No One Knows This is a Good Car, So You Can Buy One Dirt Cheap

rev up your engines, okay would you buy a toyota solara convertible that looked like this, this guy did and i'm going to show you why it was a smart move, this is a 2002 solara, they made him for nine years and sold in the united states and they stopped making them, but he got this thing for fifty five hundred bucks and only had sixty two thousand miles, he bought it years ago now it's got like ninety thousand miles on it, it had been wrecked and a guy had fixed it, but the guy did a pretty good job fixing it, and he is now in the process of wrapping it, you can see he's wrapped this, and he's going to wrap the rest of it, now he bought a wrap kit from amazon for like 700 bucks, and he says he's in it maybe 800 850 with all the other stuff that he's done to it, and when he's done it'll probably look really good, he just has to do the look, but i'll tell you one thing about wraps, they last a certain period of time and then they fade away, but for the money that he's spending, hey it's not a bad deal, you probably sort of cost to really paint a car you're talking three to six thousand dollars to get it done correctly, so if you don't mind putting the time in like he did, hey fades away do it again in five years time, that's up to you, but as for the car, you might wonder how these extremely reliable convertibles failed after nine years, you look at it these are basically toyota camrys right, originally they came out they were just sedans, but then they decided we're going to make a convertible, and a lot of people liked them, but the way the trends of the car business go, everybody started to want suvs, not sedans, and convertibles are becoming less and less popular, there's certain people who want them, and certain people who don't want them, especially up north in the winter they're colder, when you're driving a highway a lot you hear a lot of noise, if you've never been in a rag top, and this is a rag top, you can see it's all fiber, when you're driving down the road an 18-wheeler goes by, it sounds like they're in your back seat coming at you, a lot of people don't like that, but they stopped making them because of that, people want suvs, they're not that enamored of convertibles, and really the price point, this is a fancy camry, hence they cost a lot more than the camrys did, and they just kind of faded away, now this particular one was made in canada, and they do a very good job making cars in canada, there was nothing wrong with these cars, now some of the earlier ones did have leaky power steering racks, we had to replace the power steering rack, but i mean that's no reason not to buy a car, which is bad seals, and you could either get a remanufactured one, or used one, or brand new one if you wanted to spend more, it wasn't a reason not to buy a car, because when we look under the hood, it's got a toyota camry v6 engine, this is a three liter v6, same engine, my wife's lexus as300 has, and even though it has a rubber timing belt, he changed it because of age, this is not an interference engine, if you were driving on the road and that timing belt broke, the car would stop running, but it wouldn't damage the engine whatsoever, on some of the later model ones, they did have an interference engine with the rubber timing belt, but then toyota went back to timing chains, you didn't have to think about it, but this is a non-interference engine, so even if the stupid belt broke, it would not damage your engine, these things can basically run forever, and since this thing's only got like 90,000 miles on it, it's going to go a really long time, if you can pick up a convertible like this for the money that he paid, hey with that low mileage, i would definitely say jump on it, this thing still has most original everything, the AC still blows cold right, it's basically a toyota camry with a convertible top, as far as i'm concerned, it's one of the most perfect convertibles ever built, but a lot of people convertible they think sports car they want to be sporty, this is indeed a toyota camry, it's not a sporty car right, the handling of it leaves much to be desired, they run perfectly fine, but they're not tight cornering, they're a little on the sloppy side, that's why they came out with the fancy camry a few years ago, where you could get the racing camry, it had the same speed, same engine and everything, but it had an upgraded suspension, so you could ride it, and it had much tighter steering on it, this is just the old-fashioned camry front end that it'll go forever, but it's not a racing car, and so people that try to race around with it, they're gonna get themselves in trouble, because the handling isn't tight like a race car, it's smoother, so you know, you want a smooth ride in convertible, and you're not a maniac, car like this would be perfect for you, he did a pretty good job wrapping, he said it took him many hours to work on, you can see this has come off a little here, because somebody had repainted this with the wrong kind of paint, that's not sticking on here, that's why that's like that, but the rest of it, it looks nice, since it's convertible, he didn't have to do the top, and you can see, even though this is Rhode Island, hey the wheels are still in really good shape, these aren't the original wheels, these are aftermarkets, but he's had the car for years, and this came with the previous owner and put them on, now I'm going to show you how easy it is for the top, look at that, it even gets into my garage, you can see the driver's seat, the leather is indeed coming apart, just like my wife had a Toyota Cressida, and just like this, the seat came apart, he's actually buying a whole seat, he doesn't want to just put a cover, he's going to buy a whole seat for it, but as you can see, being a convertible, this was probably mainly driven by one person throughout its history, the back seats have nowhere whatsoever, and the passenger doesn't either, it's like a one-driver car, and basically a Toyota Camry, it has a transmission that is automatic, and it's completely dependable, not a racing transmission, but it will go forever with just minor fluid changes, so let's get my big computer on, see how this thing has held up over the last 23 years, here we go with the giant fancy diagnostics, we'll do auto detect, okay now it does a basic topology, because it's an older car, so we'll go through it all, while it's going through it, you can see the dash is still in excellent shape, except the seats are still in excellent shape, even the rug is in good shape, look it's the original solaric carpeting, it's a six disc cd changer, and yes this was a luxury car at the time, so it also has a tape deck, you may think why on earth does it have a tape deck, well because they realized back in the day, some business people use tape decks for business meetings, and for business training, so they kept these tape decks for quite some time, there's no usb plugs, you're gonna have to stick your own on this, no surprise, since it's just a rebadged Camry with a convertible top, it has no codes whatsoever, try this with an American car or a German car even worse, so let's look at a little bit of the data, look at live data, we'll start her up, we gotta remember black's good, red's bad, look at the short term fuel trim, minus 0.03, that means that it is three one hundredths of one percent off of perfect, on a car this old, they don't make them like they used to, let's just say it, leave it at that, the fuel trim okay, it's going between minus 0.03, well it's staying there now, so it's about the same right, that's crazy, it's just crazy how well built these things are, there's the fuel trim, you know 99.16, hundredths perfect, so it's not off too much either, no misfires of course, and as to be expected, this thing is in insane shape, as far as I'm concerned, it's not even broken in yet, because I mean let's face the facts, it's only got 89,926 miles on it, backup camera but you can pull one in if you really wanted to, I personally wouldn't worry about it, you can see how smooth it is, and here we go for a road test, now for an old car and he's bumping out Rhode Island roads, we'll see how that goes, and not bad, now you hear a noise in the back, but that's because he removed the sway bar to do some work, and he hasn't put it back on yet, so you got to get noise, the sway bar does serve a purpose back there, and one of it is to keep it from making all that noise, because it's not there, now we wait for the traffic to go by, and as you can see, smooth v6 acceleration, that's what made these cars, putting it into four cylinder cars was a mistake as far as I'm concerned, and really I mean, hey this still is a smooth luxurious car, with its wood trims still intact, now really there's nothing to complain about this car, the owner said, if you could drive a car that only cost you one to two thousand dollars a year to own it, you're making out like a bandit, and to drive a nice car like this even doubly so, the only problem is the odds are very slim that you're going to find a car like this like he did, with like 45,000 miles for the small amount of money that he paid, but still these things are good for two to three hundred thousand miles or even more, they'll be a lot more worn, but something like this, if you can find one, especially being a ragtop, even if you don't want it, you get a price like that, buy it, and you'll have people fighting over you, you can auction it off on ebay and make a lot more money, Toyota the ac still blonde, nice and cool, I mean what can you ask for it's a shame they don't make these cars anymore, but let's face the facts, Toyota's not a convertible company, most companies don't sell that many convertibles, most don't sell any anymore, but if you're looking for one, you can find one of these, hey believe you me, it will last a long time, and basically a Toyota Camry, getting parts for older ones is nothing, you get them on amazon, you got ebay, you can get them all over the place, because they're a very common car, and they share all kinds of stuff with other Toyota models, so now you know a little bit more about Toyota Solaris and how if you can find a convertible like this in that kind of shape, snapping up, maybe you don't want to wrap it yourself, have somebody else wrap it right, or get it painted whatever you want, for that kind of money, for a car that doesn't break down much, I would take this over any brand new one, let me tell you, because I know the technology that's in this can last forever, and it doesn't have turbos, it doesn't have GDI injectors with 1500 to 2500 psi pressure, got regular injectors, they're only like 45 psi, everything's going to last longer, and for a little bit better gas mileage on the modern cars, I'd take one of these things and drive it for 20 or 30 years, versus when that technology breaks down, it's kind of like your phone, oh my phone broke, I guess I'll go buy another one, well with the average new car being almost 50 grand, and he paid about one-tenth of it for that thing, and it's 10 times the car of the new one, there's no questions that that's what I'd buy, if you can find one, hey and to tell you the truth, even back then, Toyota knew how to rust proof their cars, right, this is a Rhode Island car, it's not rusted, Toyota knew how to rust proof them, even back then, sometimes you can even go back to 99 Toyotas don't have any rust on them, Toyota knows how to rust proof cars, if this had been an American car or a German car, it would be all rusted out, but this one isn't, but that said, no matter what kind of car you're looking at, if you're looking at it up north, jack it up in the air and see if it's rusty, you never know, they could have been wrecked, the coating could have come off and now they're all rotting away, salt destroys cars, but this one, hey it hasn't been touched, now if it would have had the original wheels, I guarantee you they would have had some corrosion on them, but these are aftermarket wheels, but they're over five years old, they still look pretty good, so they did a good job with the aftermarket wheels, you can find a car like this for that kind of money, jump on it, whether it's a sedan or a convertible, just realize one thing, if it is a sedan, pay even less, because convertibles always have a little bit higher resale value, the hardtops, that's just like a Toyota Camry, it's not going to go for much money, but for a convertible and that price range, hey you're looking for one, start looking for a Solera, if you can find one that doesn't have 500,000 miles on it, so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that Bell!