Car buying advice 2003 L series

[saturn_owner68]

I know of a 2003 saturn L 200 for sale its got 106,000 miles on it, its a 5spd stickshift and the lady wants $2000. The reason why shes selling it is she feels shes too old to drive now, she ran it out of gas, but after putting gas in it starts right up. Its a very tempting deal however that car would sell for twice that on craigslist. I feel like I would be taking advantage of a sweet old lady, yet at the same time I feel like running to the bank and buying the car. What would you all do?

[fdryer]

You get what you pay for...........

With 106k miles the engine is due for; (1)water pump since its inaccessible unless you replace the (2)timing belt, (3)spark plugs, (4)and fuel filter. Asking the owner if this was done may turn up as negative because its not considered after owning the car with little to no issues - dependable as all cars should be. If these weren't done then consider the money to pay someone to do this work unless you do it all yourself. The timing belt is a must so all the other items fall into line at 100k miles. Ignore it and..........................

Read the threads so you have some background history to fall on. If you don't find it here on Saturnfans you'll likely not find it anywhere.

[saturn_owner68]

Sorry about that this was posted in the wrong place, I thought Relay was the section where you get advice on saturn buying, I forgot that Relay was actually part of the saturn lineup lol! I dont know if this thread can be moved to the L series section. I went ahead and bought it, I was able to pull a couple plugs and they were clean. I took it for a smog test it passed with flying colors. Though still yet I will keep the waterpump and timing belt in mind, I probably should keep a fuel pump in mind as it was ran out of gas, fuel filter to.

[fdryer]

Hopefully you bought a good car for the long haul with periodic maintenance.

[cdp326]

No timing belt - it's the 2.2L with the chain.