I found an ad for a 2002 Grand Marquis with about 80k miles and a very attractive price. It says it drives great and has been well maintained. The pictures look pretty clean too. But right in the middle is this little sentence - "The oil appears to have a little water in it".
Is there any reasonable explanation for this that is not a serious reason to just walk away and not bother? Perhaps some condensation because it isn't driven much?
One thought is to do a block test on it to confirm no head gasket problems. If it passed that, could it be worth looking at?
And yes, I know "have a good mechanic check it out". I just want to be as thorough as I can vetting it myself and not waste the money on a mechanic if it's not worth the time.
Driving it around the block would be a good idea but I would most definitely take it out for at least 10 min to see if anything acts up.
This is not one of Scotty's videos but it will definitely help. Best of luck!!
That sounds really good almost too good to be true. However the grand marquis is not a very valuable car similar to the crown Victoria so price couldn’t be too much anyways, how much is the car if you don’t mind me asking? The things you want to check for on a panther car is the intake manifold for some reason they just fail commonly, as for the water it could be condensation but in the dip stick I don’t know, get it checked out for sure other than that you could have a very nice car with low mileage and it’s damn near bulletproof
They are asking $1,700 for it. It's about an hour away, so I don't want to waste the time getting there if the downsides are too high.
Ask the seller for a photo or video of what they’re referring to. In the photo/video, if you suspect it’s the head gasket/if water has entered or flooded the engine, just look elsewhere.
The good thing is the seller is honest about water being present in the oil. It’d be a nasty surprise to learn about it, after an hour’s drive..
