as it appears that i'm in the used LS1 market right now, what should be looked at when buying one of these things? i know what to look for in an LT1 but not LS1 ...

 

You should definetly look for the following: rusted muffler bearings, dirty or leaking blinker fluid, horn bushings that are cracked/broken and headlight gears that are stripped.

j/k

On LS1's I'm not really sure what really breaks except for the things they have in common with LT1's like auto tranny slipping or not shifting right, slipping clutch, rear-end leaking, poor maintenance(a little harder to see, but sometimes very evident) and other signs of neglect. Other than that I don't think there are any real famous problems like the LT1 intake manifold leak. Just make sure it looks well maintained and clean and that it drives straight, tight and doesn't make any wierd noises.

But you probably already knew all that

 

tranny and rear...

I have always been iffy about modded cars so look at what mods..

At catback ain't too bad...

Headers, y-pipe and catback...

well you have done headers before so you know... someone wanted to put some power down, if they went to the trouble of longtubes...

 

Look for piston slap, rust, rust, rust, rust, body damage, rust, rusted parts, rust, paint rust, rust, evidence of female bodily fluids in the back seat, rust, rust, gunshot holes, wreck damage.




and rust

 

I think 2002 Z4C wants you to possibly check for rust

Yeah, also check to make sure it hasn't been in an accident, pull a carfax on it. Also check for the infamous t-bar paint bubbling. I'm seeing more and more 99+ F-body's with the fisheye's all over the t-bar. It can be fixed even if not under warranty since it's a TSB though, so it's not that big of a deal.

Oh yeah, and you should check for rust.

 

a very nice 01 z28 that drew (2002 Z4C) and i looked at yesturday at bill heard chevy had two black plastic plugs, one on each side of the car on the 1/4 pannels. they were located in different relative locations to eachother on the inside of the pannel between where hatch comes down.

would this indicate it had been wrecked and the rear had been pushed back out?

 

Watch out for:

- warped rotors
- leaking t-tops
- blown speakers
- brown coolant (should be orange/pink if it's maintained, but probably won't be changed if it's under 55k miles)
- the '99 LS1s have a belt/pulley problem and it will sound like there's 10 parakeets under the hood, but it doesn't effect performance at all

 

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.js...or=&cardist=12

looks nice... might go check it out tonight

can't buy yet cause the longtubes arn't off my current car yet

 

I thought TAs had a rear bumper that wrapped around the exhaust tips. That looks more like a Formula or Firebird.

 

The black plugs in the jambs are paintless dent removal plugs. It just means there was a small ding somewhere in the panel and the dealer had it fixed.


Look at the bolts in the engine compartment where the hood bolts on and the fenders bolt on. If the paint on them is gouged up you can tell if a panel has been removed, a red flag for an accident car.

 

Carfax won't show up an accident that wasn't reported to the insurance company... like if the previous owner bounced it off 2 guardrails at the track at 100mph and then fixed it his/herself but what are the chances of that

 

the white car was a fully loaded formula...

one of the lower control arms was squeeking, as was something else in the rear.

the real deal breaker was when we were standing outside of the car and the guy shifted it into reverse to back it into the spot we heard this interesting metal on metal clank sound... from the automatic tranny. the guy said he'd have his mechanics look at it on monday and he'd call me monday night.

it had a 3 month 3k mile bumper/bumper warranty however, thinking maybe even if it did have problems after a month i could drain the fluid and take a few passes at OSW.

 

My car does that too. Did it sound like a "tink-tink" sound?

I had an excellent trans. shop look at it and he told me that when GM makes the alum. shafts, sometimes pieces of the shavings get trapped inside of there forever, which causes the sound. After he told me that he went over my trans. and undercarriage with a fine-toothed comb and found nothing wrong.

Now, if that car made a strange noise and had 2.73s (steel shaft) something might be loose.

 

yea it was a tink-tink sound, seemed to come from the rear or center of the tranny but it was hard to tell.

they're going to look at it monday and give me a call, hopefully it isn't sold between now and then... it was a nice car with a few problems that they said they'd fix

if they don't end up selling it i'll make sure to bring up that its had strange mechanical things going on with it and to bring the price down...

does a WS6 hood fit on a formula? i'd really want a trans am but a loaded formula is just the same except the body

 

If you didn't put a deposit on the car, I doubt they'll hold it for you. They'll try and sell it to the next guy without fixing what you said was wrong, and hope he doesn't notice it.

Good luck on getting them to come down on price. My folks bought a new minivan from them one week before I looked at a Z28 over there. The same salesman who helped my folks refused to come down $1,000 on the price for me and was a real dick about it too, I forgot his name, but he was a short Puerto Rican guy with cat food in his office.

I would safely assume a WS6 hood will fit a Formula.