So I found this 1996 vette that I have been looking for forever. I can afford it, it's got pretty good (low)miles. No climate control or Bose But I can live without I guess. The only thing is it has a bumper from a 1995 or early car. Now my question is This car is an early 96 like 2000 th car. Is it possible that the factory put on a 95 front bumper to use their surpluss from the year before? Or has this most likely been wrecked? I have a pic but I just rememberd I can't post here. It looks pretty good. ?? SVX

 

Keep looking. Email the pic to me I'll put it up for you but too many issues. Does it have aftermarket stereo as you said the Bose is missing?? I presume you mean it has manual AC rather than Electronic AC. Electronic system gives you the ability to diagnose any problems from the control head. Plus it just darn nice to set a temp and not worry about it.

Sounds like it was a plain jane a dealer order to fill quota.

 

If the car is in your price range I would not dismiss it because of the bumper but I would be very thoroughly looking it over. Run a car fax take it to a body shop and have it looked over dose the paint match. Is it a LT4 How mutch is it. Good luck

 

Well the problem is I am 1500 miles away from the car so to look at it will cost me an airplane ride. It is the right car, the color combo that I
have been waiting for, LT4. It does suck that the air is not electronic. Plus, I guess the original
stereo was a tape player and was pulled to get a CD. I E-mailed the dealership and questioned
the bumper requesting a carfax and they have yet to reply. Probably pissed them off. Anyway I
guess I'll run a carfax to confirm. One day I will find my car, I'm just getting impatient

 

Why do you think it's a '95 bumper? More than 1 '96 owner has painted the area between the fog lights and the corner lights black in order to add a bit of a highlight.

 

?? I think the "bumper" are all the same from '91 to '96. The '96 front has a little different paint scheme for the Fog light/cornering light area

 

The front bumper for 96 was one color.

I'm curious what is the price range of this particular vehicle?

 

not a great idea to buy a car site unseen take the plane ride

 

Oh? I thought that on the 95 the hole cut into the bumper for the turn signal was one hole. And on the 96 the bumper had two holes (one in front, and one on the side) seperated by the side piller painted body color? I very well could be wrong U guys know more than I do on this. Boy would that be great if some one just painted the pillars black. The asking price is $16,000 with 60,000 miles. At a dealer.

 

A) that's not a bad price, not great, but not bad for a '96 LT4.
B) 15 or 1500 miles, you need a pro to check it over, at the very least, before you plunk down money. start doing a search in that town/city for someone professional who'll competetently check it out for around 50-250 if you can't do it yourself.
C) do everything all posters have said, incl. carfax/autocheck.
D) call dealer and smooth it over, tell 'em you're still really interested, just need to ck things out BEFORE you put down 16K of your money. this IS October; they're not selling a lot of '96 Corvettes.
E) not necessarily a quota Corvette for some dealer to fill their list in '96; mine was bought by a guy who WANTED it mostly "lightened" and thus no power nothing but it does have a Bose CD. trust me: you can live with a non-automatic a/c unit very easily. and you can find a stock, Bose CD on these forums, I'd say, easily.
F) if this looks like a great car except for the bumper, maybe it still is a great car. just a bit less expensive, as in, negotiate the price. it may've been light damage to the front, or some such. knock off 2K and see if that makes you happier.

keep posting and if needed, a little more looking!

 

The front bumper from '91 to '96 is physically identical. Only the paint scheme varied.

 

you should pass. you seem concerned more than excited about teh car and about certain things such as the bumper, climate control, and radio. it will not make you happy and buyers remorse will set in early. pass on it and keep looking. you will find another one in a month or two. you seem to be picky and want what you want, and that is good. this particular car will not make you happy.

 

You should be able to pay a third party inspector to go out for a full inspection and report similar to what is offered on eBAY Motors. eBay probably has some links to these guys. If you yourself, cannot see the car, I would get the third party inspection. Not sure of cost but prob under $300 if you get someone in the dealer area, and against a $16K price , a small sacrifice. Can you it to help justify a lower price if inspection does find things.

 

I bought my 95 from a private seller 1,000 miles from home. The transaction was painless and here's how I feel about my car after putting 8,000 miles on it in 8 months.

I had the owner take more than a dozen hi rez photos of all areas of the car. (see a few of them below)

I then sent the photos to a vette specialty shop in my area and asked if there was anything obvious from the photos.

I then searched out one of the few people (on the C5 foum) who actually have access into the GM system. One individual was able to get me the "born-on sheet" and because it was an orders car I was able to determine the original selling dealer. Then another individual was able to get me the complete warranty & dealer service records on the car. (At the time all info older than 1995 was not available so I lucked out)

If you really like the car after all of that, then it's worth the plane fare out to actuall see and drive the car.

Here is something important (IMHO) if this is your first purchace of a Vette go and drive several of them prior to driving this one so that you have some frame of seat of the pants reference to compare to.

I drove a half dozen 93 - 99 vettes before driving the one I bought and I'm glad that I did

 

One more item for you...... if you indicate what state and town the car is in perhaps there is a forum member local to that area who's willing to go and see the car for you & take it for a ride.

 

The car is in St. Louis Mo. I called the dealer today and he told me the carfax is clean but......I
don't really trust him so I posted a request for a carfax in the for sale section (as much as I didn't
want to) If no one can help I'll buy one tomorrow. He said it does have the Bose stereo in it so I
guess I'd just have to buy the stock head unit. Now, is there a number that tells whether the radio
was a cd or cassette? If not I could get a cd player and then it would be perfect.

I am very picky, just been jerked around a lot and am very untrusting. I have to be this way cause
once I see the car in person I know that I will fall in love and all the "incorrect" issues I may have
now will cease to matter. Thanks for everyone’s input., If I can luck out and get the car I'll post
some picks.

Dust

 

So if the stereo is not factory and it had the Bose stereo does that mean that I can buy the original deck or would I have to get the right speakers. I read somwhere that the bose system has amplified each speaker and in order to put an after market deck into the car one would have to change the speakers. Sound right for a 96?

 

It depends on how through the person who replaced the stereo system was... They might have left the original speakers and put an adapter in to use them, or they might have swapped everything out...

An aftermarket stereo would make me very leary... Unless it was done by someone who knew what they were doing, I'd be very scared of picking up a car with a butchered electrical system... That happened to me once with a Camaro I bought...

IMO, if you're as picky as you say, then I'd pass on this car... Get what you want, don't settle or you'll regret it later...

 

While I don't disagree with bdvd or wake, you might want to consider this: not a lot of peop consider the stock Bose to be a great one. That said, maybe a replacement isn't such a bad idea. Mind you; I'm not plunking for you to buy this car, or any car, in particular.

It's ok to be picky, or choosy, or selective, or distrusting. Just know what's important to you and expect the outcome that you get.

If you want flawless paint, a great, low price, super low miles, complete originality, perfect interior, certain options, one particular model year car, a dealer or owner of impeccable integrity, etc., that car and situation may not happen along every day, week or month that you are looking. Try to combine any of these, and the degree of difficulty becomes greater. Add in, close to home base, or far away, checked out/not checked out, and the degree of difficulty becomes larger still.

Unless I'm wrong, the biggest variable is money. With it, in unlimited amounts, you can do just about anything, including bringing a totally butchered car with 10 miles on it back to original. Without unlimited amounts of dollars, it becomes a "chase" for the right car, with maybe some exceptions and allowances for what is available at the time that you finally say, "I'm through waiting for the perfect car.".

Good luck.

 

From my experience if you're feeling some doubt deep down now, it's probably not the best choice to buy the car. It will probably only be magnified after buying the car...it's always tough buying sight-unseen.