New Member new to me 2000 GM

[EaOutlaw1969]

Hi My name is Kevin I live in Lake Worth Florida located in Palm Beach County Florida.

I have been looking for a GM for some time that I could afford and did not have a million miles on it.

Yesturday I picked up a 2000 Palm Beach edition white with blue top GM it has a blue interior with leather seats and digital cluster.

The car shows around 68,000 miles on it yet i question if the miles are accurate, more research to come.

I only paid 1200 dollars for it

As for me I am a disabled EX Automotive mechanic- computer and electronics repair technician.

I plan to sign up for Mitchell diy ondemand or alldata for diagnostic and repair data specs etc.

My plans for the car in the imediate future is to check over the car front to rear top to bottom to see what work it will need.

So far I know I need 4 tires ( they are bad from dry rot ) fluids and filters a master cylinder.

It has a ABS light on but I noticed the ABS control module was unplugged yet I could not get it plugged back in So I have to figure that out as well.

The car has the carraige top and large plastic trim panels down the car that dry rotted and fell of the car,

It seems I will have alot of cosmtic work to do to either have the top replaced or removed and works towards getting all the double stick tape of the side of the car so I can have some new
body side molding installed.

One other large chore will be is steaming the old nasty window tint of this car.

I have a lot of work coming my way, yet with my bad neck and back do not expect to see a lot of progress fast, but you should see quaility work at a slow steady pace as my neck and back allows me to tinker with this car.

But before any of this work starts like I said I will be checking the car over and taking lots of before and after pictures.

I am new to this forum but I have been and still am active on other forums, As a Ex Automotive technician I like to pitch in help where I can on these forums yet I tend to offer up more help to those that are willing to perform the diagnostic steps needed to find the source of the problem. People that are just looking for a magic part to replace to
fix a problem that should be diagnosed will not likley get any help from me.

Anyways I am glad to be here and I look forward to learn more about my new project and to try and help those in need.

[ZombieTown94]

Welcome fellow Floridian! Your car looks nice, and sounds like it will keep you busy for a while.

[87gtVIC]

Welcome to the forum Kevin

Good luck with your new purchase.

[VicCrownVic]

Welcome!

Sounds like you will fit in well here. The car looks great. I'm in Michigan where most cars that age are falling apart due to rust and rot.

[EaOutlaw1969]

Thanks for the welcome, I spent a little time on it today I was going to pull it in the garage to start looking it over but my plans were sidelinded by a dead battery.
I spent the day giving the 7-2017 battery a good slow charge and checked the charging system, tommorow I will check for exessive current draw ( my guess is the car has sat too long )
Anyways while charging the battery i decided to work on the cosmetics to see if I could clean up the top to make it look somewhat better till I deal with removing or having it replaced.
I also used my wifes steam cleaner to remove some of the adhesive strips from the long gone body side modling.
While I had the steamer out I removed the nasty window film from the quarter window, only to find the previous owner must have used a file to remove a gate bar code stick from out side of the quarter window.

It is going to be a lot of work but it seems like the old girl will clean up pretty good.

I am thankful it still has the orginal paint.

Here are some pictures I took this morning and when my back and neck was done for the day.

[87gtVIC]

Never thought of a steamer being a useful tool for removing old dried up stubborn double-sided tape.

[VicCrownVic]

Looking better already. I was thinking that the top did not look very blue when I saw the pictures in the first post. What a difference a little TLC makes.

[IPreferDIY]

Welcome!

The condition of the driver's seat does not seem grossly inconsistent with 68,000 milles. What's making you think the mileage might be wrong?

[Rodentkiller]

Welcome to GMN and you have a nice car, get some Saddle soap and leather condishioner for the seats and good luck from a lady auto repair technition who is also disabled.

[EaOutlaw1969]

Never thought of a steamer being a useful tool for removing old dried up stubborn double-sided tape.

On the drivers side fender i used wd-40 and goof off and a old debit card yet still managed to pull off a few spots of paint.

Using the steam method only, both large strips on the passenger rear door came off with no missing paint, then I just used a little goof off on a rag to wipe off the residual

I cut up my finger some and steamed them a few times which I did not know I did until my fingers were soaked in goof off ( wow that sucks LOL )

I just saw a video demo of a tool that buffs off the tape yet there is a good chance to mess up the paint so for now I will stick with my method unless someone else has a better idea.

https://youtu.be/X5P7w9vPYwY

[EaOutlaw1969]

For sure this top had a lot of baked in dirt and grime, I used soft scrub and a plastic bristle brush the dirt and some color just rolled off the top.
This left the somewhat clean area very dry and chalky looking so i soaked it down with Armor all ( but then I read on here I should have not used Armor all i probably should not have used soft scrub but I used what i had on hand )

I figured since the top will get replaced or removed I could not hurt it much.

[EaOutlaw1969]

the seat has more sun damage than wear, the brake and gas pedals look like they have minimal wear even the carpet looks in great shape, yet The odometer and title mileage does not match.

The title reads 76,000 exactley and the car has 68 and change on it.

I think when the last person that titled this car they just made up a number in their head from memory and did not check the mileage on the car.

I say this because what is the chance of anyone titling a car with exactley 76000 miles on it? I could see for example 76,189 or something like that but 76000 exactley seems like something a lazy car aucrion dealer would do to a low priced car.

Today i will pull a carfax report and post my findings.

I just ran the free Carfax report which is not the same format as I am used to with the paid report however it also shows a duplicate title was printed on 04/17/2017
on that date the mileage was reported as 76,000

Yet the free Car fax shows the mileage as 79,445 and also is reporting the color of this car as bronze.

I guess I need to did deeper

[EaOutlaw1969]

Welcome to GMN and you have a nice car, get some Saddle soap and leather condishioner for the seats and good luck from a lady auto repair technition who is also disabled.

I will be looking for a lower seat foam replacement and front seat upholstry, The drivers seats are sun baked and faded plus the drivers seat bottoms has some cracks in the leather that go all the way through.

Yet the seats will be way down on my priorty list until I find out exactley what this car needs.

I am sorry to hear your also disabled I can tell by your post count that you also like to help others which is very cool of you in this pay to play world we live in.

[DerekTheGreat]

...It is going to be a lot of work but it seems like the old girl will clean up pretty good.

I am thankful it still has the orginal paint...

White and black are the most durable pigments since they're inorganic. White being the most durable as it reflects most of the harmful UV rays so it's even easier on the clear coat. Top doesn't even look that bad.

Interesting about the color discrepancy with the title, is there any evidence of it being gold in say the door jambs, under the trim or trunk insulation? Maybe the title has the VIN wrong?

[EaOutlaw1969]

White and black are the most durable pigments since they're inorganic. White being the most durable as it reflects most of the harmful UV rays so it's even easier on the clear coat. Top doesn't even look that bad.

Interesting about the color discrepancy with the title, is there any evidence of it being gold in say the door jambs, under the trim or trunk insulation? Maybe the title has the VIN wrong?

The color is 100 percent orginal with orginal paint everywhere. the only part that has been painted and or changed that I can see is the rear bumper, it has a crappy paint job on it and is the dual exhaust bumper the car has single exhaust.

I found few more sites to run the VIN NICB shows a clean history and the car has not been reported stolen

I am still researching to try and get to the bottom of this mileage issue.

I am guessing now, that the car was sold in not running condition on or around 4-17-2017 ( which expllains the new battery with close to the same date on it. )

This car has the digital dash and with a dead battery and someone whom does not care about the car selling it and having to get a copy of the title I can see where they would guess at the mileage.

Yet why is Carfax showing 79,445 HMM the reseach continues.

I think it is safe to say the miles on this car is not high even if someone swapped out a PCM, instrument cluster etc

I will be looking for recent signs of work