agent507943

Just wondering I have it posted for 20k but I'm not sure that's a fair price.

its a 2001 true WS6 with documentation and original window sticker.
I am the 3rd owner, and the car only has 18,000 miles on it.

It does have sail panel bubbling which I understand is a factory defect for the 99-2002s. It has C6 vet wheels, which have a little curb rash. The tires however are all Eagle F1s the back are only a month old, and the front have about 40% tread.

It is a M6-T56 LS1 5.7 and still has factory monsoon system.
The interior is in excellent condition but has a crack on the door panel which I also herd is common.

any thoughts?

agent507943

Black on black leather inside, and T-tops that still have the inserts.

hardbones

By your description it sounds like the car has spent some time outside during its life not stored in a garage? And why so many owners on a low mile car?

With what you described I would dare to say around $14-15K maybe??
There are more pristine cars out there for $20K without any defects at or around the same mileage.

agent507943

on the contrary, the car has been garage kept. When I got the car from the second owner it had 17,xxx k miles and was garage kept. It didn't have but maybe a spec of the bubbling. IT didn't have a single crack on the any of the doors. I have put about 600 miles on it, and all of the bubbling and cracking happened when the car is in my possession and the only time its not in a garage is when I drove it.

I'm not arguing with you, just clarifying its history.

agent507943

I took it to a few car shows and the bubbling started to show up. after just 2 shows its pretty much everywhere. I'm considering replacing it.

AnotherWs6

iTrader: (17)

Miles are low.... bubbles suck but are going to drop the price. Same with the non-facotry wheels and back tires that were obviously burnt off of the car. I'm going 14ish.

NC01TA

Yes, $20k is much too high. That is in the high stratosphere of F-body pricing. One or two owner 'near mint' 10,000 miles cars don't even fetch that price at times. They can (and do) but it's not like people are knocking down the sellers doors to pay $20k for an F-body unless it is ultra special in some regard, like a CETA or sub 10,000 miles one owner pristine example.
Unevenly matched tires, non-original wheels with "a little curb rash", sail panel bubbles, and a cracked door panel all lower the price along with it being a 3 owner ride. The new owner will be #4 which would really raise eyebrows if he needed to sell next year. You are quite correct about all the known defects in these cars but buyers can still find examples of pristine cars with no issues. They will get the top $$$ like I mentioned above.
I am hoping at this point that you didn't pay too much since all these issues developed after you bought the car. That really stinks!! Bad timing. You just don't know when these things arise. After 13 years and 40,000 miles my door panel finally started to crack on the driver'side. One owner and garage kept. If I sold the car last year it would have also happened to the new owner. You just don't know.
In your case I would ask $15,000 and hope for a few inquiries. I think someone will offer you $14k and then they can get the tire situation squared away and even get new wheels if the curb rash bothers them. The sail panel bubbling is a real negative and not a cheap fix to do right from what I've read here on this site. If that price just seems too low to you, just keep trying. You never know, just don't expect it. GLWS!!

Firebrian

That almost happened to me. I bought my SS coupe with 12K miles from the orig owner in 2012 and at the time wasn't aware of the bubbling issue on these cars. Had I known that early on I would have tried to find an early 1998 coupe or stayed with my primary wish of landing a convertible.

In any case, the very first car show I took it too I noticed that the sail panel in the mid-day sun was beginning to show a very obvious set of wavy 1" bands across the sail panel. I knew it wasn't good and placed my dash cover over the sail panel to shield it. Now I'm very careful about sun exposure, especially when the car is parked and can't cool itself. A few hours probably didn't hurt anything but you can imagine what days, weeks, and months of direct sunlight can do. One can easily have a cover made up to cover the panel that will stay fixed in light wind. No doubt everyone will ask you what the heck it is...lol.

Even with the sail panel bubbles and Vette wheels, an 18K WS6 in sound mechanical condition is no slouch. That car could set up nicely for someone's near daily driver. Without any of the flaws you mentioned I'd have figured the car for around $16K to $17K max. Roof repair $1.5K, wheels/tires $1K. The rear tires being roasted off by 18K miles (I'm assuming the originals are still up front) isn't the best thing, but not necessarily a killer. Sail panel bubbling is quite common too. When I bought my 22K mile '98 Z28 in 2001 ($14K price) it was on original rubber but the rears were toasted. The fronts were a lot better. They told me it was owned by a Doctor. Yeah, probably a podiatrist with a lead foot. I bought new rears and probably had mis-matched tires on the car for the rest of its life. I sold it 8 years later with 115K miles and the drive train had never needed any work and still ran pretty much like the day I first bought it....except for some weepage on the rear differential seal.

I don't know about this 3 owner thing being such a negative. I'm the 2nd owner of my car....I can't make myself the original owner. So should I decide to sell my car to upgrade into something I want more, why does that put such a great "3rd owner" scourge on the vehicle? Am I forced to own this car for at least 10 years to the day when a 3 owner car is fully acceptable again....and then sell it with a clear mind? I think you have to look at the particular situation. Some really good cars do change hands more than they should. That's just a good thing for the next owner. Sometimes you don't get the exact car you wanted the first time around. I'd still prefer the ease of an automatic (as would my wife) over my 6 speed. Imagine that!

NC01TA

It doesn't have to be a negative but it can be, and is, just like everything else involved with a car. It can affect pricing.
The multiple owner's syndrome results in the following scenarios.
1) Paperwork (maintenance records, window stickers, etc..being lost in the ownership shuffle).
2) The loss of actual knowledge about the car's trials and tribulations. Even though an owner can lie or be dishonest, a 3rd or 4th owner probably doesn't have a clue. ie: "Did you ever take this car to the track? How many times?" "How did you get this bad scrape on the chin spoiler? What did you hit? A curb? How fast?" "Was the car left outside in the elements very often?" "What can you tell me about the first owner? Why did he sell? Do you know if he was having issues?"
3) If there are no maintenance records. How often was the oil changed? What did he use? What weight? When was anything flushed or changed? What coolant is in there now? How long? Why are there new tires, brakes, etc... on this car after just xx,xxx miles? The questions are endless. All the 3rd owner says is, "I don't know."
4) Concern about a low mileage car changing hands too often. Sometimes it is just an issue of owner boredom but other times it can be an issue with the car. It can raise red flags as I've personally witnessed this situation on the sweetest appearing F-body you can imagine. The car was always changing hands. Why?? There was only 15,000 miles on it. Whats' going on? The last owner told me an 'issue' kept arising that the dealership could not fix. Over and over again the car was brought in to the dealership, and different dealerships too. Basically it could have been classified a 'lemon' if the first owner didn't just trade it in. Yup, this last owner traded the car in and the next owner will be going through the same thing. You think the dealer will tell the next owner? No thanks!
I could keep going on with more. I'll stop. A one owner can address every scenario above in most instances. Perhaps even the 2nd owner can. A 3rd or more owner starts losing the history of the car. Not their fault. In my book, this is a negative and affects price, especially on a low mileage car.

One last question to ask yourself if you found yourself in this situation:
Car #1 - 2002 Camaro SS, 'stock', a 6 speed, 20,000 miles. Appears to be in 'very good to excellent' condition. Price: $13,000. 3 owner car. 3rd owner has owned it for 3 years but needs to make room in his garage. He bought the SS from the 2nd owner who had it garage kept and looking sweet!! He purchased it from a Chevy dealer with just 10,000 miles on it back in 2004. The dealership did not have any paperwork from the 1st owner and the maintenance info is lacking. The SS was professionally detailed inside and out by the dealer and looked great with a new set of tires! Although the first owner only had the car for 2 years, what do we know about him? Was he an adult owner that babied the car along with both other owners or was this car a graduation gift for an 18 year old student that never drove a stick before? How much wear was possibly put on this clutch? Was the car stomped on at every red light? Did he possibly take it to the drag strip every other Friday night? Did he show off with lots of burnouts? WE DON"T KNOW. We know nothing. It's a gamble.
Car #2 - Same exact car as above but a one owner and priced $1,000 higher at $14,000. This one owner SS has been owned by a 50 year old man that has driven manuals his whole life. It is garage kept and he has the original window sticker and all maintenance records. All the fluids have been changed. The car has probably never been red-lined and was simply a 'weekend driver' for trips and car events. The owner is selling because he wants to move on to a new Camaro. There are no unknowns about the SS and the Carfax backs it up too.
Who wants to pay an extra $1,000 for car #2?? I certainly do, and many others would to. We want to know about all aspects of the SS which we plan to keep for many years. We want the next owner to know the full history as well, and we can certainly ask top $$ because of that, instead of answering questions with an "I don't know". We are 'car people'.

Firebrian

Fully agree with all that NCO1TA. But, we don't often get to buy the perfectly owned car from a 50 year old who is looking down the road to optimize value and collectibility. In my case, I bought my car from the original (44 yr old) owner and spent 2-3 hours on two occasions with him going over the car. I asked him all those questions you posed in #1 to #4. Not all the replies were perfect. And many of them were downright inadequate. He changed his own oil twice a year (he said)....but no proof. I asked him how he drove the car. He said he never got on it much because it was "his baby." But, who really knows? The fairly even wear on the 4 tires and over 50% of life remaining at 12K miles would suggest his words were the truth. I also mentioned yesterday that he recharged his own leaking AC system....rather than fixing it. Considering the guy also had a couple of neat and rare classic muscle cars in the garage (68/70) it was obvious he loved the classics, and performance cars in general. His daily driver was a 2006 GTO as I recall.

I've done the same oil changes 2X per year on my own and have no proof other than my personal maintenance log. While I could keep receipts of buying Mobil 1 oil and filters, there's no proof I added that to my SS. I don't fully trust any shop to change my oil properly (pre-fill the filter, inspect the old oil at my leisure, etc .) so I do it for peace of mind. Owner #1 may have felt the same way. He was concerned enough on initial delivery of the car in 1999 that he took it directly off the car carrier...before the dealership could apply their buffers to the paint...lol. He special ordered the car too to his exact specs and explained to me why he chose it that way. The record of changing all the major fluids AFTER I got the car is well documented with receipts....but who knows prior to that? When the time comes to pass the car along to owner #3 they can ask me all the same questions I asked of owner #1...and get the same answers. Owner #3 will learn everything I know about the car and get a pile of documentation that came with it. It will all be in writing in a secure package. In essence they will know everything owner #2 does. And if they carry that on, owner #4 should hopefully know as much as owner #2 did too. They will get all the orig parts that came off the car including the first set of tires. I keep in touch with owner #1 so that if owner #3 wants to ask more questions....he'd probably be available. When I contacted the original owner of my SBee back in 1996 he was tickled pink to hear from me. If only he had been willing to part with his orange and black Dodge Scat Pack jacket that he picked up back in the day. He was sharp enough to keep every document that crossed his path....down to the original day 1 (R4 Charger Red) touch up paint capsule, the pen that he and the dealer used to sign the contracts, orig dealership key chain, and some really odd ball stuff.

I've owned a dozen or collector cars over the years and have been down the list as far as owner #9 and still found documents and history no other previous owner had ever put together....and not all them good either. On that #9 owner car ('69 GTX with orig paint and supposedly 22K miles) I found DMV info from IL to MO to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the odometer was rolled back from around 75K miles back to 16K miles circa 1988. Now that was bad news and it cost me money. I was also owner #5 or #6 on an orig paint '69 Super Bee with 51K miles that no one had ever before tracked down the original owner. I did once I had state of TN DMV docs in hand (they don't do that any more though). And I got a treasure trove of information from owner #1 including photos from 1969-1971, one of them was taken at his wedding in 1971 with the car soaped up with "just married." I spent hours on the phone with that guy getting all the details on the car's first 16 yrs of life. His state DMV (this was 1996) sent me a pile of orig documents that no one had before (titles, MSO, orig purchase documents, registrations, etc.). When it was all said and done, owner #5/6 (me) completed the history of this car for the first time since approx 1986 when the owner sold the car. I had over 50 key documents on this car making it one of the most documented Mopars out there. The type written package I passed along to the next owner was about 1/2" thick. Nothing wrong with being past owner #2 if the circumstances are right. I would imagine that every owner subsequent to me kept that package going by adding to it. If they wanted to call the orig owner or write him, the information was in that package. Owner #5/6 (me) probably knew more about the car than owners #2 to #4. That car "improved" in both condition and documented ownership history with additional owners.

I did run into a car similar to your car #1 example above. A black 2000 WS6 M6 with 14K 1-owner miles at a dealership. The middle aged owner had passed away and his estate sold the car. There was no history on the car in the dealer's hands. Only the window sticker remained. But it was mint, mint, mint. It drove wonderfully. Nothing was altered. The lack of paperwork and history really didn't matter to me as the car spoke for itself. Had I purchased the car maybe I would have tried to resurrect some of the orig owner history and documents. But, we couldn't agree on price and the deal fell through. While my comments from above clearly show my penchant for documentation (and loving it), none of that deterred me from trying to buy this WS6 for money similar to what a well-documented car might bring. The '99 SS I ended up with cost me $5K less than what the WS6 ($17K) would have. Even though the SS has the history and docs over that WS6, I'd still have preferred the WS6 it it had been priced around $15.5K. You can't always get exactly what you want. But I can help owner #3 down the road be just as knowledgeable as I am on the car, and hopefully somewhat close to what owner #1 passed along to me. When owner #1 and I send emails a few times a year I still learn some new things about the car that didn't pop out before. If owner #3 doesn't really care about preserving a car's history then I certainly won't make it any easier for them to buy the car (ie negotiate the price down). I'd rather sell it to someone who cares about adding to the car's history....not tossing it all away. Now if the car had 116K miles today rather than 16K, a lot of this wouldn't be as important.

And while I also would buy your car #2 above for an extra $1,000 over car #1....I doubt you could buy it for that small of a difference. We think very much alike on these cars. And I look upon it as my duty to pass along as perfect a package of a car's full history as I can to the next owner. If that results in a no-sale because I "said too much," well so be it. At least they won't be able to say I hid something from them. Lack of information and negative info from the owner #1 (and owner #2) is history that should be passed on. And this disqualifies me from ever being a used car dealer...LOL. I will do my best to make the next owner #3 a lot more knowledgeable than most #3's.

NC01TA

Excellent post!! I'm with you but getting back to the basic question, a 3 owner car IMO can and will affect price, especially when a low miles car. No need to explain again. Are there great 3 owner cars out there? You bet!! My Aero is now a 3 owner (I'm #3) but I also have that important full history right down to the window sticker. When it's an unknown, that's where the problem comes in, and paying top $$ isn't the best advice I could give to someone when that history is unknown. Every detail affects price. For the young guy looking to mod a car and then probably sell it within 2 or 3 years, he should probably buy Car #1 and save that $1,000 in my scenario. If the cars were equally priced that one owner still would make sense over the 3 owner, even for him.
This is all that matters. When someone asks me for advice here I have to stick to my guns and tell them that an unknown history isn't always a good one, and that affects price. You know, and I know, but many posters here don't know. Always just trying to help them make an informed decision so they don't get hurt. That's the only reason I post here in this section. It's help I could have used when I was a teen and even in my twenties, but there was no internet back then. People that don't like my opinions or thoughts can just put me on their 'ignore' list.

** You know what's funny. I go all the way back to page 72 in this forum. I just looked it up as I know the years go by. So many of the posters have come and gone. You wonder what they are driving now and if the advice I gave was beneficial to them. While I have had many 'thank you' messages in my mailbox you wonder if the majority of the advice is heeded or at least used as a tool in their decision making process. I'm not wasting my time here as this is my hobby but how much longer should I keep posting? The advice is here already for those that want to do their homework. It's quite repetitious actually.

agent507943

[QUOTE Same with the non-facotry wheels and back tires that were obviously burnt off of the car. I'm going 14ish.[/QUOTE]


To clarify this, the wheels were not "burnt off" the back tires had uneven wear because the spacers where not put on correctly. I replaced the tires and fix the spacers.

I plan on buying some stock rims if I can find some in the condition fitting to the rest of the car. For the most part I agree with all of you, a 17k price seems fair. I'm just taking in account ability locally for me, out of the 3 other TAs I have seen in my area I have the nicest buy far. They are very rare where I"m at. I had to travel quite a bit to get this one. I was just throwing around the idea of selling it because I've seen on facebook people sell TAs not nearly as nice as mine for 15k.

But all of your posts were very informative and I appreciate it. e

99Custom

iTrader: (9)

You should see 17K if you wait for the right buyer and not a a wholesaler/ carflipper. It sounds like a really nice T/A.

You may have to sit on it for a minute as your the third owner already on a low mile car. That draws flags. But it will sell in time, as long as they don't start making the T/A's again, then the prices on these cars will plummet like the camaros did.

Firebrian

Even if they did apply the Trans Am name to a new model, it wouldn't be a Pontiac. They're gone for good. That would be like Dodge resurrecting the Plymouth "Cuda" name and putting on a Dodge....in essence "challenging" their own Challenger. Plymouth is gone for good. I don't see anyone bringing back the T/A name.