URGENT: Buying a GSX. Concerns?

[Brockalishis]

Tomorrow I'm driving an hour away to check out a GSX. It has 56k Original miles on the chasis and a "recent rebuild and turbos".

Sounds great right? My concren: He said the tachometer and speedometer are always at 0. Why could this happen? Does it mean that the odometer is broken too and has many more miles that the 56k?

 

[ShadyDoins]

The miles only matter if you are wanting to sell it, if your looking for a car for yourself they're not that big of a deal. Just thoroughly inspect the car for rust. A car can have 150k and look mint or have 50k and be a rust bucket that's worthless. Chances are most of the parts on the car will break eventually and you will have to replace them or you will want to upgrade the parts so the old ones get swapped out anyway. For me the only real deal breaker is rust because it's annoying to fix and it will infect your whole car if you let it.

When you test drive I usually do a quick clutch drag test before pulling out of the spot. If there is any clutch drag chances are the synchros are damaged. Try to do some quick shifts at high rpm to see if you get locked out of gear or anything irregular. It's always good to do a 3rd gear pull if possible, a lot of symptoms won't show up just cruising around the neighborhood. Look for smoke, misfires, pushing coolant, overheating, pretty much anything that could be a red flag for a major issue. Obviously I would not do anything in the car without the driver with you if for some reason he says you can take it out by yourself. Make sure to ask if its ok with him before you do anything like a pull or even reving for the clutch drag and give him a little description of why you want to do it. It'll make him more comfortable if you prove you know what your talking about and not just someone who wants to race his car around on the test drive. If he's not comfortable with you doing something ask if you can ride shotty while he does it.

How thorough you are is up to you, some people even do compression tests. If he has nothing to hide he should be ok with you being as thorough as you want. Issues you find don't necessarily have to be deal breakers, just make sure the price reflects what you find.

 

[white lighting]

I have a cluster ill sell you. It has 110k I think.

 

[Mokkan]

Don't worry about the miles so much - the car is pretty old. Honestly, even if you have to replace the whole gauge cluster, its not that big of a deal. Most cars this old for sale need a whole engine or transmission rebuild.

Find out why the engine was rebuilt and how, and test drive it to make sure the transmission is alright. If their answers satisfy you, then set aside an extra $500 (minimum) to repair and replace old/broken components.