wondering how many miles I can squeeze out of this poor-man’s Mercedes.
IF you take care of all scheduled maintenance on time, drive it easy, repair issues right away when they arise, and not get it wrecked in an accident, and not have the body rust out…I’d say anywhere from 150,000-300,000 miles. Granted pretty much any car today that’s taken care of properly should make it at least 150,000 miles
The man who drove a Volvo P1800 3 million miles considered engine and transmission replacement as maintenance items so rust, collisions,and your pocketbook are the only limiting factors.
Got one, stick shift and 170,000 miles. Love that Bugatti Atlantic design…
Total repairs have been, crank position sensor and drive belt idler pulley gave out about 100K, headliner sagged about 120K and the spoiler started losing it’s paint about 150K, all simple fixes you can do yourself for well under $100…
Mine is a daily driver in the salt belt and no issues BUT do your maintenance, keep it washed and use quality parts and fluids. Regular maintenance, oil change every 6,000 miles (Mobil 1 0-50), premium gas, plug change at 100K, keep it clean and you should be good to go .
2 Likes
It’s a sixteen year old car. No car that old is reliable in the traditional sense. Anything that goes wrong is maintenance now; there are no more repairs. If you want one, find one in superior condition with all the maintenance and repair paperwork. If possible, find a one owner car, or at most two owners before you. good engine without oil leaks, tight suspension. Those will show that the owner(s) have taken good care of the car. Don’t expect to find this quickly and expect to pay top dollar for it.
Back when I traveled way too much for work, I picked a Crossfire convertible out of the lineup. I had it for a week in LA and enjoyed it thoroughly. Note that if you put the top down, the trunk almost disappears. I had enough room for two briefcases side by side, but not my rollaboard suitcase. That rode in the passenger seat when the top was down. Still, a lot of fun.
You should be able to find an older Consumer Reports “Used Car Guide” in your public library which will show which systems tend to be problematic for that car. Might provides a heads ups what to keep an eye on anyway. I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t be able to get 200K miles out of that car before any major trouble brews. Depends on how gently you drive it of course. When it hits the 20 year old range, you’ll have to start worrying about deteriorating rubber and plastic components, but that’s not for a few more years.
My two vehicles are an early 70’s Ford truck and early 90’s Corolla, both in the 200K miles range.
Chryslers don’t have a good reputation for reliability long-term, but in this day and age even below average reliability can be tolerable if you like the car. We’ve had a couple Chrysler minivans and both have gone over 150,000 miles without stranding us.
Do you own it, or are you considering buying one?
A nice thing about the Crossfire is that “under the skin” it’s built in Germany by MB / Karmann with all MB parts that were used across all their models…
Workmanship is good and after market parts are inexpensive and easily available as long as the body holds up.
Interesting. An artifact of Mopar’s corporate convolutions? Older MBs seem to hold up better than older Chryslers, according to CR. Enjoy this unique vehicle!
The car had an interesting history.
After MB’s acquisition of Chrysler, Chrysler needed a replacement for their Prowler, a retro 1950’s hot rod design and MB was bringing out their new generation of the 230 SL. Instead of redesigning all new tooling for a low production Chrysler, they simply designed a new body freely borrowing styling cues from the Bugatti Atlantic and stuck in their 3.2 V6. Assembly was outsourced to specialty builder Karmann, now out of business but best known for the VW Karmann Ghia…
Lovely car but SUV’s were all the rage and nobody wanted a $30,000 small Chrysler sports car but Karmann had a contract so dealers were basically told, “If you want the hot selling Jeeps, you’re taking some Crossfires too.” so they started piling up on dealers lots and the port.
When the MB-Chrysler split finally happened the car was discontinued and new, 2 year Crossfires were unloaded at fire sale prices, even appearing on Overstock,com for about the price of a loaded Corolla
Today, when everything else looks like a truck or a bar of soap, the design really stands out and the price is still very reasonable but with relatively low production and the cars now outside the 10 year window, I can see a future problem getting reasonably priced body parts. Get into a fender bender with traditional insurance and there’s a good chance the car will be totaled