Kay so a buddy of mine bought a 1995 dodge caravan (I know, not a ranger, I own 2 :P) anyways he was driving it and it stopped running, smoked and then had to have it towed. It had next to no oil. Now he's offering to sell it to me for 250$ whole thing. (Canadian dollars btw) only has 125,000 miles on it. Is there anything you can do to fix that? I haven't had a chance to look at it yet b ut I know the interior and everything is really good. Not much rust at all and any that is there is all surface rust.

I don't plan on keeping it, but working on it and reselling.

Is there any fix?

Apparently when you try to start it it clicks, but doesn't turnover.

So, do you think it's seized? :s

 

Sounds like it is seized. I have never had a dodge mini van, but everyone I know that has had one had nothing but trouble with it. The transmissions aren't very good from what I've heard.

 

yea, those are horrible for trans. the 3.3 was a decent motor though. i had one in a 91 dynasty and my trans was fine. it had some ***** too. i think i chirped 2nd once or twice. one weekend i drove 2 hours to camping, drove home worked then went back up at the end of my shift and came home the next day.

 

Seized motor, trans are junk in those, but is it worth fixing? All depends, are you capable of putting a new motor in it? What do motor's for it run around your area from junk yards? Is there a good resell value around your area for it? If you can do the work and make a good profit on it, hell why not go for it..

 

The reason I brought up the transmission is: Say you buy it put a new motor in, and its running pretty good sitting in the yard. So you take it for a test drive and the transmission goes out on the test drive because they are designed to fail just over 100k or just not very good one or the other. So there you are broke down on the side of the road, out the money for the van and the motor....man I'm a pessimist.

 

I doubt it'll be worth the effort or money put into it.

 

they do pretty well in van derbies, thats my vote, swap the engine and wait for derby season haha

 

I'd offer him $200. Blue Book on it is $2400-2600. Plenty of room for profit, even if you need to rebuild the engine.

Then again, I can make a profit off of it.

The question is, can you? You need to be able to do all the repairs yourself, and either have a corporate account with a parts store, or know someone who does, so you can get the "at-cost" price of parts. If you pay over-the-counter prices, you'll never make a profit.