I am looking at one of these for a three year car (got a baby on the way, and need a dependable, cheaper car). This particular car has 105,000 miles, and looks to be in good shape.

My question to all of you is what should I be looking for on this model? What type of problems does this model normally have? What kind of gas mileage do you get with this model? What kind of dependability should I expect with higher miles? I have read varied reports on this car, and just want to be careful.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Well, its not turbocharged, its supercharged. The Series 2 L67 is quite a reliable engine, the Series 2 L36 is known for a few things, but I would recommend it purely based on reliability if indeed it is supercharged. At 105k there is not a whole lot wrong, just be sure that the transmission is working well and that there are no visible fluid/oil leaks and that it doesn't make any abnormal noises. For any problems you might encounter, we're here to assist you in any possible way.

Be ensured these are some extremely reliable cars that if taken care of properly, last into 300k+ mile range.

As far as fuel mileage, these cars get exceptional mileage not found on large cars of their time or current time. The 3800 V6 is an extremely efficient engine even when supercharged. Some members report mileage as high as 33 mpg on the highway on supercharged applications and 35 naturally aspirated.

oops! I meant supercharged!

No biggie...

On the car you will most likely be able to use leaky valve covers to talk down the price a bit.

Other than checking the fluids etc and transmission shifts, the only other things I'd recommend would be considering getting or changing the lower intake manifold gaskets. Rather easy to do, however it will take all the questions out of engine reliablilty. Overall.. the car could easily go many more miles w/o the change, but it'* a known weakpoint.

My car was at 140,000 miles when I got around to changing the gaskets. Currenlty I'm at 180,000 mile sna decided to change the cam and go for a little more performance. Having made a mistake, I took the entire engine apart and found everything to be in awesome shape...these motors simply don't show wear and tear like most.