Thoughts on this 2.5

[Bdiddy11]

http://boise.craigslist.org/cto/3640315136.html

I've chatted with the seller briefly and said it does leak some oil but only after have been driven/warm for awhile. The first time I talked to him I asked what his lowest cash in hand was and said if someone offered him $3100 he would probably take it. This was also a week ago when supposedly there were 5 other people interested.

The price seems fair... But I'm not huge on how many miles it has. If I did buy it it would be with the intentions of either replacing the engine down the road or rebuilding. Whatever Monty I get will be the family hauler as the family grows bigger, my dd and our weekend fun mobile when the Patriot won't suffice.

 

[eurosonic]

Fair deal, Im sure he will budge to $3k.

If it was properly maintained I doubt you will need to replace or rebuild the engine any time soon. Yesterdays took a ride in 'offroaders' 280k SR, that thing runs like a clock.

 

[Bdiddy11]

He's only had it for 2 months so that's a little bit of a red flag for me but I still wanna at least check it out

 

[off-roader]

Fair deal, Im sure he will budge to $3k.

If it was properly maintained I doubt you will need to replace or rebuild the engine any time soon. Yesterdays took a ride in 'offroaders' 280k SR, that thing runs like a clock.

Why thank you for the compliment although in truth there are some maintenance items due on mine such as new valve guide seals, and new cv boots but aside from that, yeah she purrs pretty nicely.

In my case when I bought it, I did realize what needed to be done to her to make her whole... (Fix the 4x4 system, full fluid change, full tune up including belts, and there's also an issue with the abs light being on). I made that known to the seller before making my offer from his wanted $2k to my $1350 offer (I started at $1000).

Luckily Carlos was there with me to help convince the seller.

good luck with the purchase!

 

[Sabre]

This is kind of tough, and depends upon who owned it prior to you showing up.

I'm also looking at Gen 2.5s, and have driven a fair number of them. I looked at one recently that had only 130K on the clock and it looked very, very nice. Brand new tires, no scrapes or evidence of ever having been offroad...and a brand-new radiator. Red flag. Sure enough, there was a definite knocking sound that was either the water pump dying or something ominous in the bottom end. And the transfer case was out of commission.

Looked at another one that had about the same mileage but the rear door had been sprung, there was evident valve guide seal leakage and some other little goodies that just made the asking price wrong.

Another with 110K but needed all new suspension, driveline and brakes.

Probably the best two that I've looked at have both had mileage in the 180,000s. Both had had significant refreshing of the engines, brakes, shocks, etc, both worked flawlessly and drove flawlessly. I was nervous about buying a rig pushing 190K miles, but, after seeing the crap out there with much lower mileage, I know that I should have bought one of those higher mileage machines, which at least showed evidence of being well cared-for.