buying a car that sat for ~6 years?

[alphatarget1]

Huh? What oil buildup? If that car has sat for 16 years, oil buildup is not what you're going to find in the cylinders.....what you'll find are absolutely dry cylinder walls, dry crank bearings, dry camshaft bearings, dry valve lifters, dry everything. Every drop of oil has long since been pulled down into the crankcase from gravity.....start that engine without any prep work and you'll give it years of wear in just a few seconds.

I doubt the cylinder walls or whatever you mentioned will be "absolutely dry". A thin film of oil should still be present on the surface. Once you start the car up, assuming the oil pump work and you have (hopefully you would've changed the oil already) fresh oil in the sump, it shouldn't be TOO big of a deal.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Huh? What oil buildup? If that car has sat for 16 years, oil buildup is not what you're going to find in the cylinders.....what you'll find are absolutely dry cylinder walls, dry crank bearings, dry camshaft bearings, dry valve lifters, dry everything. Every drop of oil has long since been pulled down into the crankcase from gravity.....start that engine without any prep work and you'll give it years of wear in just a few seconds.

(Hint: This is why when an engine's built, the cylinders and pistons are lubed and assembly lube is used everywhere else that would have metal-to-metal contact on starting.)


If you, the OP, buy the car, I think you'll find it will start to have issues later as you use it. And not just isolated to mechanical issues, such as scarred bearings, cylinder walls, and the like. You'll probably also start to get oil and/or coolant leaks from gaskets that have dried out so much they've lost their ability to seal the passages/galleries they were intended to seal.

Remember, the gaskets used to seal the oil and coolant passages within the engine depend upon being constantly wetted with their respective fluid to keep the gaskets pliable and "swollen", so years spent dry will create dry, brittle, and poorly sealing gaskets throughout the engine.

Get ready for a never ending battle with leaks, at the least.

I find that nearly impossible to believe. This is a 9 year old Honda we're talking about here...not a 1978 Chrysler.

 

[hanoverphist]

Really. Kind of disingenuous, or a typical uninformed and ignorant teenager argument, to compare an extremely rare, desirable, and highly in demand muscle car from over four decades ago to an eleven year old econobox.

an 9 yr old econobox that is pretty well sought after by the "ricer" crowd. id bet a civic with no engine would sell faster than that 500k boss. hell, with an engine and a trans that was slipping would still sell. i see them daily on CL here in az, every damn one of them sells. you should see what people pay for a 240SX if it actually runs. not even well, just runs.

 

[airdata]

What's the price ?

 

[7window]

Really. Kind of disingenuous, or a typical uninformed and ignorant teenager argument, to compare an extremely rare, desirable, and highly in demand muscle car from over four decades ago to an eleven year old econobox.

Okay, I just wonder why I don't see many people complaining about issue or problems on cars that has been sitting for a long time. Assuming this cars has been sitting in a clean driveway or garage. Not in dirt road with weeds growing around it.

Just recently a brand new z28 was discovered in a trailer and had no issue with it whatsoever. Started just fine with the exception of cleaning the carb.

 

[Bignate603]

Okay, I just wonder why I don't see many people complaining about issue or problems on cars that has been sitting for a long time. Assuming this cars has been sitting in a clean driveway or garage. Not in dirt road with weeds growing around it.

Just recently a brand new z28 was discovered in a trailer and had no issue with it whatsoever. Started just fine with the exception of cleaning the carb.

People don't complain about issues from that Boss sitting that long because it's still a desireable car. The buyer was probably planning on doing a complete restoration anyways, so replacing rubber parts, belts, hoses, gaskets, cleaning up corrosion on sliding parts, etc is not a big deal. On a cheap daily driver very few people will want to completely tear apart the car then put it back together to deal with all the gremlins.

As for that Z28, sure it started up. However, that doesn't mean that the car will continue to run. The issues people are talking about here aren't necessarily stuff that will keep the car from turning over, but could cause it to spring leaks, have brake issues (corroding the slides in the calipers can be a major issue), pop hoses, have a gas tank full of varnish, etc.

For interesting cars its worth doing what you need to do to get the car back to life. For a cheap econobox, it's probably more than most people want to do.

 

[edi sucks]

Thanks for all the posts guys, appreciate it. The car magically disappeared off the auction block before the auction, so it didn't (as far as I can tell) go up for sale. Never had a chance to see it since it disappeared off their inventory two days ago.

I looked at two other cars, a '01 Maxima SE with 35k original miles and '03 Maxima SE with 97k miles. The '03 was white, sexy, but had cloth seats (no biggie) but also no working AC. The '01 had oil all over the engine bay, so no go there.

I'm guessing the '03 will sell for $4500-$5000, looking at historical selling prices. I really wanted to go for it since everything else looked good, and it looks pure money, but decided to wait till next week to find something in better condition.

 

[Vette73]

Thanks for all the posts guys, appreciate it. The car magically disappeared off the auction block before the auction, so it didn't (as far as I can tell) go up for sale. Never had a chance to see it since it disappeared off their inventory two days ago.

I looked at two other cars, a '01 Maxima SE with 35k original miles and '03 Maxima SE with 97k miles. The '03 was white, sexy, but had cloth seats (no biggie) but also no working AC. The '01 had oil all over the engine bay, so no go there.

I'm guessing the '03 will sell for $4500-$5000, looking at historical selling prices. I really wanted to go for it since everything else looked good, and it looks pure money, but decided to wait till next week to find something in better condition.

What auction house is this? A smaller local one?

 

[edi sucks]

Manheim, it's fairly big (they had almost 5000 cars up for sale this week in my area.)

 

[JulesMaximus]

People don't complain about issues from that Boss sitting that long because it's still a desireable car. The buyer was probably planning on doing a complete restoration anyways, so replacing rubber parts, belts, hoses, gaskets, cleaning up corrosion on sliding parts, etc is not a big deal. On a cheap daily driver very few people will want to completely tear apart the car then put it back together to deal with all the gremlins.

As for that Z28, sure it started up. However, that doesn't mean that the car will continue to run. The issues people are talking about here aren't necessarily stuff that will keep the car from turning over, but could cause it to spring leaks, have brake issues (corroding the slides in the calipers can be a major issue), pop hoses, have a gas tank full of varnish, etc.

For interesting cars its worth doing what you need to do to get the car back to life. For a cheap econobox, it's probably more than most people want to do.

That car was an IROC-Z and it had been sitting for over 20 years in a container. I read through the thread on the guy that bought it and I don't recall him doing much other than changing the hoses, cleaning the gas tank and fuel system, changing fluids and that was it for the engine.

They sure as hell didn't tear the car apart and put it back together.

 

[BUTCH1]

thats why a 69 mach or boss that had 5000 miles went for 500k last auction

Was that on Mecham auto auctions?, I could see maybe the Boss as they were much rarer than a Mach1..

 

[BUTCH1]

Think these guys are a bit over worried. Its been 6 years not 30. I'd do everything you said and pull the spark plugs and put a bit of marvel mystery oil in each cylinder and let it sit over night. Then crank it with the plugs out a bit. Even that is probably overkill but won't hurt. Check to make sure mice haven't destroyed the wiring. That would be a huge PTIA.

How good of a deal is it? That is the question. Are they charging premium for because it has low miles or is it a steal because it has been sitting for 6 years?

I think this would be the best answer here, the MM will lube the cylinder walls enough till the oil pump gets going and the fact that there will be no strain from compression/combustion will give the bearings a chance to get lubed before having to deal with that. You would half to expect to replace all the hoses though and expect AC problems too, O-ring seals are not going to work well after sitting dry for so long..