Originally Posted by
Godzilla11
I am 17 and am interested in buying a crossfire coup as my first car. I have found a promising Craiglist which has an 04 crossfire with 135k miles for 4800. For my budget of 5k this car seems like a perfect fit, but after researching online, i worry that I won't be able to maintain it if a problem occurs ex: new tires, parts or repairs. Are crossfires very problem prone? It seems mixed online about this cars reliability. To put the situation into perspective,. I will be paying for everything but 2 trips to the gas station per month, so my paycheck s of 400ish per month will be paying for the car. I know I can pay for everything, but I worry about frequent repairs on a car with Mercedes parts getting too expensive to keep up with. Do I buy this crossfire?
400 a month. I would pass.
Honestly they are reliable for the most part if you know yourself around a car and have a bit of diy experience. If you are going to the shop for a problem like a valve cover leak or a spark plug change (very minor), you will get ripped off.
Tires will be more expensive unless you buy low quality tires.
If you want to work on it yourself, you might have to buy a few tools.
They drink a lot of gas. I would say that I get aroung 16mpg but I live in a big city.
It depends of your budget. They're reliable. 04s have only two problems that could leave you stranded, a sticky ignition switch and a crankshaft position sensor. Both fixes are well documented on this forum. They seem to be easy and cheap to fix. The car is basically a coupe version (it is in a way) of the Mercedes SLK320 R170 (with a different body). Same engine, transmissions, suspension, brakes, steering, etc...
I remember looking at this forum when I was 22 or 23 because of how cheap and unique they were. I was scared about the reliability at the time. After doing more research, I just bought mine at 29. I've never had a car in such good condition and so solidly made. It's not the sportiest feeling car that I've owned but it does have the performance.
They are expensive to mod. No doubt about that. Aftermarket is there but so little and without any real competition. That means that you have to pay a lot for mods, even for a cold air intake. The mods are very high quality though.