My wife and I recently bought a 97' SC2, 117,000 miles. It runs good, starts easily and drives great. I had to put a new valve cover gasket to fix the massive oil leak but that took care of the leak problem.

It has the DOHC 1.9L, automatic and quite a few power options, AC, etc..

It was obviously a kids car, they painted the hood, trunk lid, outside mirrors and alloy wheels flat black. It also had a kids sub woofer stereo installed but that is gone now, I would have no interest in that anyway. I'll get it back to looking stock as I have time to spend on it. I know that since I think it was a kids car it may have been abused but by the way the engine runs and sounds and how it drives it makes me feel it will be some good dependable transportation for awhile.

I was curious if any here have suggestions on things I should watch for or specific things to do more than GM's suggested maintenance?

We like the little car so far and only paid $1100 when similar cars are selling for around $2400 in our area. It seems to be good, cheap transportation for now.

 

The plastic radiator likes to crack at the top on the drivers side. Check it. Also check the water pump for any sign of leaking. Make sure the coolant bottle cap holds the proper pressure. The item that cause more problems than any other is the ETCS and connector. Replace both and get them from the DEALER not AdvanceNapaCheckerZone or PetesParts&Plumbing. Next item that gets replaced with something that does not work properly are the spark plugs. Get the correct part number and use only NGK spark plugs as was installed by the factory.

 

New spark plugs were one of the first things I did and yes I bought the NGK plugs. That little 1.9L runs real nice but I think it could use some good highway miles to clean the engine internally and would probably improve the gas mileage. It was missing the spare tire and jack when we bought it so I went to my local pick'npull and got those out of a 98 SL, they are like brand new, never touched the ground so we can now take it out for a drive with some confidence.

I haven't changed the oil yet but I am not very worried since the valve cover gasket was leaking so bad that anyone driving it was changing the oil every month just to keep oil in it. I think they thought they had a serious engine problem since they cleaned the engine to hide the oil leak when they sold it. By the time we put 50 miles on it there was oil filling the #1 and #2 spark plug holes with oil all over the engine. It was a mess but none of that showed when we test drove it. It doesn't seem to use any oil now that I fixed the leak.

I'll watch for coolant leaks but it seems to be in good shape so far.

 

Keep oil in it and you'll get 200k no problem

 

check once a week -- seriously -- till you know how much it consumes.

Crankcase only holds 4 Qts so do not let it down more than 2/3 of a quart and you should be ok