[Rob98ES]

Nice to see so many Canadians here. I'm also a Canadian and have just purchased a 98 Intrepid ES. Wow! It's fast! Everything seems to be fine so far except I am a little worried that it has surpassed the 200 000 km mark. The price was right for my budget though at just under $11 000.

I look forward to reading your informative posts. Many have already caught my eye. Like the middle brake lights burning out (had to replace mine) and the waxing tips. My hood is pretty beat up from stone chips probably due to the 200kms per day (hopefully highway kms) the previous owner drove it. Also will be keeping a close eye and ear on the transmission.

I have one year powertrain warranty from Lubrico so that eases my mind a bit. Anybody know how to go about getting the maintenance history of a vehicle? Looks like the previous owner visited the dealer monthly for oil changes etc for 6 months in a row but that's where the paper trail ends. I'm hoping he kept up that torid pace of maintenance. I really need to know if timing belt has been changed. Should I just call the guy?

Thanks Randy, for pointing me to the new forum.

 

[Intrepid98]

No problem

 

[capitalcity rt]

Thats alot of KMs. I hope it is in great shape. Dealers tend to send 200000+km cars to auction. At 3 years old, I hope it was mostly highway driving. Preferably 401 driving and not those seedy 2 lane flatops in and around your neck of the woods.
Call the guy. You've got nothing to lose. Did you buy the car from a dealer? Was it from the original selling dealer?
I returned a leased 1998 Transport and 1 month later received a call from a dealer in Sturgeon Falls, west of North Bay asking me questions about the van since he had an interested party. Happens all the time. Hopefully the guy doesn't BS you although he has nothing to gain by it. Let us know.

 

[Mopar4U]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but generally aren't the tranny's in the 2nd gen a lot better than the 1st gen. I haven't heard of too many tranny problems in the 2nd gen treps. I don't think you'll have to worry about that as long as you maintain the tranny well(Fluid and Filter through the dealer). To be honest I haven't heard of very many re-occuring problems in the 2nd gen treps. If you go back to the old forum the 2nd gen trep was ranked 14th out of 160 by some independent study for defective cars (I don't recall exactly, maybe someone else can help me here). Anyways, the 2nd gen trep is a good reliable car (as well as the 1st gen).

 

[Rob98ES]

I ended up emailing the previous owner. Not really what I wanted to hear. Timing Belt never changed. Car was in two seperate accidents. Front end collision resulting in $15000 damage. Rear end collision resulting in $8000 damage. Apparently this must have been Sterling Marlin's Nascar test car .

The guy said only the body was damaged and it drove nicely for the remaining 18 months on the lease after the accidents. I was hoping he was going to say they put a new engine in it but he said just body work.

I'm trying to get something positive out of this information but I'm not sure there is anything positive. Geez, you'd think the car must have been in the body shop for a good length of time and the guy still put 200 000 km on it.

[ June 25, 2001: Message edited by: Rob98ES ]