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96 prism purchase. Help!


carbap82
09-13-2004, 05:53 PM
Hey guy's. I'm looking at getting a 1996 prism LSI with 123,000 miles for $2,600. The car is hunter green and in mint condition. Of course it has power everything being an LSI. A few questions for everyone:

1) Is this a reliable car?
2) Was ther any recalls during this year, and if so what were they?
3) Is there anything I should be looking for or be conserend about?

I took the car for a 45 min test drive over every road that I could find and it handles great. No rattles or frequent bouncing from bad shocks. This is not my first car so I am experienced buying used. Just cerious if there is anything I should be looking for. Thanks in advance.

highlandlake
09-19-2004, 08:12 PM
These are good cars, reliable and easy to find a mechanic to work on them who is familiar with the design. At 123, 000 miles there will be some wear items to take care of as they show symptoms. CV joints, brake calipers, exhaust, etc. Hopefully the oil was changed regularly. If the car is clean and shows no sign of abuse, you may do well to buy it. It'll be better than many other 96 compacts. Beats paying $13,000 for a new one.

carbap82
09-20-2004, 05:33 PM
Thats good to know. We ended up getting it the other day. I love it. It came from Wisconsin and only had one owner. I checked the manual, and the guy did all of the mechanic work by the book! You never find that any more. Only thing I can see that might be a problem, is that the guy drove 4,000 miles every month and a half. Durring breakin, your not supost to stay at a steady speed for a long peroid of time. I will assume that he varried his speed, being that he wrote the work done on the car in the book. Were taking it on a 600 mile trip this weekend, we'll see how she does. Oh, it's so clean, there is still plastic on the visors from when it was new!

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