Hi there! I live in St. Louis, MO myself and I *just* bought a Crossfire SRT-6 convertible. I had to drive up to the Chicago area to get this one and did a LOT of searching around first.
Have you looked at the one **** Dean Subaru has for sale out in the Ballwin, MO area? They've got an SRT-6 Coupe for sale, but when I tried to go see it in person, it wasn't available yet because they were still doing service/prep work on it to get it ready for resale. (I asked them what was specifically being fixed on it, and their service manager told me it needed a new idler pulley -- which would be a fairly typical repair for a Crossfire.) The CarFax on that one indicated it had been in an accident before, but from what I'm told, it was a relatively minor front-end collision that basically just required a new bumper -- and was fixed to where you'd never know it happened.
Of course, if you're really putting a hard $12K upper limit on the price of what you're after? Yeah, I think you can expect to see problems. The Crossfire is a great little car, but it's also the type of vehicle I'd describe has "having character". That is, they're quirky in a number of ways ... from odd things like a factory stereo with GPS navigation using just a 1-line LCD to little things that break/fail and cause seemingly major issues.
From all the Crossfires I looked at, I saw something similar to what you did. I think the entry price for one in truly good shape with low to moderate mileage is more like $14-16K. The ones going for less than that have high mileage and/or paint issues and/or mechanical wear and tear.
IMO though, you could still do pretty well buying one of these for around $10K and then working on it as a project car for a while, if you're the type to do it. I mean, invest $1-2K to get all the paint redone at a reputable body shop and voila - exterior is mint condition again. Issues like car stalling while on the highway? Read the forums and you'll see it's often as simple a fix as pulling out a control board and re-soldering old/bad solder joints and dropping it back in.
Originally Posted by
Fero
So I am from St. Louis, and for the last month I have been negotiating and test driving EVERY Crossfire within a 100 mile radius! my price range is around....well lets say 10K....And I am TOTALLY frustrated with my first car purchase experience!!! Trully Disappointed! Now I know this may be the wrong site (since there will sure to be bias opinions) But I just HAVE to ask...Are Crossfires simply pieces of **** Mercedes Benzs? I just cannot get over how many Crossfires ($10-12K-DEALERSHIPS) I have went to look at and there are Major paint blemishes, to the (ALL TOO FAMILIAR) POLISHED JUNK. I test drove one and IT FREAKING CUT OUT AT 60MPH! ON THE HIGHWAY!!! (price tag 12K Certified Dealer) I fell in love with the Crossfire 2yrs ago and since KNEW it was going to be my first major car purchase, but now I'm to the point that EVERY dealership trying to sell a Crossfire for less than $16k Is a potential Scam!....please help any educated response would be greatly appreciated.