I've been looking around for a nice used van and have had a hard time finding one that I like after my inspections. Well I finally found one but the only problem is the odometer is busted. Everything checks out nicely on this thing, oil pressure is good, no leaks anywhere, tranny is smooth, suspension is good. I know that in IL you need an odometer when an emission test is done. Would you buy this van?
I would say take the van to a mechanic you trust and have him look it over top to bottom. Then you can base your decision on that.
I once purchased a nice clean car for my daughter very low miles for two year old car.. Only to find out odometer was set back 30k miles. Was replaced and listed on the door and never noticed it. Wanted to return the car to dealer ,but my daughter wouldn't let me...
With an LCD the actually milage is stored in the ECM. replace the odo with another factory and it will display the correct milage. If you have a oscilloscope you can pull the pulse codes for the ECM.
the way i would look at it would be what condition at what price? sometimes you can spend alot and not get perfect and sometimes you can spend a little and get close to it. if he wants close to book at a given milage i would want to verify milage as mentioned in above post. the other day i looked at a toyota corolla that was 2 yrs new but had a shamefull amount of miles for sale. it was perfect as far as i could tell. even smelled brand new. $4100. i dont need a car but sounds like your looking for a van. did it look worth it to you?
Do an Autocheck to get an idea how many miles it has on it. I buy hundreds of cars a year and if you don't know the miles it can be pretty deceiving.. I see cars and trucks that have 200k+ miles and you would never know judging by condition alone. Just the other day I inspected a near mint condition 04 Ford Ranger that had 231k miles on it!
True.... My 2008 Mercury Mariner Looks brand new. no scratches.. Leather looks new.. But it has 134,000 miles on it!!!!!! I could probably turn the odomotor back to 40k and no one would know the difference
Yes the original mileage is stored in the computer. You can replace the entire gauge cluster but it will not read the correct mileage. The gauge cluster will read the mileage of the vehicle it came off of. What year is the vehicle ? As long as you don't here knocking coming from the engine and it isn't overheating, and the transmission is good, buy it. If it's a chevy definitely buy it. you can use the odometer problem to get a lower price but it still can be an excellent purchase. I bought a 2003 chevy express 8 months ago it had 141,000 miles. It now has 151,000 miles and I haven't spent a dime in repairs. Three days ago I towed a race car with the van 800 miles, no problems. v8 4.8
Its an 06 E250 their asking $4999.00 I honestly think its a good deal. My cousins snap on MT2500 (something I wish I had), should be able to pull that info from the ECM. The main thing here is sometimes you know when you come across a nice buy. I can honestly tell without looking at the odometer its in good cond. Sure its important to find that out and if I do end up getting it, I will most likely want to see if I can get the reading. The odometer in my opinion is going to be either the first thing you look at or the last thing you look at. Especially when purchasing a truckmount because they are not legally regulated and noted. So its good to have an eye for these kinds of things. It was painted from blue to white also. So I'm thinking that somebody cared enough to paint it they probably took care of it fairly well. Another thing is it has a sliding side door. Which I dont care for too much but everthing else is really good and it ain't easy finding a good pickin even in Chicago where there are lots of em.
Its either going to be that van or another one I found with one year warrenty on a brand new trans. Only thing is its an 04 with 120,000 miles.
mines an 05 with 121 k but loos liek it has 15k on it.... new tranny... 6.0 v-8 its fast. what motor is in it?
WTH? $4999? Tell the guy you'll give him $4k and I'll come and get it!!! BTW, I just recently bought a carfox account and have 3 more VIN checks so if you need to check them out, shoot me a PM w/the VIN #'s.
