Hi there, hoping to get some pointers on what to look for as I check out the car for the first time tomorrow. Have been eyeing these up for the last few years on the rare occasion I see one on the road here. Had a vr6 Corrado and I'm attracted to the fact that the Fire was also built by Karmann, has a v6 under the hood, and comes with a speed activated spoiler.

Now the Corrado was a costly car to keep in good shape but all stresses were worthwhiie anytime I got her out on a nice road. Can the same be said of the Fire, are they a buggy car and a spirited drive?

This one I'm looking at is and 04 with 95K. It wrapped in matt black which I'm not too gone on but price seems good. Spoiler not working and showing an airbag light. Would these belie serious issues potentially or are they common fixes that are straight forward?

Are the cars prone to rust and where should I check? There is a car further a field with 65K mileage, would that be a better one to consider?

Any other pointers for what I should be looking out for would be greatly appreciated!

Paul

 

Where are you from? For rust, look under the doors. Air bag light means a trip to the dealer. Their "star" system will have to reset it if there isn't a problem. Spoiler could spell a weak battery or other problems. There are other things that will or already have gone wrong on a car with those miles. If price is right everything else looks good, you should be good to go. It's fixable.

 

just out of curiosity what are they asking for the car?

 

Try this...........................

 

Thanks for the useful pointers there. Had a read around and will concentrate on :

1. Door seal rust
2. 1 to 2 shifting
3. Tire tread (up to 1K for four)
4. Service history (oil should be every 6-7K?)
5. Spoiler (actually didn't really find much on this so a little worried its not so common a fault)

The asking for this 04 with 95K is $4,600 with current conversion rates from Euro! I'm feeling that this is high mileage after a read around the forum. I see a black one down the country with 65K for $6,100, and a roadster 04 with 35K for $9,250. There are also a few coupes around that price and even one with the asking as high as $19,750 (04 and 45K)!

I generally feel the cheaper ones are less representative of the car but more so of there being zero market here for them. They are just not selling. But if I bought this cheap matt black one and gave it away in two years I reckon I'd still be smiling, although noteworthy is that I will have spent the same money as the car cost in two year's road tax!!!

 

Not sure from "down country", but 9.2K for a Roadster with low miles is a deal.
We've owned our two for 4 1/2 and 3 1/2 years with only minimal but normal upkeep, so not so much a finicky car, and YES, very fun to drive. They're more fun in the "twisties", but no slouches on the flats either....

PS - and welcome to the forum

 

I can't compare relative to other cars in your area with regards to how much bang for your buck you can have, but for that amount of money for the Crossfire, you should be able to have some cheap fun (even if the spoiler never goes up again). I'm assuming you could still probably talk them down a bit further, so it may be worth taking a chance. Now if you planned to keep it and baby it, you'd probably want to start with less miles.. But as a fun toy to throw around for a few years, not so much a concern

Oh and the 1 to 2 shifting will be notchy pretty much no matter what, just shift at a bit higher rpm than you'd normally do and it should smooth out.

 

I would have someone read the code from your airbag first before you buy it.. If it is a computer module (like my problem) it could cost you 2k for the part alone at the dealership. Others have found cheap mb replacements and brought it to the dealership to fix for a few hundred. But I doubt clearing the code will solve the problem. A couple others here needed new airbag computers so my guess is your diagnosis will be the same.

 

Well the guy was uncontactable today in the end so not a good start as we had planned to do a viewing in the afternoon. I'll consider the next step over the coming weeks. Meanwhile it's been good to connect with the right forum from the start and great to hear everyone making so much sense. Tip on getting a code reading is brilliant, hadn't thought of that. Ouch in terms of the cost

This probably isnt the right one for me, but who knows, I might be joining ye in XF ownership heaven in the new future!!

 

I am about to buy my first SRT-6. If anyone could add a few words ( or picture) of what/where to look for door seal rust, I'd appreciate it. I found a single owner SRT-6 that sounds like it was taken good care of. 23K miles and $18K asking price. Was hoping for less dollars. [one paint scuff, two tire rashes, blue coupe, no mods, + original luggage extras]

 

checkout

https://www.crossfireforum.org/forum...e-you-can.html