I have a line on a 97 Sunfire coupe for way under challenge price as a beater for my younger brother who delivers pizza. It is a slushbox, mechanically straight and just has a dinged up fender in the front and around 140k miles. What does the hive say?
If pushrod engine, its a cockroach GM product, it will work, poorly, forever. If overhead cams run like hell.
It sounds like it is the pushrod 2.2 liter.
92dxman wrote: It sounds like it is the pushrod 2.2 liter.
We had one of those at work and it was a shared vehicle. I got it one day and the oil light came on. I had to put 3.5L into it, out of a total capacity of 4.5L (iirc) and the damn thing never skipped a beat.
Better at making noise than power but pretty tough.
My BIL has a later Cav with the Ecotec and he bets the crap out of it and it just keeps going.
my sister has a 2.2 ohv cavalier that my wife bought new in 2001. spent 140k with her, my sister has it close to 170 now. i did the head gasket at 100k, and the little pile never skips a beat and starts every day.
head gasket leaks were common a few years ago. i liked buying them that way because then the cars were even cheaper. half the time seal tabs would stop the antifreeze leak. the other half the time, you had spend the 3-4 hours it takes to replace the headgasket.
yeah the HG really is a simple job.
Wife had one for several years. Completely gutless and expensive to insure ($1/month less than our 08 odyssey with the same coverage). Averaged about 30mpg during her ownership. In the end we had no real complaints and felt like it was a reliable car.
My younger sister had a yellow 2002 pushrod slushbox powered Sunfire for her first car, and I dealt with it on a few occasions.
The painfully slow and rough sounding 2.2/auto combo took the 16-18 year old female thrashing like a champ and never complained. Hell, I don't even remember the thing getting oil changes that often. Although it did it's job very well, it was turned down by a prospecitve buyer because he thought "the engine sounded like it was bad."
The cars downfalls were:
Also, the insurance was oddly high. And before you immediately point to the whole high school kid thing, I also had a younger brother that was only a year older. The insurance on his same year Ford Escape was somewhere around a little over half of what the premium was on the J-body...
On another funny sidenote, the car was suprisingly durable in it's only and (now) hilarious accident... Somehow, after driving for about a year, my sister forgot that cars needed a certain liquid that eventually runs out to run and drive. One day, her Sunfire ran out of this specific liquid in the middle of an intersection, that was conveniently placed at the top of a hill and during rush hour... A police officer conveniently arrived, and decided that he would "bump" the car with his pushbar so that it would not be in the middle of the intersection. My sister, not understanding that brakes would feel very different without the car running, immediately panicked and steered the car into some brush after it picked up some speed going downhill. After going all 16 year old girl on the helpful officer for almost killing her, my Dad and I got called and both facepalmed. When I got there, I inspected the car, which had completely overrun a handful of bushes and small trees (with stumps under 3" in diameter). To my surprise, the car was largely unscathed other than some scratches that were easily taken care of with rubbing compound.
Also, avoid hitting things, and whatever the berkeley you do, don't get in any sort of side impact, you will surely die. The 2 door J body(the 4 door isnt much better) is probably one of the worst cars in terms of side impact post mid 90s auto safety regs. You can flex the impact beams with your hands, my berkeleying Yugo has more steel in the doors.
good cheap beater car.. not too sure about the auto, but the pushrod 2.2/5 speeds are almost unkillable and will get close to 40mpg.
head gaskets are common- $100 and a few hours with basic tools fixes that. if it's a factory non AC car, keep a spare serpentine belt around because parts stores don't stock that belt- if it's got AC you can get a belt anywhere anytime..
Kenny_McCormic wrote: If pushrod engine, its a cockroach GM product, it will work, poorly, forever. If overhead cams run like hell.
Nothing wrong with the dohc. All the bad ones I saw succumbed to abuse coupled with poor maintenance.
My MIL had a pushrods 2.2 in hers and it didn't seem gutless to me. In 9 years it was trouble free as was our Z24 . In fact, the Z was the most reliable car I've ever owned.
Zomby Woof wrote:Kenny_McCormic wrote: If pushrod engine, its a cockroach GM product, it will work, poorly, forever. If overhead cams run like hell.Nothing wrong with the dohc. All the bad ones I saw succumbed to abuse coupled with poor maintenance. My MIL had a pushrods 2.2 in hers and it didn't seem gutless to me. In 9 years it was trouble free as was our Z24 . In fact, the Z was the most reliable car I've ever owned.
This describes the vast majority of "way under challenge priced" J cars.
Automatic 2.2L?
Won't peel out.
On wet pavement.
In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid:
Neutral drop it, it will burn rubber. I beat the hell out a stick 2.2 one for a couple years, it would do a big smokey one wheel peel no problem. Pin it and dump when you see 4k or so on the tach. They were slow but the LN2 is a truck engine, it has a decent torque curve. Should pair well with a 3 speed auto.
The real issue with the auto is there's a transmission in the way of the oil filter from the bottom and a power steering pump and shock tower from the top. Its really fun snaking the filter in place on one.
Put some spray to it.
Kenny_McCormic wrote: In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid: Neutral drop it, it will burn rubber. I beat the hell out a stick 2.2 one for a couple years, it would do a big smokey one wheel peel no problem. Pin it and dump when you see 4k or so on the tach. They were slow but the LN2 is a truck engine, it has a decent torque curve. Should pair well with a 3 speed auto. The real issue with the auto is there's a transmission in the way of the oil filter from the bottom and a power steering pump and shock tower from the top. Its really fun snaking the filter in place on one.
yours had a tach? neither of mine were that fancy...
The auto's had a tach. Not the stick. You can't look for logic in a Sunfire.
novaderrik wrote:Kenny_McCormic wrote: In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid: Neutral drop it, it will burn rubber. I beat the hell out a stick 2.2 one for a couple years, it would do a big smokey one wheel peel no problem. Pin it and dump when you see 4k or so on the tach. They were slow but the LN2 is a truck engine, it has a decent torque curve. Should pair well with a 3 speed auto. The real issue with the auto is there's a transmission in the way of the oil filter from the bottom and a power steering pump and shock tower from the top. Its really fun snaking the filter in place on one.yours had a tach? neither of mine were that fancy...
I though all E36 M3fires had tachs? Though my E36 M3fire was a optioned out base model, AC, ABS, power windows and locks, sunroof. Id assume cavaliers only had a tach if you got the quad 4 and/or the nice auto.
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