what's it worth

[spdfreq]

i have found a 83 hatch back eagle in a garage that has been their since the very early 90's the care is complete and all original the body is in mint i mean show room condition the original owner pulled the engine to do a rear main seal on it and never put it back together.my question is whats it worth, i don't want to over pay for the car but the guy who owns it is a childhood friend(that's how i know the above was true ) and don't want to rip him off.

[83Eagle!]

Worth of  Eagles is a hard thing to judge.  If it is in showroom condition that means a lot to Eagles.  I would be hard pressed to pay a lot for a car that needs an engine installed.  Granted you could go through the engine prior to install and get everything updated or rebuilt that needs it. 

Eagles honestly, seem to be worth what people are willing to pay for them.  The ones that match people's budget and are in a reasonable location seem to move quickly.  So it is really hard to tell what it is worth. 

A friend of mine bought a car that had been in storage for a long time.  She had pretty good luck with it.  All it needed was some brake adjustment, fuel tank flushed and an oil change.  Then it was good to go.  But it was in storage for 2 years. 

[MontanaEagle]

5 bucks

[amc78concord]

5 bucks

Seriously? 5 bucks? No.

Showroom condition could bring upwards of $3,000 or more.  By the word "hatchback" you must mean SX/4...one of the most sought after of the Eagle family.

[priya]

Consider this, I spent aproximately 1000 hours doing rust repairs and paint on my SX/4 and while it's pretty good, its not as good as showroom mint - what's my time worth, at least $10 or more likely $20 per hour?  What I did was the equivalent of paying $20,000 for a nice solid body.  I don't consider an engine a very big deal, the vast majority of the labour and cost in a restoration is in body work if there is a substantial amount needed.  I'd say a showroom mint SX/4 with complete good interior is worth at least $2000, even if it needs a motor.  If I had the chance to do it over again and the opportunity to buy a showroom mint body for $2000 or even $3000 I'd be all over that.  I'd say a showroom mint car with the entire drivetrain in very good running condition is worth $4000 or more so consider what you think it would cost to get it in very good running condition.  Admittedly bargain hunters can sometimes find such cars for less, but on the other end of the spectrum someone recently posted a couple of Eagles in excellent shape at a dealership for the asking price of around $10000 - $11000.  One of them sold for near that price.

Having said all that, before you make an offer make sure the body is in as good of shape as you think it is.  I thought my SX/4 body was in pretty good shape until I took the plastic body cladding off and pulled up the carpet - all the nasty stuff was hiding under there and it needed a lot more work than it appeared with the car together.  Take a pointy object like a scratch awl, and put it all along the inner rocker panels and give it a light hit iwth a hammer.  If it goes through the panel is bad, if not it should be fine.  Do the same on the floor boards.  Unless you've got very good reason to believe otherwise you need to pull the body cladding off and the carpet up to really check body condition.

[shaggimo]

Honestly, even if it is that good of shape outside, I wouldn't pay more than $1200.  Main reason, now you have to figure out how to put it back together, and hope nothing is missing. A car that has sat for almost 20 years is bound to have other issues as well (even though it sat inside), if it is an auto, plan for the tranny to not last long (seals can dry out), if manual you may get lucky, . I'd bet all the bushings have seen better days too. Who knows what may have made a home in there. Unless you take a real thorough look at the car, inside and out,  I wouldn't make any high dollar offers.

[68AMXGOPAC]

Or you could pay that much for a running one, and have a tree fall on it before your turtlebutt got there to pick it up.............

[priya]

Honestly, even if it is that good of shape outside, I wouldn't pay more than $1200.  Main reason, now you have to figure out how to put it back together, and hope nothing is missing.

If all that is apart is the motor, that's not a big deal.  Even if motor parts are missing its not a big deal to find and buy a complete 258 for rebuilding.

[El Matador]

the guy who owns it is a childhood friend and don't want to rip him off.

By that same token, he shouldn't rip you off either.  I'm not saying he would do it on purpose of course, but don't feel obligated to grossly overpay because you're buying from a friend.

Having said that, if he knows the history of the car from day one (or at least a long way back) and it has no history of abuse or anything like that, then that is favorable and warrants a bit of extra money.  Based on what you describe I'd go high teens ($1800 or $1900), but only if the body truly is as pristine as it appears to be.

An Eagle that looks great on the top side can be downright ugly (rusty) underneath.  Look it over very carefully, especially if you live in the rust belt.

[thereverendbill]

500 bucks is the most you should pay for the car ....... that is being nice because you have to consider that all of the fluids need to be changed it will need tires, lines have probly gone bad, brakes will need gone over and probly replaced.  My big question is by "showroom condition" you mean the frame still has the factory undercoat and no rust? Or the body is stright and paint still shiney?

[shaggimo]

Honestly, even if it is that good of shape outside, I wouldn't pay more than $1200.  Main reason, now you have to figure out how to put it back together, and hope nothing is missing.

If all that is apart is the motor, that's not a big deal.  Even if motor parts are missing its not a big deal to find and buy a complete 258 for rebuilding.

You're right it's not a big deal if there may be fasteners or brackets missing, but a hassle nonetheless. What I'm trying to say I guess, lol, is how well does the purchaser know these vehicles? That can make a big difference upon reassembly. I know if I had bought one in pieces, I'd have a heck of a time putting it back together, especially if walking into a project like that with little to no knowledge of the vehicle at hand (I've been down that road before with a car that had the frame rails and floors butchered out of it, and never put back in correctly, made for many headaches, lol). As a selling point, it makes it hard to get a good buck from an aborted project car. For example, say if Eaglegirl were to sell the sx4, I wouldn't expect that car to bring a whole lot, it runs and drives excellent (both can be proven), looks ok, but it is an incompleted project car (still needs a good amount of work), maybe 2500-3000 at the very most. A car that can't prove itself as a "good" driver significantly less.......jmo of course, lol.

[3 Eagle Feathers]

I think I would side with Priya in the $2K and up range. If it's been kept clean and dry for almost 20 years, indoors with minimal sun exposure it's likely worth all of that. You will likely have your share of seals, gaskets and bushings to replace from drying anyway and as others have said, doing the engine is miinor in the grand scheme of things. In the end you could end up with a pretty special car. I think most os us would love to own an SX that's been sitting in a jar for 20 years!!

In fairness to the seller (especially if he's a friend) I don't think you would be doing him wrong at $2K and you would end up with a great buy. Less is always better so I would ask you, who do you want to be the winner here?

[spdfreq]

the motor is complete only had 35000km on it when rear main seal started to leaksoaked the soaked the clutch disc. the rear main was replaced and a oem clutch disc and pressure plate come with it.it has been stored inside since the day it was new . and I'm not worried about paying to much he is giving me the car (wants it out of the garage,if i don't take it it's going for scrape) I'm looking for what it might be worth on open market so i can give him enough to cover karma

[priya]

Honestly, even if it is that good of shape outside, I wouldn't pay more than $1200.  Main reason, now you have to figure out how to put it back together, and hope nothing is missing.

If all that is apart is the motor, that's not a big deal.  Even if motor parts are missing its not a big deal to find and buy a complete 258 for rebuilding.

You're right it's not a big deal if there may be fasteners or brackets missing, but a hassle nonetheless. What I'm trying to say I guess, lol, is how well does the purchaser know these vehicles? That can make a big difference upon reassembly. I know if I had bought one in pieces, I'd have a heck of a time putting it back together, especially if walking into a project like that with little to no knowledge of the vehicle at hand (I've been down that road before with a car that had the frame rails and floors butchered out of it, and never put back in correctly, made for many headaches, lol). As a selling point, it makes it hard to get a good buck from an aborted project car. For example, say if Eaglegirl were to sell the sx4, I wouldn't expect that car to bring a whole lot, it runs and drives excellent (both can be proven), looks ok, but it is an incompleted project car (still needs a good amount of work), maybe 2500-3000 at the very most. A car that can't prove itself as a "good" driver significantly less.......jmo of course, lol.

I agree that if a lot of the car is disassembled that's a major problem as there will be lots of parts chasing and that gets very time consuming and expensive.  If its just the motor a complete one needing a rebuild is cheap and relatively easy to find and that can provide missing brackets and so on without too much trouble.  I would never underestimate the value of a solid body, particularly one that does not need paint as if one cannot do a paint job oneself that's going to be $3000 - $5000 alone.  The trick is is the body really in as good of shape as it appears?  The only way to be sure is to remove the body cladding and carpet and check everything to see if you can poke a sharp object through .  Ideally one would remove most of the interior, but I suppose you could get a reasonably good idea by looking at the floor boards from underneath,  pulling the kick panels and door sill plates and peeling back the carpet to look at the upper part of the inner rocker panels.  My inner rocker panels looked pretty good from underneath, but when I removed the carpet the top part of the inner rocker panels was entirely rusted away.  If you're not going to do a thorough check I think it best to assume there's rust where you can't see it and tailor your offer accordingly.

[priya]

the motor is complete only had 35000km on it when rear main seal started to leaksoaked the soaked the clutch disc. the rear main was replaced and a oem clutch disc and pressure plate come with it.it has been stored inside since the day it was new . and I'm not worried about paying to much he is giving me the car (wants it out of the garage,if i don't take it it's going for scrape) I'm looking for what it might be worth on open market so i can give him enough to cover karma

Sounds promising.