Hello, I found a pretty clean Stealth today during my city shopping cruise. I have already forgot or gotten confused what the year was. I think it was a 91or 92, white,plain jane. Crank windows, no rear spoiler, dealership was closed but I will find out more tomorrow after work. Itsan automatic. So Im wondering about the endurance of the tranny and any typical problems. Also Im figureing it must be the SOHC 3.0. This leaves me wondering if thats the same engine that was in a 89 New Yorker we had about 5 years ago. With the water pipe that runs under the manifold to the water pump ? That eventually rusts out ? The water pump that is a major project to change and while doing so one might as well change the pipe ?Also the engine in the NYer had the valve guides that lacked thesnap rings and eventually push the seals out and begins smoking. Or was this problem fixed by the early 90's. Dont get me wrong we loved that car but I did have to do these repairs and yes it was a Mitsubishi 3.0 with a FWD tranny that was never a problem. It also suprised me in that it would lay a solid 15 ft of rubber off nearlyboth wheels while making one hell of a racket (205/70/14's or15's?).Not that we did it much just a few times for some cheap laughs.

I did read the fulltopic on "Buying a Stealth" but figured I would ask a few more questions anyhow. thanks for your responce and helpon these matters.

How about anythingelse like Air conditioning system issues, stereo endurance, rear brake issues (I imagine these have RW disc ?) something Ive never been impressed with, they seem to be more trouble and not very necessary. E brake issues revolving around calipers. I had a 91 Regal coupe that had rear disc and when it came time to get theE brake working (live in North East)and replace the pads I really needed to replace everything from calipers, discs, cables and pads, not expensive on a Regal but how about one of these ? I had all reciepts from the origional owner and found they had 2 completerear brake jobs done too.

Im no stranger to mechanical work and do all mine except forelectronic trouble shooting issues. Imknow Buick 3.8's and the various carsthis engine was used on like the back of my hand but nowmay venture into new territory but not all that unfimiliar as I had the heads and all off the old NYer and it ran really nice after put back together. So give me all the heads up you can.

Ive always wanted a Stealth but dont needmore major projects.

Just so you know we have 4 cars on the road, all GM's and 3 project cars. The Stealth would replace one of the winter/beater carsduring summer.

75 Delta 88 convertable - project
76 Lancia Scorpion - project
86 Buick LeSabre coupe - nearly completed project
90 Olds Ciera Cruiser (wagon) - winter car, work car, in great shape with 220,000 miles
90 Olds Regency - another really clean winter car with 340,000 miles!
97 Olds LSS supercharged - still nearly mint with 130,000 miles
06 Pontiac G6 GTP 6 sp standardcoupe - our first new car (the wifes- she gets the nice ones I get them afterwards)

Talk to me

 

the only real problems i've seen with brakes is warped rotors. because there so heavy. i have had any rear disc problems just the fronts (there warped).

 

wow, 15 views,one answer

Well I answered some of the questions today with a better look over and test drive.
It is the same SOHC 3.0 with different mainfolds, in and out,
Yes it does still drop the valve guides and push the seals out
This car did smoke at idle and clear up during driving, a real bug sheader
This is not a real expensive fix however, just a days work or a weekend if one was to clean up the intake and other part under the hood, maybe paint the valve covers.
Unfortuantally the car has 121,000 miles and is not worth his price, of 3995.
Air worked good, ride and chassis/suspension tightness was still good showing a little wear.
Undercarrage still sound but needing a goodsand blastand epoxy sealer from passenger compartment back
Fairly new exhaust excluding very rusty tips, no big deal
A little rust started in one cornerinside of the trunk deck
Radio didnt work but squealed
Engine ran strong and sound, a bitnoisy at first but smoothed out
driverselectic mirror didnt work unless the door was fully opened, a simple fix Im sure, bad connection or broken wire, common in older cars with many door openings and closings on them.
All doors, trunk and hood closed nicely
interior still good and would look even better with a little more cleaning
two lights were on on the dash and I forget the abreviations, they were different from what Im used to.
forgot to check the headlights and front and rear wiper
tranny shifted with athority and I liked it
oil pressure seems like it might be a bit low but I dont know the gauges, it was just a tad over 25% at idle when hot.
engine ran cool which makes me worry too, like was the thermostat taken out to hide another problem
engine and tansaxlewas oily but most old engines are.
brakes were grumbly and a little warpage somewhere but the ebrake did work good.

I like the bare bones package as Im tired of problems that seem to come about with power windows and age. Plus for this kind of car its a bit lighter. The seat was all manual and I did wish I could tip the front up a bit but this could be arranged with some fabricated aluminum or nylonspacers.

broken ash try cover, and console mount

still not a bad car if the miles were lower. 4grand for a car that could need an engine in 30 - 50000 miles is too much.

I'll think about it awhile and look around at some others. Ive seen better prices on other privately owned cars. I did like the car overall andwhile driving it, its just the "needs some work" part right out of the gate that bothers me.

 

well, i'm driving one with almost 190k miles. I did replaced the vaulve seals to stop it from smoking. I think i gave too much for my stealth, 3500k for 180k mile car but she was clean and didn't seem to need anything at the time, vaulve seals came in a year and that's about all i did so far that was needed to run the car.
the pain is replacing things like timing belts, water pump and vaulve cover gasket on the side of the engine that is fasing the firewall. I had to pull the engine out half way to get the timing bel on. So far i found the firebird that i bought much more simple to work on. Really if i get another v6 car i would go with 89-93 300z. at least they can take a 350 with almost no modifications and they are rwd.

 

jeez your VERY observante. i guess you need to be that way with one of these cars. alot of those things are just minimal, i mean its a 16+ year old car, see if you can talk them down a bit, using the high miles to your advantage.