Been looking for C4's because of new addition (grand daughter) to my wife and my immediate the family and the C5 was too much $$$ which after the added expenses.

But I have found a few C5's, one with 154K miles for $9K.....is this too many miles to even get interested in?

I have found C4's with under 100K for the $5-8,000 range......... what doyou experts suggest??? I have no idea how many miles a C5 can do without starting to fall apart.

 

I would not buy a car, especially one that has higher mileage, unless I could verify how well the car was maintained.

 

Keep looking, you should be able to find a C5 with 40 to50K
for that price.

 

Stay with C5's, I had 2 C4's, nice car but
no comparison to the C5

 

That's the key. Well maintained and cared for, might go 200K miles.
Driven hard and put up wet. May be on it's last leg!

 

I have a 99. 17 years old with 100,000 + miles. Everything works as it should. I Use the OLM, why? because it works. A specific mileage is nota good discriminator. to show you how good the OLF actually is, in 1997, the OLM base line was set at 10,000 miles after three years of field testand oil samples, GM bumped the base line from 10,000 miles to 15,000 miles... Now for those that do not understand this... the OLM measures run parameters that effect the oil. Open loop , close loop, cold starts, rpm, and others. the OLM produced such good oil samplings in the field that the base line was raised from 10,000 to 15,000 miles.. That doesn't mean you can drive your car for 15,000 miles... that is the base line from which algorithmic codes, effect the Oil life remaining. A little fyi

while you can change your oil more often or go by a set number... that number might be too little or too much. The OLM is a no brainer,,, when Oil life gets to 10 %, you make arrangement, buy oil and when it gets down to 0 % just change it.. even at 0% there is a built in protection value. There is only one other thing.. Oil mixed with carbon over time turns acidic...change the oil at one year or when ever the OLM gets down to Zero...

Just forum some history.. Some haters asked me if magically at one year exactly the oil turns acidic ... Lots of people with little automotive sense... there is nothing wrong with that, other than adding their own logic to something that was well thought out and tested by GM engineering.. The New OLM was an aide to help insure long term reliability, and with a focus on the environment. Changing oil when it is not necessary requires dumping the oil and in many case, its not dumped into a recycle station. Also changing oil too often cost money that could be spent else ware
Bill aka ET

 

this thread is almost 7 years old

 

Oops.... I'll learn..

 

Picked up my 04z06 115k and had heavy maintenance and service history. The reassurance that it had a new clutch, tires, and c6z06 shocks done at a dealer just before I got it paid off and I got a wholesale price. Different opinions are welcome I have had many cars and purchase situations it's all what you are comfortable with in the end.

 

It was an old thread, but we have a new poster facing the same issue and seeking info.

 

My 97' has 215,000 on the clock. It has lots of minor issues, but the drivetrain still runs fantastic. I'm embaressed to say that it was not really maintained relligisly. We did change the oil regular, but that's about it. My wife drove it most of the last ten years. (She's not a hotroder)

Should I expect it to quit soon? It still has 80 lbs. oil pressure. Doesn't leak a drop from anything except the rad overflow. (Rarely)

 

I would think in that price range you could get a 02 or newer and avoid any issues on a 99 that cannot be repaired?

 

Sorry this is not for the new OP but...If your gauge is showing 80 PSI you need to change the Oil pressure Sensor...I bet it says 130 PSI on the Digital display on the cluster also known as the DIC. Check it out...

 

I purchased a high mileage C5 just under three months ago. It is still too early to tell whether it was the right decision, but I will contribute what I have learned.

I paid $9300 for a '98 with 145K miles. The dealer also had a '99 with 86K miles for a few grand more, but it was easy to tell it wasn't in as near as good condition as the one I wound up buying. In fact, I spent more than four months shopping for the right car and the highest mileage one turned out to be at the top of the list in terms of condition.

I had a budget of 15K and looked at cars with mileage as low as 60k. The important thing I learned was that whatever car you buy, it is going to need some reconditioning. These cars are old. They won't be perfect. Even the higher priced ones. Therefore, make sure you leave some money in the budget for taking care of some issues.

Checking the car history is important. The red flags that I looked out for were 1) The car had an owner/owners that owned the car for only a short time and the got rid of it. 2) Mileage records that show that the car has sat unused for extended periods of time. What I liked about the car I bought was that it had two owners. One had it for seven years, then the second owner had it for ten years. Both had put a consistent amount of mileage each year.

So far the expenses I have had are rebuilding the driver seat track, and changing the HVAC blend door actuators. Also, the passenger window regulator will need to be rebuilt at some point (It's working ok for now)

Another thing to look out for. The LS1 is very prone to seeping a little oil here and there. Replacing those seals can get expensive. I passed on a couple of cars that were staring to leak a bit. They were fine for the time being, but that was going to be a major cost within a couple of years.

Lastly, remember that the most expensive thing that commonly needs fixing is the paint. With a proper paint job costing six grand, I made sure I found a car with very good paint. At 145K miles, mine did have some very minor road rash, but you have to get three feet away to really see it. From fifteen feet away, the car looks new.

 

When I was looking, the '01+ cars that were in the 9K price range, were beat to death or had rebuilt titles.

 

His budget was from nearly 8 years ago.

 

Wonderful posts, everyone has helped answer my original question. I went to Va Beach, Va last year on on the ferry was a beautiful (i believe he said) 2004, he asked me what I thought of it ad of course the wife and I was over whelmed with it. He was retired and said he drove to the west coast a lot and the car had. He wanted to trade for a new one but the dealer wouldn't give him anything for it, I was perplexed and asked WHY???? He stated the car had 247,000 miles on it and showed me the inspection sheets etc. If a car had that many miles on it, well maintained like this one was I am amazed at the car itself. Documentation of maintenance seems to be the key when looking at a high mileage car....

 

Evil Twin, I know there was a specific algorithm you fellas used when designing the C5. I wanted to know if you had an insight in how the OLM in the C7 differs. I heard something about time being a factor? As in even if brand new oil sits for...lets say 6 months, the OLM would reflect differently on startup?