Buying a used P5 - advice?

[hookdupdelsol]

I am sure you can buy another cluster! Just about every part on the car is available for purchase!

BUT, Being that the mileage is wrong, the title will have a TMU attached to it! A 'Total Miles Unkown' warning! When someone goes to buy the car off of you they will be buying it basically blind! It could have 100,000 miles on it or only 2,000... This is a big deterrant!

Nothing that I am aware of in the car saves the actual mileage, but when titles are transferred the mileage is recorded! Now when someone buys it with 20,000 miles it and than sells it after replacing the cluster with one with 6,000 miles, whoever titles it will record it saying that the miles are unknown!

Just my 02... I hope you take your time and pic what you want!

 

[eljefe305]

i was thinking about that whole digital mileage roll back the other day. my friend bought himself a used focus 03 with only 6,000 miles on it. the dealer told him that it was garage kept by some old lady who only used it to visit her grandsons that lived close by.

after he bought it we checked it over and it was obvious it was worked on by someone that replaced the exhaust, intake and the wheel wells showed some signs of rubbing from probably a bigger rim than the stock ones he bought or maybe even dropped. plus it was a stick.. i don't know many old ladies that drive stick..

 

[P5w3kids]

I paid $13300 for a NEW P5 in November 2003 with leather, sunroof, ABS. MSPR was $18985. Yeah, I stole it. Sounds like I could sell it now for nearly as much as I paid. Not going to, though. Great car.

I have 13000 miles on my car. Only issues are some small rattles in the belt retractors and a day/night mirror that often loses its position when going from day to night. (Maybe I should have bought the auto-dimming mirror...)

I wouldn't worry too much about a reversed turbo install. Not many P5 owners care to cough up four large for a turbo. That said, looking around the engine compartment wouldn't hurt.

As for driving in the snow, I live near Detroit. Last year I thought the stock P5 handled very well in the snow. This year it's awful. If there's an inch of snow on the driveway at my new house I cannot get up it. I've gotten stuck in about half a foot of snow a couple of times this year. The tires have absolutely no grip on the slick stuff lately. Overall, I'm thinking that the stock tires have much better snow traction when brand new than when half gone. (I'm not expecting more than 25k miles out of the Dunlops.)

Beyond the tires, the car handles extremely well in the snow. As long as the tires provide decent traction the car goes where you point it. The rear end stays behind the front. Last year I tested the car in a snowy parking lot. The only way to get the car to spin was to pull the handbrake. Even then, release the handbrake and the rear end instantly falls back into line. Very safe.

Bottom line: be smarter than me and put good winter tires on the car, and it'll do great.

 

[dhchin]

just get that baby checked out by a prof.

 

[pingdum]

I use one of those trunk strap on kind of bike rack on my 5 and it works great.