Hello everyone! I've been in the market for a new car since my Camaro died at the beginning of last summer. Since then I've been driving an old Buick Century back and forth to work.
My son is just getting his license and has targeted the old Buick as "his"! Lol (It's actually perfect for a new driver and it rides smooth as silk)
I was originally looking for an older vehicle just to get back to basics but came across a few Crossfires while searching and started to really like the looks of them.
Thanks to this forum I can see that most drivers fall deep in love with their Crossfires and it seems that with the proper care these can be very reliable cars. This has pushed me over the edge and I put a deposit down on a Crossfire.
I'm flying down to Florida on 3/14 from Long Island to inspect and probably buy a 2005 pearl Blue Roadster Limited with a red leather interior and 6 speed stick. If everything goes well and it passes my inspection I hope to be on the road heading north that afternoon.
The wife and I are going to make it a 3 or 4 day trip with stops in Savannah and D.C. for St Patrick's day. I'm not looking to push the car too hard at all.
I'm going to speak with the mechanic at the lot to see if he can do the relay solder mod before I take delivery just so I have the peace of mind that it's not going to be a problem.
I'm getting the car at a great price because the used car lot can't figure out how to get the BRAND NEW convertible top to operate. I've see the video on how to operate the top manually and I've already confirmed that the multi-function tool is actually with the car!
I'm pretty handy with electrical problems and diagnostics, I worked for BMW for 7 years. I also have an excellent mechanic to bounce ideas off of so I am confident that I will eventually get this top to fully function on its own. Until then I'm more than happy to drop the top manually to drive down to the beach on a nice day! These forums have already been a massive help to me. I feel like I already know so much about these cars so thank you all very much for that!

 

Mileage 82,248 ? Black hood stripes? Sapphire silver blue.. I don't ever recall an Aero blue with the cedar interior ..

And just my own personal take on the RCM .. I "checked" it on my first car as everyone acted like it was a major ordeal.. 69K on the clock on my coupe .. looked fine and put it back. Now at 135K and haven't touched it since the first time. Wife's roadster.. 80K when purchased and now 110K.. never touched.. my roadster..only put about 5K on it and never touched. With 3 cars I figured a spare RCM would be a prudent purchase from ebay for $50 bucks.. but I'm of the opinion if it ain't broke don't fix it.

 

Lol, Do you know the car or are you a good searcher? You are correct with the Sapphire Silver Blue, (I'm still learning the specific color names, Pearl Blue seemed right for some reason?) Oh, and these black hood stripes with the red ones on the grill are going to be the first to go!!
Good to hear about the RCM, it gives me a confidence boost that the car will make the trip with no issues. Thanks for that!
I think I'm going to buy both the crankshaft and camshaft position sensors to have just in case there is a problem.

 

Make sure you have a 6 MM hex wrench along with the top tool

And you are right Greg, the RCM is not a big deal ( until you are on the street in south Chicagp at midnight and it won't start )

 

Welcome to the forum. Hopefully things will go smoothly an you can , enjoy the (s)miles...

 

That's about as bad as having a flat and trying to change the spare right quick huh!

 

Thanks guys. We are really looking forward to this trip.

 

Good luck on the buy! As a fellow roadster owner, best advice I can give is don't over pack. That trunk is not very big. You can fit a couple of backpacks and some other stuff loose packed, but leave the big suitcase(s) home.

 

Congrats on your upcoming & anticipated purchase of the 2005 Roadster. Like the rest of us, once you acquire one of these cars, you will get the so-called "perma-grin" we all get. Have a nice trip back home.

"Pearl Blue" strikes me as being a Silver Sapphire Blue (SSB) Roadster, which was available with the Dark Slate Gray/Cedar Red 2-tone interior.

 

I think you are right on this. The CarFax alternates the color between blue and silver. I'm sure that once I see it in person it will look different from the digital pictures.

 

Uncommon and quite attractive color combination. I have driven those same roads. The audio book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, will enhance the experience. Enjoy your trip.

 

"If" it is the one mentioned in the second post on this thread.. Just under $5K.. it is the sapphire silver blue..

 

That is the one! Thank you for clearing that up. Every manufacturer has a different name for the same colors it seems.

 

When the RCM acted up in my Coupe, fortunately for me, the Coupe was sitting in my driveway. Went out to start it one morning and nothing! Had it fixed by tighed1 and bought a spare just in case.

 

Unfortunately once I actually got to look at the car it turned out to be quite a giant piece of crap.
Dirty, mistreated and most of all completely butchered.
The headlights were hammered and there was no way to polish them out. Even if you could they were cracked. their mechanic said that it was no big deal that I could get a set of Halos in ebay for $100! LOL
I told him that I wasn't 22 and there was no way halos were getting installed. He wasn't happy when I googled the headlight assemblies and told him it was more like $470-$660 each.
The idiots in the car lot actually tore out the center console to "replace" the stereo. This left the shifter bezel as a new improved floating type that jumped all over whenever you shifted gears because the ashtray was missing and the bezel for the
passenger airbag along with the power outlet were long gone and nowhere to be seen.
I found out exactly why the convertible top was inoperative, the wiring harness was totally shredded and hanging all over the place and they actually cut the cables for the tips on the tourneau top and removed them!!!
I discovered all of this while lowering the top manually. I was able to get it down when no one was looking. I could not believe what I was seeing in there! I've been involved in mechanics since 1980 and I've never seen work like this! It was if they were intentionally sabotaging this car.
I found 1 oily old intake manifold gasket in the trunk. NOT in a bag or wrapped up in any way but just laying on the floor of the trunk. I asked their mechanic why the old gasket was in the trunk and he told me that he replaced it. Only one gasket was replaced.
I do the dash trick to see how long until the next oil change and it was just a few hundred miles. I was told that the car had been serviced and ready to go for the full 1000 mile trip home. If they changed the oil I'm 100% positive that it has some no name 10W-40 in the crankcase.
While I'm going through my inspection my wife was standing there just shaking her head as I was grumbling the whole while.
Then the salesman and mechanic and their detail guy came over to try to strong sell the car to me.
They started out very happy that I was able to get the top down, then the salesman made the mistake of asking me what I thought of the car. Seeing as how I flew down to Orlando from Long Island and then drover to Jacksonville to see this butchered piece of garbage I decided to start from the front bumper, which had a chunk tore out of it from getting hooked on something, and let go with a litany of just the most obvious problems. These three guys just stood there slack jawed while I went of for at least 15 minutes. Then the detail guy tells me to take it for a ride because it "moves real good!" Since every rim was scuffed and the car had mismatched no name brand of tires I ever heard of I politely explained that they couldn't pay me to drive this butchered car. They seemed absolutely astounded.
I told the dealer that I wouldn't be taking the car and that I needed my deposit back. He tried to give me a check and then I had him just charge it back to my credit card instead.
He was thrilled that the top was down and stated that he would just cover the car with a tarp to display it with the top down. I just nodded and got back into my rental car with my wife and drove away. I'll never fly anywhere to look at a car again.
We ended up driving home in the rental car and actually made a nice trip of it stopping in Savannah and DC for a few days.
Now I'm going to take a look at a Pontiac Solstice which is very close to home. Lol

I want to thank everyone on this forum for all of your help and all of the excellent articles which have been extraordinarily helpful to me in evaluating this vehicle.
I do have a brand new Bosch crankshaft sensor still in the box. I obviously no longer need it and I'm willing to send it to a forum member for $25. Send me a PM.

 

Well... I'm sure they would have done a "top notch" job on the RCM for you at least.. Hence my suggestion not to. The hood stripe job had "ricer wannabe" written all over it in my opinion, and the price vrs mileage said "it ain't cherry".. but sounds even worse than I would have expected. "This" is why quite a few give a shout out to see if anyone in the area can look it over for them.

You seemed to want to keep it on the hush side of things so I didn't "help out" by posting the link to the ad with a suggestion of "someone check it out"... Not to say I don't understand the concern of someone grabbing a "great deal" out from under you on the flip side of the coin..

 

Wow....that's brutal. Sorry for your wasted time, money....and crushed hopes. I bought both of my fires long distance. First one, I used Lemon Squad to check the car out (there are other companies too, I've since found). Cost $140.00 and was well worth it for the peace of mind it gave me to fly from Denver to PA. Second one looked good and just felt good....and it was. I later found out it was owned by a forum member (I didn't know about the forum at the time). I looked at 2 SRT's on dealer lots. Both dealers talked like they were in great shape. Both cars were in terrible shape, one so bad I didn't test drive it and not just because it had a couple of flat tires. Private owners seem to have a lot more pride in the car that they're selling. Don't give up. When you find the right Crossfire, you'll see that your effort was worth it!

 

Yeah, those stripes were going to be one of the very first things to go.

 

I ended up grabbing the Solstice.
It was everything I had hoped the Crossfire would've been.
2006 Pontiac Solstice

 

Nice looking ride. You will enjoy going around town "topless".