Guest bastaad525 Posted February 21, 2004 Share Posted February 21, 2004 Hey guys. Went car shopping for my wife today. Just got our tax refund. Didn't get to look at too many cars but one we saw that was very reasonably priced, and was very clean inside and out, was a '93 Geo Prizm, which as it turns out is identical, mechanically to a toyota corolla Anyways, the car starts right up, shifts very smooth (is an auto) and had like NO POWER AT ALL too used to mah Z I guess hehe but in this car it's like... hmm am I at half throttle or full throttle... all feels the same! Well but the woman likes it, so I'm ready to buy, but one thing buggin me about it. At idle, there is a slight, but very noticeable, vibration, and if you bring up the revs a bit (I'm estimating maybe at about 1500rpm... hard to tell as the car has no tach) it really turns into a shake. Rev any higher than that and it fades away and doesn't come back if you keep revving it up. If it were my Z I'd guess it were something like motor mounts, or an off balance flywheel or harmonic balancer came off or maybe even a dead cylinder, that's what it feels like. But again, it's only in that very small rev range (again, hard to tell w/o a tach, but I'd say at most over a 1500rpm range, probably more like 700), after that the motor is silky smooth. As a side note, the guy said he hadn't done a full tune up in some time, just oil changes regularly. The car definately does look taken care of, I mean even the engine bay was clean, but not so clean like he JUST cleaned it to get it ready for sale. There are some little fluid leaks here and there. Oh and it has 118,000 miles on it. So... I'm not sure if that shake should be a deal breaker... I mean it IS a toyota corolla engine, which are some of the most reliable long lived engines around, so I feel like this has probably got to be something small, but I wanted to ask you guys' oppinions on all the things it could be. I already used that shake to bring the guy down in price $350, but if it ends up being a $700 repair!!! that would suck. What do you guys think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pop N Wood Posted February 21, 2004 Share Posted February 21, 2004 The vibration could be amost anything. Dirty injectors, vacuum leak, bad vacuum hose, EGR valve. Sorry I can't be any more specific. I owned that same year Prizm, but with the larger 1.8L 4 cylinder with a 4 speed automatic. The smaller engine with the 3 speed auto was truely a dog, but the larger engine and extra gear really moved the car nicely. We had very good luck with the car, with the exception of the Delco alternator and power widows that kept breaking a $300 regulator. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bastaad525 Posted February 21, 2004 Share Posted February 21, 2004 yeah I figured it was the 1.6... slowwwwwwwwwwwwww I mean even in first it feels like it has NO torque at all. Well that answered a question I hadn't even asked, if it could be tune up related stuff. That will be a priority then to change all the tuneup stuff and maybe run a can of berrymans thru the fuel system... usually seems to help for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bastaad525 Posted February 21, 2004 Share Posted February 21, 2004 Heh... hunches ROCK. We were gonna go pick up that Prizm today, when I was like... you know... I like that car, but at the same time... the weak 1.6L and the 3 speed auto, and a few other things just weren't doing it for me. So I'm like... okay well now that I've seen this particular kind of car I should take another look. Went back and looked again and sure enough some guy had just placed his ad today... same car, except this one is a '94, Geo Prizm (basically a rebadged corolla), has a few thousand more miles on it, and he's asking a little bit less than the other guy was asking initially (but I did talk the other guy down a few hundred), but get this: This car has the 1.8L instead of the 1.6... and man I couldn't believe .2 litres could make such a difference!!! The 1.8 feels downright fast by comparison. Very peppy... was even spinning the tire from a dead stop (it's raining here in SoCal ) heck even my wifes 2.0 Prelude Si won't do that!! It also has the OD auto trans... BIG plus there... but the list goes on... power instead of manual windows, also power locks instead, a tach (!!!) and a detachable face CD player instead of the factory stereo. Also this one is ABS equipped. And this guy is the original owner, and has ALL his documentation from EVERYthing he's done to it over the last 10 years... SWEET! His also has that EXACT same vibration problem, though not as pronounced, and he showed me his last service bill where the mechanic had written in that indeed, the engine mounts were in need of replacing... I had guessed right the first time. There is one downside and that is that this one doesn't look as nice inside or out, but it's not too bad by comparison. The other one had fresh paint though and the interior was near flawless. Anyways... I talked him down but wasn't able to talk him down as far, in the end I payed $100 more than what I had already agreed to pay the other guy... $100 extra not bad for all the extra stuff we got though! This car retailed for $17,000 in '93... he even had the original window sticker... i can't believe it cost that much!!! I practically stole it for $2500 So... the wife is happy, but I think I'm moreso as I get to drive it for the next couple weeks while my Z get's operated on Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.