feral

Found this forum, and thanks, it's good to see people like their HHRs! I'm looking at a 2008 HHR SS with a crazy amount of miles on it. NADA knocked $3,700 off the value due to the number of miles. Dealership has it priced a bit below that.

I have the carfax. The 1st owner drove about 100 miles a day. He had the oil changed every 5,000 miles or so. Front wheel bearings at 132,000.

2nd owner had the car for about a year. He put 20,000 miles on it. At 150,000 had "Engine/powertrain computer/module checked, Cooling system checked, Instrument cluster checked". Only 1 oil change noted during his ownership (he, of course, could have done it himself).

My question is how long do these cars last? I saw a post on here from deliveryman at 300,000 mi!! Knowing the area the first owner lived I'm pretty sure he drove it back and forth to work on the highway.

We will take it to a mechanic to check it out. Everywhere we go is close, so we don't put many miles on our cars. I'm thinking as long as it is sound when we get it, should last us a while. Asking the experts here... is 158,000 mi too many?

SS fan

welcome to the site. mine has 75k still fine. Haven't heard how long they last, but would think a new turbo would be needed pretty soon at 150+ easy to find a replacement though.

843de

to the forum!

If the first owner's service history was the only history on the vehicle, it would sound pretty good. The second owner's service history doesn't engender a huge deal of confidence, whether they were chasing down a specific problem, or chasing down some issues that may have caused it to be unloaded by owner #1...it raises some red flags.

I'd say if your tech doesn't find any glaring faults, and you're prepared to deal with the eventuality of a major repair like replacing a turbo, snap it up.

They are fun to drive, and someday I'll add one to my herd, Heaven only knows how many "SS For Sale" ads that SS fan has sent my way.

Blue Beast (aka Boydie)

Buy it. Put money into it. Replace what you need. Cheaper than buying a comparable new automobile and it will always look better than most vehicles and be a collector car way into the future. Most all cars look the same to me.

Boydie

firemangeorge

My opinion. There are a lot of lower mileage SS's out there for sale. It would be a big gamble to buy something with that many miles. Lots of wear and tear on anything with that many miles. Not counting the engine, the suspension, brakes, transmission, interior, etc, etc have had a lot of use.
Unless your buying this as a fix up project car, I would look for something else.

feral

Thanks everyone. A lot to think about. I have the name and number of the last place the car was looked at before the dealership. I'm thinking of calling them and seeing if they'll tell me what they found. That's probably not something they'll do though. This carfax thing is new to me. The last car I bought was in 2001 and it was new, so nothing to look for there.

feral

We decided walk away from the high mileage SS. The interior looks great, only the pedals are worn. It's black and shiny... but we don't have cash around for the repairs that it would need.

I actually called the last couple of service places that were on the carfax. One looked it up and told me repairs that were made, the next said they needed the plate number to look it up. The last one was dealership that had the car in June. It showed they did an inspection, then the trail ended. The lady in the service department was very upfront with me. All her computer showed was the car was inspected, then sent to auction. It didn't say what if anything they found. I asked if it could have just been the high mileage. She said in my ten years here, we've never sent anything to auction only due high mileage. She said they send a car when it needs a repair that they don't want to do. So the car lot that has it now bought it from auction.

So I'll just keep looking and hopefully my current car will last a little longer (oil leak that's not worth it to fix).

Oldblue

there is a real nice 09 SS for sale on the site, just saying!