- on my first Corvette!

Hi everyone - I've been reading your forum (and the other one) for some months now doing the right thing and researching up on my dream car. I really appreciate the amout of info available and the friendly nature of this forum. I'm after a 96 C4 LT4 6-speed and finally have all the money together.

Anyway I went to see a car today- the one I've really had my eye on for a while - and spent about 3 hours with the guy driving and talking - he even drove me up to his local Corvette garage and introduced me to the mechanics and people in the shop that know him and the car. So the owner checks out. The car - now this is my first time even driving a corvette - any corvette - but I do know cars and I couldn't find anything wrong with it. Mechanically it's great, with all the paperwork and recent water pump, opti, cam chain, seals, shocks and some other small things. No leaks I could see, weather stripping is good and tyres are good. I do have a couple of questions tho :

1. The interior was ok for a 10 yr old car - not the best vette I've seen pics of, and there are sheepswool seat covers - not my style but at least they matched the carpet. But there was a weird puke smell which I had to bring up (no pun intended ha!). There was a brand new air freshner which was pretty overpowering and the interior had recently been cleaned with all the usual plastic cleaners. The bad smell went away pretty quick once the air was turned on and windows opened, etc. but its bugging me. I noticed all kinds of smells when the owner showed me what the car was really capable of, one of which was coming from the tyres. So is it normal to get this smell - is it from the aircon maybe? Or a combination of bad air freshner, cleaners and tyres? The car has been standing for a couple of months.

2. I did an emerency stop test. This was the biggest disappointment - I really stood on that pedal and I felt the car took its time to come to a stop - I thought maybe it was extreme ABS kicking in, but this was a dry road and we were doing maybe 30 at most. At least it pulled straight and true. I wouldn't fancy it if I got into a situation on my daily commute. However in normal driving the brakes felt responsive with good feel. Are 96 C4 brakes that crappy?

3. The car is completeley financed. I would have to give the money to the finance company to get the title. I've never been in this situation before - always paid cash up front. I have his account number and their phone number, and he showed me all the paperwork, and but it gives me the ****** anyway. Does anyone have experience of this kind of transaction?

Other than that the usual squeaking - the car drove great - nice ride, great exhaust, gobs of torque, even has a Hypertech thrown in - not something I would have bought, but I see it as a bonus, and I think it's a fair price.

So any advice from you guys would be much appreciated. If everything checks out then I will be pickng this car up in about a week's time.

Cheers!
-Eaks

 

Hey Eaks! My name is Matt and Welcome to the forum. I guess a few questions I have for you would be first, How Much? What kind of mileage are we looking at? How pungent is the 'puke' smell? Was the previous owner a smoker?

I bought my car from a crappy dealer knowing that i was pretty much buying a lemon. But, I also knew what i was getting myself into and knew that i could learn to fix any problem it had and if i couldnt fix it myself, i could get help. If you feel that the brakes and the smell of the interior are the only things keeping you from having the car of your dreams, then I would suggest you shop around. I would also recommend you find out where that smell came from. Depending on where it came from, you MIGHT not be able to get it out.

About the brakes, I have heard from quite a few people that ALL Corvettes come straight from the factory with excellent brakes, but mine dont seem to be the best in the world... So, i wouldnt know what to tell you about that. Otherwise, it sounds like a good car, now we just need to know the price and mileage. Again, welcome to the forum!

Matt

 

Hi Matt!

I'm also a Matt heh.

Ok it has 88000 and Carfax checks out with 5 owners in total. He was asking 15k and didn't want to budge on price as this is the amount he owes to the finance co and he wants to pay it off. He paid 16.5 for it less than a year ago - he just got a C5 Z06 to replace it. I managed to get 250 off after some discussion. I think it's a good price considering the work that's gone into the car recently - basically all the stuff I would have wanted to have done myself. Like I said it has new Bilsteins, water pump, opti and double-type timing chain and all the seals in between. I imagine new aftermarket brake pads might do the trick and having got to know the owner that he wouldn't have let the brakes go if he thought anything was wrong with them. The Corvette garage are a top-notch place from what I could see there. They were helping him sell the car by keeping it in their showroom for the last month or two, so I don't think they would have tried to sell it with bad brakes either.

I'm really hoping the smell is from the air system or something, but hard to tell with the airfreshner and everything else I could detect. Non-smoker. It was kind of pungent but went away after running with the air blowing or windows open. I need to check it out again and bring someone with me to get a second opinion.

I don't want to give too much away about the car as I'm paranoid someone's going to buy it from under me! But he only had 5 calls on it in 3 months it's been up for sale and no-one else has come to see it. It's a good car.

 

I think the smell/odor you detect could be one of two things and hopefully not both:
1. Someone did actually puke in the car at one time.
2. The Heater has leaked onto the carpet.
3. All of the above.

 

Yeah I've seen cheaper 96's but they are either higher mileage, or autos or LT1s or a combination of all 3. LT4 6-speeds seem to be going for a bit more due to their rarity, at least in California anyway. My choice was basically go for a cheaper car and then spend a couple of grand on the maintenance vitals, or pay a bit more and get one that's already been done recently. All the truly mint losw mileage cars I've seen for sale are going for silly money, like in the 20's. For that I would get a C5.


If the smell is from a leaky heater, what kind of job is this to fix? I don't know anything about the heater system.

thanks
-Eaks

 

Sorry it took so long to reply, i have been having a few problems of my own.

Ok, to the matter at hand. $15k does seem a bit pricy. I bought my 94 with around 70k on the clock for $9k. I would imagine a 96 (which is of course newer) with 88k (which is higher mileage) would go for around the same. For some reason, the closer these things get to 100k, they go down in price dramatically. The cars will all run well past 100k miles but most of the people that buy these things dont really care, they just want new ones anyway and they will just go buy a brand new one and not know anything about the car except it is a high priced sports car that will boost their social status. I would look around for maybe a newer Vette if you are already looking at spending $15k. For maybe $3-6k more, you can get a relatively low mileage C5 that is in great condition. But, if you are set on getting a C4, i might still look around. I just dont think i would pay more than $12k for a 10 year old car unless it had less than 50k on the clock.

Good luck to you friend
Matt

 

Thanks again for the advice.

Well I've been looking around since July now and I'll tell you if I'd seen a 96 LT4 6 speed for 9k it would be in my garage now The cheapest I've seen was 12k and that had over 100k and had the original water pump and bad boy distributor. All the other cars in the price range you mention are autos and earlier models. Nice cars at a good price but just not what I'm after. Just finding a 96 LT4 for sale is hard enough. C5s seem to be going for 18k-plus for 98, 99's, that's if you ever see a manual version in California, and my absolute limit is 15 and hey I'm in love with C4s right now Maybe prices went up a bit this summer?

I agree it being pricey for a 10 yr old car - I was after a 300ZX for almost a year, and then looked at LS1 Camaros. I could get a newer car for the same money with a more modern engine. Then I got bit really bad by the Vette bug... This one was bought for 16.5 almost a year ago and has at least 2k worth of mechanicals done this year which is more important to me than cosmetic shine or 20k less miles on original gear. I'll be driving it home on Saturday if all goes well. I definitely feel this is the vette for me, especially after driving it, I can't wait any more, I'm daydreaming all the time! I'll post pics as soon as I can and might be asking how to fix a leaky heater core. So excited hehe

Cheers
-Eaks