, we'll see.

 

Keep. Looking. Seriously.

Lemme give you a little story here. I was selling my 86 Trans Am for the same $4,000 as this guy. My car was all original, had a very nice interior (not perfect, needed the steering wheel redone, had a few splits in the top of the back seat, otherwise very nice and clean), had only 32,000 miles on it, mechanically was 100%, even had ice cold A/C. All it really needed was paint, which your example clearly does, too.

I couldn't sell it (not that I tried that hard!), so I painted it, finished off the interior, and now have a beautiful car for a grand total of about $8,500, including refinishing all 4 wheels professionally, and buying a new $400 rear wing for it.

You can do way, WAY better than that car. That's a $1,500 car, the way you describe it. Good luck with your search.

 

Thanks, that's exactly what I thought it was worth. Providing I even caught all the issues.

 

I can assure you that you did not It happens to the best of us. I've owned 6 third gens over the years. Even the mint ones had things I missed at first...and I'm a General Sales Manager for a Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep store. I get paid to appraise used cars.

I don't care if it was the water under the carpet of my 86 Trans Am...the leaking intake gasket of my 88 IROC...the mis-diagnosis of the clunk in the rear end of my 88 Trans Am. On old cars like these, even clean original low mileage ones, its easy to miss things. After fixing a slightly-rusty one, and helping fix a badly rusting one, one thing I will NOT deal with is structural rust. Let someone else deal with it.

There are too many cheap, clean ones at this point to fix a pig. I cannot preach this enough...unless there is massive sentimental value, or you want a full-time hobby, start with the cleanest car you can find. Even if its more than you wanted to spend. My $1,000 RS became a $14,000 irritation. My $3,000 Trans Am became an $8,500 show car that drives like new, and I could hold my head high next to some very nice frame-off cars at a recent show.

Good luck. If you're concerned with resale, start with a clean TPI car.

 

Yeah I've already got about $6k into my $1600 GTA, but at least it didn't have any rust. There's no way I'd give $4k for the car in the OP's post, that seller is crazy.

 

No way is that is worth 4K. FWIW. I bought my car for 2900 (and probably paid a bit much). It was an all orig. 74K mile 350 Iroc, and not a spec of rust. Keep looking. The good ones are out there.

 

What would make you think you paid too much ? Just curious. Sounds like a good deal, on the surface...

 

It was a good deal, but after buying the car I have had to spend lots of money working out the bugs, making it safe and restoring it (it sat for 8 years before I got it). It needed a lot more work than I had thought. Although I did luck out with low mileage, original, and NO rust.

 

Guys, make sure when looking at these cars that you consider all costs. If you want a factory looking paint job, expect to spend a minimum of $3k. If it needs tires, expect to spend about $500. Interior work can run upwards of $2500 depending on what you need. A new dash pad is a couple hundred as is a clean steering wheel. Add in new seat material from a local upholstery shop and carpet, etc and you have a big bill. Now, you haven't even touched engine or suspension requirements. In this case, the AC will probably cost about $700. Not including the cost of the car, to get a used car into decent shape, you could be looking at $6500 in repairs on top of the price of the car.

My philosophy is that if you are going to spend the money over time to fix the car, why not spend the money over time on a payment and get a better starting point. You can also enjoy the car sooner than waiting years to get it fixed up. I would think that in this market, you could get a really decent car for $8k. Ten thousand can get you a fairly low mile, original car. They are out there and don't be afraid to travel somewhere else to get the car. Whatever is in your town might all be similar in condition. Travel costs can be cheaper than repair costs!!!

 

Stopped reading when you said the mileage is unknown.

Mileage unknown=forget it. The mileage doesn't really matter on a car so old that obviously has high miles anyway, but that's just a deal-breaker for me personally. If people actually took care of their crap they would fix the odometer ASAP when it breaks.

 

Scott is right!