hello people, im new in here, but i came here specially to get advices before i go head and do the purchase tommorow, i can still cancel it because i have only paid a deposit. tommorow, 11/15/05 is when i am planning to make the purchase if every thing is legit.

please read this to the end and give your helpfull opinions.
its been 2 months now that im looking to buy a car and im really tired of it. id never till this point would settele on buying a car with more than 100,000 miles on it, but i came to the conclusion that i cant have the whole 9 yards. any way, to the main point.
I saw today a 97' Dodge Avenger Coupe. good looking car.
it has a V6 engine using a mitsubishi engine. has a very nice sunroof{with the extra angle title}, a cool looking back spolier, and 2 exausht's or double exausht, how ever its called.
now, i took the car for a road test, drove it with the pedal to the floor, and i gotta tell you, it runs pretty fast for a car that age, acceleration is pretty resposnive, steering is pretty good, brakes are good, engine looks good under the hood.
the only thing is that im lil down about is the milage, it has 112,502 miles on it.
now, the price that he was asking was $3,500, aftert talking and neogtiating we setteled down for $2,750.
i liked the car alot, because i never saw a dodge avenger before up until recently.
i seen the first avenger, last week. it was a 99' dodge avenger, with 74,000 miles on it, how ever the owner was a fraud, so i didnt end up buying that one.
its been a week later and i found this dodge{the one that i described at the begining of this post}.
i already paid a 300 dollar deposit today, which means, im going to the dealer ship tommorow morning to bring the car to a diagnosting/mechanic store near my house to have it inspected. depending on what the mechanic guy says and you people say, it have an impact on my desicion on buying this car.
now, in the last hour, since its the day before i purchase the car, i have been on the dodge avenger forums at dodgeforums.com, and i seen quite a few people complainign about their avenger is being cutted off, meaning - turning off just like that, engine stops to run, it turns off suddenly, and after reading that, i became more scepcitcal, and im starting to regret this a lil bit, but not completel. however, i did see 1 or 2 people say that they have the car from 1995,1998, and they didnt have a single problem with it, on the otherhand, 20 people said that their avenger is doing the same problem - turns off suddenly.
now, since i can still cancel this purchase and get my deposit money back, my question to you people is this:
i am going to take the car to a mechanic shop tommorow. the mechanic guy is going to check it from top to bottom, and he is going to hook up a special computer to the car to see if there are any problems with it.
now, if the mechainc guy tells me at the end that the car is pretty much problem free, should i go head and make the buy, or should i cancel it?
please respond today if you can, because tommorow is the "day" that i will have to make my desicion.
again, the car is very nice for its age, no scractes at all expet 1 small scrath, no rust any where at most, maybe 1 or 2 small sposts, and the body paint is pretty good, with 3-4 small dots of the paint. agian, it has sunroof - tilt, dounle exashust, real spoiler.
i will definetly take car off it and put some money in it to change the color maybe, tint the windows, new lights, etc... but i just want to know that im getting a good car for that price and for the car's life.

 

I'll be honest here....while it sounds like a nice looking car.... I have a hard time with buying any Avenger for more then $1,500 with 100,000 miles + on it.

I have seen and heard so many people moan and complain about this car to start my own support group. I would seriously consider looking around for something else....keep the price range around $3,500 and you may be somewhat surprised by what you could find.

I bought a 96 Z26 Beretta V6 with less then 60k on it for $3900. It ran great for me with great gas mileage and the only problem I had was a sh*tty transmission, but I had the car for two years and that was really the only money I spent on it.

If you do decide to buy this car, I'd ask to see if you could take this car to a mechanic and see about having an inspection done on the car. If it's really a solid buy, the inspection would be a favorable one. I also would look into the recalls/defects for this car. You definitely want to check and make sure that these are kept up/done, as it could in the long run hurt you.

Check out our Recalls and Technical Service Bulletin section here....Recalls & TSB

 

well, the guy told me that i can take it for a mechainc shop tommorow which is something that im going to do. so what im asking you is if the mechanic guy says that the car is pretty good with no major problems, should i buy it?
and 2nd thing that i want to ask you is what is recalls/defects? do you mean carfax report?

and 3rd, this is my first car that i am going to purhchase, so it will be my "project car", how ever, im not going to play with it too much, i am going to take care off it the best as i can and hopefully have it running for at least 3-5 years. i mean, so far i have seen dodge avengers on the web with max 156,000 miles on it, i guess all the others ones are probably not wroking after 160,000. but again, im planing to keep it longer than that.. i know it sounds funny, but hey, there is always a first time.

 

Well, if the mechanic gives it a good bill of health, then its not necessarily a bad purchase. I still think you are paying a bit too much for it, but depending on the options on the car, and the overall look of it, there's the potential for it to be a decent car.

The Recall/TSB's are Dodge issued recalls and known problems about each vehicle. They let you know that this and this is bad, or that this has the potential for failure, or that this has a short blah blah blah. I would definitely look into them by clicking on the link in my previous post. Just click on the Recalls & TSB's, or scroll to the top of the screen and you will see a bunch of options to click on and choose Recalls & TSBs.

As a project car this car really does have some potential. You could also consider yanking the motor and doing a rebuild, or maybe even hitting up a junkyard and searching out a turbo'd Eclipse motor. I've considered it with my Stratus already.

Good luck either way, and hopefully you enjoy your stay on DodgeForum!

 

thank you buddy.
again, with this much info that i obtained today, il defintely talk to the dealer tommorow and tell him to lower the price due these known defects.
but i have a question about the recalls and tsbs thing.
i clicked on the top section on the link for the recalls and tsbs link, it had 2 choises. 1 was Dodge recalls, 2nd was Dodge Tsbs.
when i click on the recalls option, it has a list of the cars, i choose the avneger 97 dodge avenger recall link, the next step it says Suspension:front:control arm:lower ball joint Recall and Seats:front assembly:head restraint Recall as 2 different choises.
now i dont mind prining that out and showing it to the mechanic guy tommorow, but the other link for the tsbs thing has a way too big of a list, which is this page right here : https://dodgeforum.com/recalls-and-t...r_1997/TSB.htm i dont understand what exactly i should look for in that page.
however,in the recalls page i understood that there is some kinda of a known issues with the suspesnion: front:control arm : lower ball joint recall and the Seats: front assembly: head restraint recall.
i just need you to tell me what exactly i should look in the tsbs section for the 1997 avenger.

 

go to the dealer with a quote on what its worth on kelly blue book clicl me!. if kbb says the price is lower tell him that you will not settle for less. I have noticed that alot of people post about bad things on cars, so they might be able to find out what is wrong and try to fix it..... i have a 99 dodge avenger sport and i love this car, i have 120,000 miles and it is still runing strong..

 

kbb says $5,450 and $4,850 for the es 2d coupe and the regular 2d coupe.
im paying $2,750, so i think its a pretty good deal.

 

I bought my 95 Dodge Avenger for 2500, but it had 135K on it, and I've nothing but trouble with it unfortunatly. I love it to death and it has a lot of ups to it, but also too many downs. I've been fighting my tranny going out for a year now, and don't necessarily have the money to fix it. But if it's in good condition and no mechanical flaws then that doesn't sound like such a bad deal. Also make sure all the recalls have been taken care of on it.

 

Hi all.
Some Updates.
I have bought the car for $2350 instead of $2750. Reason is because the day before i bought the car, I took it to the mechanic to have it checked, the mechanic told me that the streeing or tires{not sure} needs balancing, the wheel shakes when im on the highway going 70 mph, there is a squicking noise when i drive slowly, 2 head gaskets are leaking of oil, any i think transmition was leaking or somethink.... any way, the mechanic told me it will cost me 1,400 dollars to fix it all, or the 2nd option that the mechanic told me that he has a same engine but its used, with 48,000 miles on it instead of mine that has 112,502 miles on it. not sure what to do, fix it for 1,400 dollars, or get the used engine for 1,4000. any way, im happy about the purchase and im will try to take care of this baby very good.
Just today i have passed in a book shop in the mall and i noticed a car magazine with a 88 mustang on the front, looking beautifull and strong. thats just gives me inspiration on this car, not that i didnt had an insipiration before.