1998 Grand Am knocking

Hi, I'm new, but hope to get some insight. I recently looked at a 1998 Grand Am SE. The story is the guy's girl friend put the car in a ditch,while in the ditch (?) the car ran hot. Now the guy's Mom wants to sell it for $150 bucks. I feel I can't go wrong. I'm thinking the overheating has done some damage, but I would like to know if anyone else has has a similar (running hot) then knocking problem. I can rebuild it...but not if I'm throwing good money after bad...

probably overheated the motor, causeing the bearings to fail, and now it has a knock, you most lickly could find a used motor for 500 bucks at a junk yard. Or maybe a new shortblock for a grand or 2.

Depending on which motor it is, you might want to rebuild the one that is in it. If it's the quad 4, throw it away and buy another one, when the quads overheat they have this bad bad habit of cracking heads and other such lovely things. If its' a 6cyl, its probably bad bearings, tear it apart and have the heads checked to be sure (I watched a friend rebuld a motor without having the heads or block checked, turned out the heads were cracked in several places, talk about a waste of money...). Good luck.

Thanks for the info...Picked the car up yesterday for $150. Turns out the owner was mistaken, it's a 1999. It is as you suggested a 2.4 DOHC. Found tons of oil once on the trailer. Looks like the engine needs to be scrapped. Still, for the body and enterior, even a new motor won't burn me on this one.