Checked out a 5 speed 3.0 today

[ripvanos]

A 2001 3.0 5 speed has been listed for sale locally to me for several months now so I decided to go check it out.

It was listed with a bad head gasket and the owner stated he cannot drive manual anymore. After discussing about how the diagnosis of the head gasket failure came to be I suspected that it may have not been the problem. Owner stated he saw the temp gauge going up and pulled the car over and shut it off. After their local mechanic replaced pretty much the entire cooling system (besides thermostat which is Motorad) it still kept climbing up in temp.

When I took a look at the car, it started up and ran fine after three months of sitting. A little bit of lifter tick but I believe it went away after a quick test drive. I’ll get to that later.

Couple things I was curious about:

The car has the singe axle air suspension in the rear. The car was very level, no rear suspension sag. the front shocks did not look to be leaking, but the car seemed to ride very stiff. The air suspension warning light was not on either.

The oil dipstick tube was completely loose. I went to check the oil and I pulled the dipstick out and there was nothing on it. That’s when I realized the tube wasn’t secure. This was a bit concerning and looking under the car it looked like there was some leaking from below that area, this could be oil filter housing gasket too, but it was visible immediately after the drive.

The clutch was a little unforgiving. The car has 215k miles on it, but the clutch was said to be replaced about 3 years ago along with a new flywheel. It felt very abrupt when it would engage and the bite point felt high compared to my ZF E46. Shifted great and didn’t seem to slip, so maybe no big deal.

I watched the coolant temp through the OBC menu on the test drive. Once it hit 100 degrees I hit the defrost on assuming the heat was on as well, but it didn’t really seem to have any impact on the coolant temperature increasing. It reached 120 right as I shut it off in their driveway. Not the brightest idea but the temp increased quicker than I expected. Engine felt completely normal otherwise. CEL was on for P0117 for coolant temp circuit low. I cleared it and it didn’t come back.

Should probably get it pressure tested huh? I’ll probably just take the risk with it since I’m looking to expand my engine repair knowledge and a head gasket is the next level. Just thought I’d document my experience checking out this rare gem!
If anyone has any advice on my concerns I’d love to hear them.

Vehicle options
Titanium silver metallic
Grey Montana leather
Birch poplar wood trim
Sports package
Cold weather package
Self leveling suspension
Xenon lights
Rear sun blinds

I’ll post pictures later, my phone won’t let me upload