98 GT with 136K miles

I'm looking at getting a 98 GT with 136k miles on it. This is a 1 owner car with no accidents. According to them, the head gasket, timing belt, and water pump have been done recently with paperwork to prove it. Everything looks good, but I'm going to have my Dad (very good with car mechanics) look at it later. is there anything specific he should look for?

Check the usual stuff with a car this old, struts, rust, alignment.. so on, of course your biggest concern with the 2.5s is the timing belt and gaskets. and know that the gaskets can go again, so check the reservoir for oil. also watch for bubbling around your sun roof, if the sun roof starts leaking it's near impossible to stop.

Thank you for the information. I hope this car can last me a few years at least.

Welcome to the forum!

 

If the car has spent its entire life in Oregon, hopefully there are no rust issues. Our sunroof was "leaky" when I bought the car, but it turned out that the plastic drain tubes that run down the A-pillars shrink with age and pop off the sunroof drain holes. If you experience a leaky cabin this is not too hard of a fix.

 

We love our GT Wagon, good luck with your purchase. Be sure to post some pics for everyone to admire

I will I'm crossing my fingers and hoping everything is okay with the car and works out. My Impreza is getting lonely in the garage by itself

I've had my 98 GT since I was 15 (so going on 7 years now), I love it! I've had to pay for a timing belt job and usual services but no head gaskets yet. I'm very happy with this car and love going through the winters up here with it! It sounds like a nice car and sounds like it has had the right work done to it! Post some pictures up if you can!

So the car seems to check out and the wife and are going to look at it and buy it, barring any issues that I can see when I get there. I will post some pics if I buy it, it's a black cherry color from what I can tell in the pictures. @98GTLover I'm kinda jealous of you living up in Sandpoint. My in-laws lived in Rathdrum for a while and it's so nice up there.

BTW, here's ad if you wanted to see some pics of it now:

 

http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/cto/4395704791.html

Move up here! It's beautiful. Sandpoint gives you a nice mix of everything. Great winters and great summers.

 

Looks like a pretty clean GT. I had a black 98 at one point in time and I loved it. Mine wasn't limited and was a manual. But I liked my limited more it was more clean.

BTW, here's ad if you wanted to see some pics of it now:

 

http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/cto/4395704791.html

 

Looks great! I saw this ad a couple days ago cruising the Portland CL ads.

Great winters and great summers.

 

 

Literally, the only two seasons that exist! ha

There's a EJ22T and RHD 2nd gen for sale in bend although I never got a reply. Good luck, it looks like a nice car.

Literally, the only two seasons that exist! ha

 

Up here, definitely. The inbetween seasons don't exist lol

There's a EJ22T and RHD 2nd gen for sale in bend although I never got a reply. Good luck, it looks like a nice car.

 

I tried to search for the car you talked about and couldn't find anything. Maybe they took it down? I hope the car is as good as it looks.

Well, car was nice, but the "service record" hand writing was EXACTLY the same as the bill of sale. When I googled the shop name nothing came up, same thing when I searched for the address. Plus he would not budge at all on the price. Seemed sketchy so I walked away. Too many red flags.

Nice detective work and thanks for the update.

 

FWIW I bought my wagon knowing that headgaskets needed to be done, so I was able to wheel-and-deal on the price. Plus, once I did the work there was no question that the job was done right.

Good call on walking away. All those things are too risky to just take someone's word on.

I just hope someone else pays attention. The guy said he had a lot of people lined up for it. The work was allegedly done in January of 2013 with 89k on the car and now it has 136k, but it has been sitting in the garage for about 5 months. The math isn't adding up.

I wouldn't trust that guy. Since the reciept for the work was in the same handwriting as the bill of sale, he probably made that reciept himself. You can buy automotive repair reciept blanks in bulk at staples for small small shops that handwrite them rather than print it out. Theres the possibility the headgaskets weren't done, or they were done by that guy and he messed something up so he is selling the car so that 20k down the road when they need to be redone its not his problem.

I'm glad I walked away, better to be safe than sorry. I'm seeing a couple of of GTs up in the Seattle area that I'd like to have a better look at, but it's a bit far to look at a car. If the car was worth purchasing I would travel to buy it no problem.