Buying a 08 Eddie Bauer and need clarity, please

[SWADE23]

Hi all Happy New Year!
I own a 2k Expy that rusted out on the bottom of the truck and the mechanic said its time to let it go...
My wife drives the Expy and wanted another one, she didnt want to get a smaller SUV...

Spent my new years eve at Major World Auto Sales (any New Yorker knows this place lol)
They have/had a 2008 Expy Eddie Bauer for sale, I liked it because it only has 75k miles on it!! Every other Expy I found in my searches had well over 100k on the clock.
Went, took a look as it, has some normal interior wear but the leather was good, no rips/stains in the seats. Exterior is good for a 10 year old truck.
The Navi works but back up camera doesnt seem to function. Or at least I couldnt get it to.
The test drive went well.

The kicker is that when we took the car to get inspected, they hooked a hand held unit up to it and said it wouldnt pass because there were codes coming up. The head of service stated that mechanically the car is sound (because they worked on it before) but needed to be driven to clear the codes for emissions.

Today they said they would still need to keep it / work on it so that it passes emissions inspection.
Im told Thursday is pick up day...

Should I be nervous that this is happening? I feel like sometimes a car with low milage can be a gift or a curse.
The Expy came out to 12k with taxes, DMV fees etc...

What do you guys/gals think ??? We do want it, my wife isnt interested in looking at any other brands lol Price wise, this is what we can afford currently.

Thanks!

 

[Trainmaster]

I'm in Rockaway and two years ago bought a 2008 privately for about the same price. Mine's an XLT that was very clean with 72K miles. I searched for quite a while too and had the same luck as you. Not much out there with low mileage, even at the dealer auctions.

My 2000 SSV rotted out also in the rear, and while it looked great, with 250K miles, it was time to go.

As you probably know, New York emissions inspection requires certain parameters to be met before the DMV computer permits an inspection. When there's a "Check Engine" light reset or a new battery installed, a certain number of "drive cycles" must be performed before a State test will be valid. That's probably why the dealer's holding onto the car. They are driving it to accomplish the proper drive cycles for system readiness after performing a repair or after changing or charging a battery.

I wouldn't worry about it. In New York, every used car sold by a dealer with 75K miles comes with a 60 day, 3000 mile warranty. Here's what's covered by that:
https://ag.ny.gov/consumer-frauds/used-car-lemon-law-fact-sheet

You may consider a power train warranty from Ford after those 60 days. An on line dealer like Lombard will sell you a 3-year, 30K warranty for about $1200. Lombard Ford's site has a good description of the options. They'll even finance the warranty interest-free for a year.

If you've researched this site, you know the weak points for 2008 cars and the engine date when Ford began installing the improved engines in that year. Also check the rocker panels for rust. Use this knowledge to get your best deal.

The optional back up camera on the 2008 has a screen on the rear-view mirror, not the navigation screen. If you have the navigation on the 2008 it's a pretty good system though the DVD drive is somewhat prone to problems.

Good luck with your new car! Your wife has good taste. I absolutely love my 2008.

 

[SWADE23]

@ Trainmaster Thanks so much for your input. It puts me more at ease.
I appreciate the link to the lemon law as well as the info for Lombard.

We really like the truck and hopefully come Thursday I get a call saying we're good to go.

Funny enough when I put the truck in reverse I always looked at the navi screen expecting the back up cam to turn on. Never did I look in the rear view lol.

One of the first things I did was check underneath for rust, there is a little but I dont think its bad for its age. Waaay better than my rusted out 2000.

 

[TobyU]

The dealer probably reset the light as it helps to sell them.
Most scanners today will tell you when readiness tests are complete.

I assume you will get a check engine light soon enough.
You can check the pending codes and maybe find it there.

The misfires is first to check. Then the rest.
The evap and converter and egr codes can take several drive cycles to test.
They either pass and the readiness will be good or it fails and pops a code.

Scanners are online even harbor freight for under 50, often under 30.
Also many obd port dongles you plug in and use phone.
Just make sure it tell readiness indicators.

 

[TobyU]

Hi all Happy New Year!
I own a 2k Expy that rusted out on the bottom of the truck and the mechanic said its time to let it go...
My wife drives the Expy and wanted another one, she didnt want to get a smaller SUV...

Spent my new years eve at Major World Auto Sales (any New Yorker knows this place lol)
They have/had a 2008 Expy Eddie Bauer for sale, I liked it because it only has 75k miles on it!! Every other Expy I found in my searches had well over 100k on the clock.
Went, took a look as it, has some normal interior wear but the leather was good, no rips/stains in the seats. Exterior is good for a 10 year old truck.
The Navi works but back up camera doesnt seem to function. Or at least I couldnt get it to.
The test drive went well.

The kicker is that when we took the car to get inspected, they hooked a hand held unit up to it and said it wouldnt pass because there were codes coming up. The head of service stated that mechanically the car is sound (because they worked on it before) but needed to be driven to clear the codes for emissions.

Today they said they would still need to keep it / work on it so that it passes emissions inspection.
Im told Thursday is pick up day...

Should I be nervous that this is happening? I feel like sometimes a car with low milage can be a gift or a curse.
The Expy came out to 12k with taxes, DMV fees etc...

What do you guys/gals think ??? We do want it, my wife isnt interested in looking at any other brands lol Price wise, this is what we can afford currently.

Thanks!

Wait though. I'm confused.
I assume you go to garage that works on cars to get inspection?? That's always terrible. Talk about a conflict of interest...I mean racket supported by the state.

They want to get you for a bunch of repairs. Tell them to BITE YOU!!

Go scan the codes at auto parts store. You need to reset them though and then see what pops or is pending.
Get a scanner now! These shops will take you for 100's if not 1000's in repairs if you let them.

You could need a simple 17.00 O2 sensor. I recently bought a clean low mile navi from a dealer it had light coming on too. Just one code. Any garage would have gotten me for well over 100.00 to diagnose and fix. My price...17.00 ebay. Local was like 30+.
Even the big three parts stores are smoking crack.
I NEVER need an O2 sensor in a hurry.
I won't pay them a premium to have it now.

 

[bobmbx]

Hi all Happy New Year!
I own a 2k Expy that rusted out on the bottom of the truck and the mechanic said its time to let it go...
My wife drives the Expy and wanted another one, she didnt want to get a smaller SUV...

Spent my new years eve at Major World Auto Sales (any New Yorker knows this place lol)
They have/had a 2008 Expy Eddie Bauer for sale, I liked it because it only has 75k miles on it!! Every other Expy I found in my searches had well over 100k on the clock.
Went, took a look as it, has some normal interior wear but the leather was good, no rips/stains in the seats. Exterior is good for a 10 year old truck.
The Navi works but back up camera doesnt seem to function. Or at least I couldnt get it to.
The test drive went well.

The kicker is that when we took the car to get inspected, they hooked a hand held unit up to it and said it wouldnt pass because there were codes coming up. The head of service stated that mechanically the car is sound (because they worked on it before) but needed to be driven to clear the codes for emissions.

Today they said they would still need to keep it / work on it so that it passes emissions inspection.
Im told Thursday is pick up day...

Should I be nervous that this is happening? I feel like sometimes a car with low milage can be a gift or a curse.
The Expy came out to 12k with taxes, DMV fees etc...

What do you guys/gals think ??? We do want it, my wife isnt interested in looking at any other brands lol Price wise, this is what we can afford currently.

Thanks!

I suspect someone at the dealership or the previous owner cleared the codes just before selling it and it hasn't completed the drive cycle to set the monitor sensors as "Ready". Their scanner is probably telling them "This vehicle is not ready for emissions testing". The vehicle needs to be driven normally for a day or two. See the image below for an example (the EGR system is not ready):

 

[TobyU]

My point also. The dealer would have no reason to clear codes unless check engine light was on.
So as the OP drives the next 3-4 days the light will more than likely pop on.
But get far far away from any shop that does repairs!!

Let the light pop on and see where it takes you.
That light is the best diagnostic tool since the oscilloscope (think giant dealer sun tester)....much better in my opinion.
It points you way far down the road in the right direction. Only mistake people make when new to codes is throwing parts at it for whatever the sensor the code is using.
The sensor can be perfectly fine and sensing the problem. You have to use online and other people's experience to find what it giving the sensor that input.

Biggest one I think is P0420 , P0430.
So many people replace o2 sensors since this is the sensor sensing the out of spec reading. Usually the sensor is just doing it job and it has too much unburned fuel going through it or weak converter.

I guess I'm hardcore pretty much against garages. I don't know why. No experience where I was hosed by them. No childhood fear of them.

I started in old thick dark blue Motor Repair Manuals when I was about 12. This was in the 80s. The newest book I had covered up to 1973 maybe 74. Which was good because cars sucked from 73 on anyway.
I sat for hours on the couch looking at grilles and HP numbers for 70 and 71 454s, 426s, 440s.
My old book was like 35-50. I still have them both.
3 years later when I was 15 we brought a 1949 Lincoln Cosmopolitan 4 door suicide rear door sedan out of storage that my Dad bought when my Mom was 9 months pregnant with me.
47k original miles. Flathead 337 V-8.
It sat for17 years in storage. Tires still had air in them and we towed it home with the bumper almost dragging the ground.

Rebuilt carb (2v horizontal), plugs and wires cap rotor points, 4 new hydo-lectric power window cylinders and 1 for seat, gas had congealed so had to pull tank and have it boiled out and dipped/ sealed and they added a corner drain plug, ran a coat hanger through fuel line from back and front as far as we could. We didn't even have compressed air back then so we used a bike pump to blow since it was stronger than a mouth.
Canister oil filter and 30 ND oil and new super wide fan and generator belts and new 6v (positive ground) battery.....and fired it up.

Had to add cheap fuel filter on rubber line before carb (easiest place) For about week I had to stop every 20 minutes or so and pull of filter and blow it out backwards on the ground. Lots of crap.
Then it cleared up all the fuel line stuff and I drove it all over.
Had to put new diaphragm in fuel pump that I made myself from a fee piece fuel impermeable rubber that the local runner place gave me.
Kit in the master cylinder. MAN were brakes dangerous back then!!!
Couple of wheel cyl kits and had the shoes relined locally. Can't say I'm a fan of that but they worked. A few generator springs that I kept in the glove box just in case. The a FM converter so I could hear tunes driving around. Had the old AM giant tube radio.

Body was rust free and straight. Interior very respectable with only slight run thru on corner of front seat. We put a throw on it so inside looked perfect.
Perfect for brown mohair interior is pretty bad let me tell you.

I wanted to paint it black and flame it. I had probably seen Grease too many times.I even thought about candy apple red.
We had all the chrome redone that needed it (4 piece wrap around bumpers!!!) and
had it painted. I don't know why we didn't just buy a compressor and do it ourselves. We could have laquered it even or whatever but wet sanded it all out and would have been a lot cheaper. My Dad wasn't adventurous.
He insisted on original color or to keep value...oh well. He paid for it. I was 15

I learned to drive on this 6000lb ( I swear it had to be) no power steering stick shift monster!!
Practiced turning it off on a hill and taking off. Learned how to push start. Not like you could push it without 4 people or a car.

We cruised around in it and went out to eat and stuff.
I took it to high school my a couple of times and gave some rides in it.

Kept it for almost 20 years after that then sold it still running fine with 56K miles.
Body still solid but needed paint. Guy was from Sidney OH and was going to chop the top and go a cool color. I never got to see it since.

So from Motor manuals to Chiltons, to Haynes...then the internet.
BEST THING EVER. The last haynes I bought was I think is for a 90-up town car but before 97 when they new it was last year. Probably 90-94.

Had a few guys from the race track that would talk about repairs or give you advice.
Lots worked on cars but getting free advice was pretty rare.

I was on AOL forums remember those???I think usenet started it all and AOL copied.

I loved those and was sad when they disappeared but now I don't know what we did without forums like this one!!!

I went back and put that in bold because if you skip most of my late night ramble above....DON'T MISS THE BOLD.

You guys are all awesome on here!! We are all geniuses sometimes and idiots at others.

If we get on here and talk about it enough we will solve SOMETHING. Maybe not the thing we started out to do....definitely not me. As you can tell I can stay on topic for 30 seconds...SQUIRREL!!

Thanks to all and to all on other forums like this one.

YOU ROCK!!!!

 

[SWADE23]

Morning!

Thanks for the input guys!
Just to be clear there was no check engine light that I saw when viewing/ test driving the truck.
Acceleration was smooth and when I hit the gas it responded fine. Though it idled a little funny at some point but maybe thats just me... It was also on an empty tank.
The place selling the truck is a huge facility with its own on site repair shop. We went there and met with the guy in charge who initially had the truck tested before inspection. Thats when they said there are 3 codes that popped up.

 

[bobmbx]

Morning!

Thanks for the input guys!
Just to be clear there was no check engine light that I saw when viewing/ test driving the truck.
Acceleration was smooth and when I hit the gas it responded fine. Though it idled a little funny at some point but maybe thats just me... It was also on an empty tank.
The place selling the truck is a huge facility with its own on site repair shop. We went there and met with the guy in charge who initially had the truck tested before inspection. Thats when they said there are 3 codes that popped up.

It would be helpful if you could provide those codes.

 

[TobyU]

So you haven't purchased the truck yet? They are wanting to make sure everything's good to go before you pay for it and drive away? That would be a good thing. But in most used car lots where they have a small garage or not, they reset the lights so people don't see them and ask questions or makes them afraid. Many codes won't come back on during a normal test drive. Shops that do repair work are more than happy to fix all kinds of things that may or may not really be necessary to keep the check engine light off.

If you already have a set price and they're doing stuff to it, more power to them.
I just hadn't found and honest to use car dealership yet. I don't plan on it. There is a chance at a large place like that a really good manager or sales person with some real clout to go above and beyond to take care of someone if they wanted to but this is definitely not the norm.