Tricky one for me...looking to buy this car and personally I felt the price was decent, but this would also be my first vette and I've only been doing research a few days. *Seller is asking 23.5k*
2000 C5 Z51 Coupe, 53,xxx miles. 1 accident, listed by carfax as a rear end collision (as in someone rear ended the vette), but reports that vehicle was driveable and no structural damage. Seller knocked off $500 for this. I've posted two screenshots of the included mods.
The seller is also including the following non-installed parts:

• Stock seats, radio unit and steering wheel
• Promaxx heads
• Texas Speed 228r cam
• LS6 intake
• longtube headers

Installed mods:

• 
  

Maintenance:
Vehicle has had both rear axles replaced, new oem master cylinder with speed bleeder, and a new AC belt. Carfax shows vehicle was serviced at a shop for oil and filter changes...seller changed oil every 3-4k miles but this was also several months apart (like 4-6 months, but from what I understand this is normal for this generation)

I was looking for a vette that I could comfortably daily for now, then transition into heavy track use so this felt like the perfect vette...I'm just not 100% sure on it and wanted some outside non biased opinions based on all the info provided. Thanks everyone!

 

IMHO,,,, about 10k too high,,,,

 

It’s over priced, IMHO; perhaps by $5-$7K.
Perhaps some tracking members can chime in on the compatibility and quality of the parts.

@Kubs

 

Firstly, understand that I absolutely ROAST sellers on FB. It is a habit I need to stop because it is impolite, but an example today was a guy asking $22,000 for a silver 1999 with 163k miles. SMoking cRacK price. Another was a few days ago a guy asking $24,000 for 110k mile car with replaced shortblock and basically a cam kit and his heads had been dremeled. Again, some nutty sellers out there. But I do track the cars for sale regularly because they pop up in my feed so I've got a mild feel for what's out there but not real feel for what the final sales prices are.



53k miles sounds nice and I think realistically it would hold more value if stock in this case and I will describe why. If it were 53k and just a cam and some stuff, cool. In this case the car has a tighter ratio steering which is adaptable to different settings for DRIFTING or for "faster turning." I have a Mini-Mantis on my car, for example, and in my case it is for the faster steering. But installing these defeats the car's Active Handling because it doesn't know the actual angle of the tire vs the signal it receives once this is modified. So if you at all rely on AH.... this is not the car for you. One of our members IS working on a potential fix for this, but it is being designed for the Mini-Mantis geometry first.

The seats are cool on their own. Definitely an upgrade from factory and an add. But as a whole.... the brakes, steering kit, race belts, harness bar..... do you want a car which has been either tracked, driven really hard (heat cycles), or potentially drifted? That is a straight question. Not a wrong answer, per se. Folks who track their cars are typically more hands on and there is the chance that the car has been better maintained than many others. Or it has been abused wholesale by someone who knows nothing of maintenance. There is no way to know by talking to them. TBH, the side skirts suggest to me that it is slightly more poser than track/drift type....

Promaxx heads. They were unknown to me and I had to google them. They don't actually seem to flow as much CFM as other similar aftermarket cathedral port heads. You also want to verify combustion chamber size. If he got the 59cc then you're in the 11.4:1 territory which is fine, but be sure it is tuned well. It also offers 63cc. Verify that hub was replaced when the cam was done.

It has no driver airbag.

Both axles replaced. WHY???? Axle SEALS I would understand, but axles themselves? Unless they shattered in half there is no need. It may not indicate it, but in my head I check this off as abusive driving.

So if this was going to be my daily. Or a weekend car. I'd pass.The parts installed are good.... yes.... but the cheap side of things. Heads could be better. Longtubes were unnamed brand. Cam is small. Silvers are not dirt cheap, but there are better options out there and in some cases for less.

But if you are seeking a car for track or HPDE as you say..... it's got much better bones to start with than many others. Yet to me there are still a LOT of other cars to be found with better or more parts work already done for the money. The only headache he's saving you here is a cam install. Yet no mention of pushrods, new lifters (ditch GM at all costs), trunion swap to bushings, which springs were used, did he do a new oil pump, clutch/flywheel status and model (I always suggest lightweight flywheel with RST). And when he did the master and slave for the clutch did he upgrade or replace the guibos at all? End links? Sway bars? It just feels lacking and mismatched. Especially when everything else like coilovers and brakes are so relatively easy to swap in quickly if you had another car. I'll go a step further. I have C6 Z06 brakes waiting to go on my car.... when I bought them and refurbed them I didn't know much about brakes. Now I realize they are not the upgrade I thought they may be and for your intents to track the car heavily you're better off with an aftermarket purchase.

If I were going to buy this car I'd value it LOW, not because of condition/miles/parts but because the combination doesn't quite make sense and that raises questions for me. Either way, there is no way in hell this is a $23,500 car. It might sell to someone for $17,000 imo

Get on FaceBook. Pages such as C5 Modified, C5 Modified Buy Sell Trade, etc have a lot of REALLY modified cars go through. Some ask ridiculous prices, but some are honey deals with the right parts included. You've got all winter to slowly hunt, so pull the trigger on the right one.

 

What is your mechanical experience? Would you be doing all of the maintenance yourself? This car appears to have had a lot of tinkering done to it so be prepared to be chasing CEL and other gremlins. Either way I'd pass for $23 K. It's probably a $15 K car in today's market and IMO I think you'd be better off paying a little more for something in a bit better (unmolested) condition if you're planning to DD it for a any amount of time.

 

First question i always ask on modified cars is..."why you getting rid of it?" Usually the answer is because they want "something newer" to which I follow up with..."well you mod'ed this one to taste...where is it not living up to your expectations at?" Always approach a "decently" mod'ed car with raised eye brow. I'm a fan of mod'ed cars that I DO THE MODS TO!!! All parts are not created equal...and craftsmanship on the work....HOW MUCH TIME YOU GOT FELLA!!! I too have been looking for a C5 the last few months (I have a C4 i'm keeping) and the prices are still inflated...by a A LOT!!! Get you a good baseline price wise and watch prices into the new year. They have fallen a good bit (not talking about the hail marry dudes posting asking 30k). With the economy on the brink of collapse...cash is king...and I believe prices will continue to fall.

As another fella asked...how good are you with your hands? A 23 year old car is bound to have "some" to a "Lot" of TLC items that need doing (wheel hubs, rouge grounds, suspension bushings, etc, etc, etc). I do my own work so at that elevated price...I'd expect to do NOTHING but drive it for at least 3-4 years before having to wrench on it for repair.

TLDR...keep looking fella. Better deals on the horizon. If mod'ed is your game...try to find one that's pretty much stock and do the mod's yourself. I cant count the times i've shown up to see a hot rod and it has a laundry list of mod's the seller knows NOTHING about or has no documentation on. It always done by the "previous owner" which is red flag #1 to why they are selling and moving on from it (in most cases). If you do the mods...you will know the pros/cons of the car moving forward.

Good luck with your search.

 

Seems like the seller is trying get his money back from all the mods he installed at your expense.

My personal opinion here…

When I was looking for my C5 I wanted one that was unmolested. You may spend lots of time and or money chasing gremlins in this car depending on the quality of work that went into these mods.

 

Everything is worth something to someone, I agree with everyone else, a modded car in my mind will always be worth less then one stock..
with that said it is difficult to honestly judge what a fair price would be in today's market ..
3 years ago that was probably a 12 to 15000 dollar car ..today it's worth whatever someone is willing to give ...which is usually more than wht us Corvette guys would say it's worth....

 

Give the guy his money... He deserves it for his next one.. Corvette cars ain't cheap!

 

Ask the guy "If you were to keep the car, what 3 things would you do to it?". They won't expect that approach and may tip their hand on why they're selling. I too would like to know why axles were replaced on a 53k mile car. I still have my original axles at 307k miles.

 

My opinion for whatever it's worth is that it is priced way to high.

As others have said I would want to know about who installed the parts and what else was put into the car. Lifters push rods etc. Also who tuned it?

I bought my car a few years back and it too had heads and a cam swap done. I thought it might save me some money on buying performance parts, I was very wrong.
My car originally had one of the soft comp cams in it that had an extreme amount of wear, you could see the hardened steel where the lobe material had worn away so much.
The heads on my car were just some 243's it had a small exhaust leak, I thought gaskets no big deal. Yeah someone way over torqued the JBA shortie headers and ripped the threads out of one of the heads. I had to pull the head and buy new headers because the flange was distorted that much.
The tune in my car wasn't really a "tune" I don't even know what the "tuner" was thinking, it would have been better left stock. It had an Idle AFR of about 11:1
My car actually drove decently with all these issues but when I started trying to fix small things it just turned into a bigger and bigger project

My car is one of the more extreme examples of bad parts and poor maintenance, I knew mine needed work but not that much so soon. Unless it's a setup you really like I would pass. These are 20+ year old cars at this point it will need some type of maintenance.
You can find a much more inexpensive car and slowly modify to fit your needs with parts you select.

 

Good call.

I bought my Z06 similarly. It had low miles, was clean, freshly installed blower on a h/c car with suspension, exhaust, wheels, clutch.... Coming from a stock supercharged coupe my main thought was.... Cool, I can hit the next power level, not have to do the work myself so save a lot of time, and for the pre covid price I bought it dor from the midwest I could turn and sell my coupe and only lose maube two grand in the exchange. Perfect! Two days after delivery the engine ate a lifter and nuked the block before I could even finish data logging it.

Three years later and that blue pig is still in the air and ive invested twice the initial cost into it building it beyond any sensible need.

Ive got the build thread with the whole story here in the General section.

 

That pretty much sums it up! Buy a heavily modded car? Be prepared to re-mod all the mods. Quite often installs are either funky, the mod doesn’t match up with other mods, etc. It’s like a room full of people, all with different goals, decide to collectively mod a car…that was pretty good to begin with. It becomes a can of worms.

Good luck and let us know how you do!

 

You NEVER get back anything close to what you put into a car in terms of mods. What has been changed on this car are not even quality items for the category, and the seller is asking a "premium". With 1 accident on a base coupe, its a $10K car all day.

 

Hey everyone, thank you so much for the insight here! Based on the advice here, I've decided to buy the car at his asking price plus shipping!

Just kidding...everyone here made great points, and I decided to pass on the car. I fell in with the idea of not having to do mods which I would definitely want to do myself in time, but for the price and the questionable items, I decided not to take the risk. I'm wrestling with the idea of keeping my daily and fixing the issues (about 1k worth of parts needing replacing; plan to do it myself), but its a Hyundai and it's already dropped 8k in value the 4 years I've owned it.

The thing I'm currently stuck on is this: do I really want to get into a vette for 15k+ when I already own a paid off car? I've been wrestling with this, but I'm truly lost on where to go from here. Really not sure what to do. If I ever make up my mind, I'll reply to this thread...

*ANY FURTHER ADVICE IS GREATLY APPRECIATED*

 

Don't give up so soon there are so many good deals out there you just need to have patience and search. PLENTY of great deals if you don't mind one with some Miles on it,,, I finally pulled the trigger on my 2001 and to be honest I should have did this many years ago.,,,,

 

The way I looked at was no matter what I drive, there is going to be maintenance and repair costs. To me it was, “what do I want to drive”?

If you keep a C5 in good order and largely original, it’s unlikely you’ll have much depreciation, if any.

Good luck!

 

Congrats! I spoke with a friend and have decided to continue looking...Currently have my eyes on a clean title 01 coupe with 77k miles for 15k! What's your favorite thing about your C5?

 

For me my favorite thing about my c5 is it's just a good ole fashioned american dream to own a Corvette.....any Corvette.. .every time I start it up it just brings a huge smile to my face ...
while not the fastest car by today's standards, it sure gets out of its own way ....I love the lines and curves of the c5. I even love all the cheap plastic alot of people complain about, it brings me back to a time when all cars where like that....I guess I can say I love everything about my c5. .

 

There is an absolutely SICK yellow Z06 for sale very reasonably on FB today. One of the rare ones with all the RIGHT parts in the heads/cam and everything else. If you're looking, it's the right stuff at a great price...$19k


Aaaand I went to get the link for you but it is already sold. Good ones go quickly!