Should I buy this car?

[DaraSue]

Hello all,

I hope this is the right subforum but it seems to be the most active one.

I'm looking at this '82: http://en.bhmotorcars.com/inventory.php?make=54

It says it's in good mechanical condition, but I'm a bit leery of the 107K miles. On the one hand that seems to be more than double what most of the other ones I've seen for sale have so I'm a bit worried that it's going to go kaflooie on the drive home. On the other hand... high mileage = driven regularly instead of sitting in a storage locker for 35 years. I've emailed the seller to ask if it has any of the known issues (i.e. fuel injector clogging, crud in the engine's Valley of Death) but I wanted some other opinions... what do you guys think? Good value for the money or should I look for one with lower miles?

(Edit: It's not necessarily the end of the world if the engine's getting near the end of its life b/c I actually have a notion to rebuild the engine from the '87 CRX I've been driving for over half my life and throw it in there, is that idea totally nutso?)

[Jonathan]

Go see it in person first. If you can't do that, find someone you a) know and trust and that b) knows DeLoreans very well.

The car looks nice, yet there are too many bragging claims for my liking. Very, very good and very, very clean, perhaps the cleanest one we have ever had in our inventory. That's too salesy for me and while it might be the case, I would go find out for myself, with my own eyes. The pictures are ok, but there aren't very many of them and they aren't very good resolution. For a car that's so meticulously clean, inside and out, there is but one picture of the engine bay and none of the frame underneath. Those kinds of things aren't usually coincidental oversights.

Again, might be a great car, but don't trust just the ad alone. There isn't enough there to say for certain one way or the other. I too don't mind a higher mileage car since it tells you the car was driven. At least that's the theory. That needs to be backed up though with recent records of some kind. The car could have been driven for 2 or 3k miles every year since new, but then sat for the last five and you might still have to deal with storage issues.

Go see it, start it up, check out all the features and switches and let it sit there idling until you see the engine temperature come up high enough to kick the cooling fans on and then cycle off again. Then take it for a drive.

[Dangermouse]

Like Jonathan, I wouldn't worry about the mileage, in many cases it's better than if it had just done 7k. If it has been regularly maintained, it is a long way off the end of it's life.

Having said that, this car first appeared on Hemmings, at that dealership in July 2014, so it has been there for 2 years, which is unusual for a car dealership. Whether it has sat unused, or been regularly driven is anyone's guess, but it might make them more flexible on the price.

Go and see it if possible (and report back, please) or find someone to go see it.

Re: your engine swap question - everything is possible - the difficulty is getting an appropriate bell housing for the existing transmission which you would have to keep. I know of one Honda based conversion, a J32, that was well done

[dodint]

It doesn't mean anything in particular, but it's amusing how they went to great lengths to say how great the dash looks but then couldn't take that dash mat off to take the pictures. Stuff like that bothers me.

That's a car I would go inspect if I were ready to buy, I certainly wouldn't buy it sight unseen.

[David T]

You have to assess the condition and determine if it is valued appropriately considering the mileage. Typically with that much mileage the interior is very worn. It may be that is not the case for this car especially if any of the interior has been replaced. A big reason someone needs to put eyeballs on it. You can't really tell by just pictures. As for mechanically, high mileage doesn't really hurt the car much as long as it has been serviced well. The same can be said for a low mileage car too.

[DaraSue]

Thanks for your input, everyone!

I guess I may have been letting my enthusiasm run away with me a little. I hadn't noticed the date on the Hemmings ad but in retrospect I suppose it's kind of telling that there was a lower price on the dealer's own website than on the other car ad sites. I still haven't heard back from the seller so I won't rush into anything right away. My next possible 3-day weekend is at the end of Aug so if it's still there I might try to get down and take a look if it still seems like it might be a good fit for me. If it's been listed for that long I guess I won't worry too much about it getting snapped up right away and if it is, I guess it wasn't meant to be...

[berickson926]

For what its worth, I have noticed this car has been for sale from the same dealer with the same pics for more than two years.

[Parzval]

I myself was also wondering why it hasn't sold yet. I don't think the 107k miles could be doing it... unless it runs horrible/smokes/etc. There's got to be something fishy with it or it would be gone. Check it out real well. If it was on the East Coast, I would have already checked it out by now. Alas, it is a little far for me.

[DaraSue]

Still no response to my email to the seller. They don't seem particularly motivated to unload it. Have any of you bought cars on eBay? I'm getting the idea that I want to look harder at private sellers than dealerships since the ones at dealers seem to be ones that were stored for a long time or haven't had a lot of work done recently. There's one in Fullerton CA that might be a good fit for me but it doesn't have any bites yet so maybe it's overpriced. Can anybody recommend an inspector in SoCal or have any comment on how good eBay's recommended inspectors are?

[Edit: Aaaaand I got a returned message when I tried to ask the Fullerton guy if there was any frame rust. I'm really batting 1000 on this one... hope the universe isn't trying to tell me something :hmm:]

[TheMaverick]

Got a reply from the seller and confirmed the car sold a while back.. be nice if he took down the ad...LOL

[DaraSue]

Got a reply from the seller and confirmed the car sold a while back.. be nice if he took down the ad...LOL

You got a reply? They never even responded to me. What am I, chopped liver? LOL. Did you ever get in touch with the guy in Redlands?