Midwestern Members - 2002 Firebird - Opinions on Pricing

Hey guys. A friend of mine just shot me a link for a 2002 Formula, and he is wanting to know what a good price would be for this thing. I'll link the page to you guys, but you have to jump through the filters to pull up the vehicle (select "Pontiac" for make, and "2002" for year, and it will be the first vehicle on the list).

Link (http://www.rayskillman.com/SearchUsedInventory.asp)

I think that price of $17K is a bit high :eyes: even with the low miles. What do you guys think a good price would be for this car? I'm leaning toward mid to upper 13s.

Thoughts?

Ya that is too high 13 or 14 would be a little more reasonable. I'm pretty sure its a trans am too.

See if they will replace the drivers side interior door panel. That thing is a mess! The price is high. I don't want to quote a price without seeing it in person though.

I wouldnt pay more than 14ish for it, and thats WITH a new door panel.

Dont bother, this car is a real piece of shit. My friend is looking for one, we drove all the way Indianapolis and came back disappointed.

Here is what I posted on another forum about this car.

So my friend has been looking for a black on black, 6-speed, low miles TA for a few weeks now. He came across this one in Indianapolis, IN.

http://www.autotrader.com/dealers/dd...aler_id=608982

Its a 02 TA with 40K miles, they wanted $17K. He ran the car-fax and it was a one owner car from Florida, with no other problems listed. The dealer report said it didnt have anything fixed under warranty except a window motor. My friend called the dealer. It was a certified used car with a warranty. The dealer said MANY people were looking at it and asked my friend for a deposit. My friend put down a refundable $200 deposit.

It looked like a nice car, so myself, the guy looking at the car, and another friend went down there to check it out. We drove down to Indianapolis (took almost 4 hours)

My first impression of the car was that it was the exterior was kinda beat up. I opened the door expecting a emaculate 40K miles interior and I was disgusted. I looked under the car expecting a nice rust free Florida underbody, nope. Shit looked more rusted than a average car that spend its whole life in the midwest. Went on to the engine. Didnt visually see anything wrong except some bults rusted and coolant inside the oil cap. At this point we wernt interested in the car anymore because of the condition but my friend took it for a test drive anyway. It drove ok, but there was noises constantly and the car didnt drive strait. He thinks it could be the rear end or drive-shift.

Bad stuff I found about this supposedly 40K mile TA.

Scratches everywhere
a few dents
Panel fading
body panels repainted
car basically needed a paintjob
two pontiac racing stickers on the side
moisture in turn signal lights
lots of rust underneath
(im thinking it could have been a flood car)
Interior dirty
Airbag sticking up
shifter warn
seats ripped
both seatbelt holders on headrest broke
both door panels were cracked
smelled like smoke.
car idled weird
smelled like coolant
didnt drive strait
constant noise while driving
coolant under oil cap
etc etc

This car defiantly didnt look or drive like a 40K mile F-body. Looked like it was a city car, beat to piss with like 150K on it.

Good things:

bone stock
new tires
rims were in great condition

We told the dealer we were not interested as this car because it in no way looked like it had 40K miles on it. He assured us this was a certified GM used car with 40K miles. I then told him the last reported milage on the carfax was 600 miles, whats to say the owner didnt drive this 150K and swap in a low mile gauge cluster, and trade it in? I forgot what he said, but he was OWNED, and went off to ask the mechanic why the car was making noise while driving. He then came back and said get this "It wasnt going strait because the tire pressure was off and the noise was the speedometer cable." WTF??? My friend offered him $8500, and he said how bout I knock off $1500 from the price of 17K. HAHA, we left and drove back 4 hours to chicago disappointed. If they plan to get $16-17K for this car they better sell it online so the buyer doesent see it up close or drive it.

Stay away!

Speedo cable huh? The electrons must be banging around in the wire causing the noise.

Excellent write up, vipermike. My friend and I went to drive this bad boy yesterday, and came across alot of what you found. I felt that it drove fairly straight, but felt severly underpowered. With the 6-speed, I was unable to spin the tires in first or second gear! This thing just didn't feel all that strong, so I'm agreeing that it was a low mileage gauge cluster swap. I checked out the carfax too, and saw exactly what you did, which just isn't adding up in my head. The interior was pretty trashed, as you mentioned. Tons of scratches in the plastic panels, and lots of stains in the carpet. There were dents in the rear passenger quarter panel, a nice yellow scuff on underside of the passenger front of the nose (curb, I'm assuming). The car was very dirty, so I couldn't see many scratches, and really didn't feel like running it through the car wash to check either. Especially when he pulls it around, and we get in the car and are greeted by the SES light! We took it to AutoZone to get it scanned (cause the guy claimed he had no idea what it was), and learned it was a failed catalytic converter. Is that even possible at 43K miles?!?

Anyway, yeah, that thing is a POS, which is unfortunate, cause my friend was really excited to see that '02 black TA. They wouldn't go lower than 15K on the price either, so we walked. I'm sure the dealer wasn't happy that I was there, cause every comment he made to build that car up, I'd shake my head and say, "no, that's not right."

Him - "It's a very nice car!"
Me - "No its not."
Him - "It is fully loaded - every option!"
Me - "No its not."

Dealers... I know they aren't all that stupid, but this guy really had no chance.

cats are known to go bad. my car had the driver cat go bad at 25k miles. dealer fixed for free. they are warrented past the std 3yr 36k warrenty. forget what it is, maybe 50k miles?

cats are known to go bad. my car had the driver cat go bad at 25k miles. dealer fixed for free. they are warrented past the std 3yr 36k warrenty. forget what it is, maybe 50k miles?

I think there's a federal law stating the manufacturer has to warranty cats up to 50-60k or something. I know I heard that somewhere.

I stand corrected on the cats then. But that doesn't change the fact that the TA is a POS.

Thanks for the opinions guys.