6G Celicas Forums

Changed the coolant.
Draincock at the back of the engine block + radiator made it easy to get most of the old coolant out without multiple drains.

Thanks for the help.
Reliability is my main concern.
Solara is about a foot and 1/2 longer then the Celica and would be too big to fit 3 cars and my boat in my garage.
Reliabilty looks decent, will have to take a test drive and find out if it feels decent or if the automatic makes it a soulless appliance.

Looking to sell my '96 Miata track car and get a vert Celica so the whole family can enjoy.
My wife doesnt like driving manual trans cars, what is the auto like in the Celica GT?
What sort of life expectancy should i get out of it presuming the previous owner never had the trans serviced or fluid changed?
How expencive would getting a new auto trans be (ballpark) if I had to get a new/rebuilt one?

Sorry for all the questions but over the past 20+ years I have had 6 cars with manual trans and other then my s2000 needing second and third gear syncros done there have been no problems.

On the other hand I have had three auto cars. One couldnt decide what gear it wanted and kept changing up and down.
One needed the trans replaced about every 70-80k miles to the tune of about 4k.
My auto track car (not the miata) has a trans and oil cooler and has 173k miles on the original trans with over 600 laps at Virginia International Raceway track day events.

I just want to make sure I am not making a mistake looking into buying a 20 year old car.

Damn, hoped most Toyota wheels would me 5x100.
On vacation with only smartsphone so hard to look this stuff up.

Does anyone know if the 17" wheels from a Solara SLE will work on a Celica?

If so is anyone running them and willing to post a pic?

Have seen this blue vert around my area for a couple years now but this is the first time I saw it parked.
Was outside of the Best Buy in Garner, NC.

Nice set of rims and white instrument panel.
Left a note to visit the site. Hope he/she checks it out.

If you wanted turbo you shouldn't have gotten a BEAMS.

You just have some bugs to work out to get it running right.
You should probably get it on a dyno to see where you are standing.
Malfunctioning sensors are a nightmare, hopefully it's something simply like your SRI creating turbulent air.

Best of luck.

I didn't have a lot of time to mess around with the car seat and I'm sure I could have gotten it better situated if I took the time.
This post was more to ease my wifes mind with the car not having a latch system.

Long post, lots of questions, sorry.

Took my first test drive in a Celica vert this morning.
Drove a Celica hatch a few years ago so memory is fuzzy when making a comparison to the Celica vert I tested today but hopefully some of you guys can help me out.

Here is the one I looked at.
http://tinyurl.com/3qpwltm

For reference I have an '08 Cobalt XFE, I know the Cobalt has 10 more hp then the Celica but the Cobalt XFE has higher gear ratios for fuel economy so I figured performance would be about the same as they are close in weight.
The Celica hatch I drove a few years ago left me surprised with how sporty it was in comparison to the power it made. Not blindingly fast but more then I had expected.
Maybe this one has a run down engine and 190k miles has killed quite a few horses or maybe it was that with a passenger, kiddo, and the vert being heavier I was pulling around an extra 500 pounds, but it just seamed slow.

I'm hoping it was the engine being beat on as the car certainly was, several "minor" accidents that had fenders replaced resprayed. Frame looked good though.
I never ran it all the way up to red-line as it sounded fine up to about 4,000 rpm but once past that just sounded bad. I don't know, straining maybe, buzzy. Not knock but certainly not a sound I wanted to continue subjecting my ears to. My Cobalt doesn't make the worlds best engine note and when I run mine to red-line the last 1,000 rpms sound a little buzzy but I was actually worried about killing the Celica when I tried to wind out 2nd.

Throttle was a little different then what I am used to or remember on the hatch I drove. On my Cobalt and my wife's Malibu you get a nice smooth throttle that gradually and evenly increases revs as you press you pedal. On this one I had to push harder then what I'm used to in order to get any pedal travel and then it seemed to jump from idle speed to2k - 2.5k rps, after that point it increased pretty evenly. Are all manual Celica like this or could this be a sticky throttle cable or something?

Guy was nice enough to say I could take it for a day to get it checked out as the Celica is now a second car for him but when I asked if there was anything I should know about it he just said it is in the condition you would expect a 12 year old car to be in.
I'm surprised it is still running on the original clutch and seams to be in decent shape.
You can see how bad the drivers seat is in the pics on the listing and there are smaller tears on the passenger seat and some cracking and fading on the back seats.
Though I did find the the antenna motor is dead, the trunk release didn't work, and a few other minor things popped up, the paint was in a few different shades and there were a lot of scratches and two big squares that were all scratched up where it looked like a spoiler could have been mounted on the trunk but instead of at the rear of the trunk it was near the front. The rear bumper also looks like it got bumped as it no longer lines up strait, car had no rust though which was good, and surprising.

The motor for the top worked but once it got the top around 1/3 the way up it started sounding like it was straining. Is that normal or a sign that the motor is dying?


I'm sorry for all the questions but I'd just like to get as much info as I can as there are not many opportunities to test drive a manual vert around here.
It's hard to tell what is normal and what is something going wrong.

Guy went away for the weekend and I may take him up on his offer to have a mechanic check it out but I'm not sure if I want to pay $4,400 to get a almost 200k mile car and then still need to go junkyarding to get parts and then pay to have it repainted all one shade of red.

Opinions?

Was looking at a '99 vert this morning and the wife wanted me to hook up the front facing carseat as our daughter will be in it for the next couple of years.
With no anchor or latch system I could only use the regular seatbelt and even pulling it all the way out so it locks and putting my weight into it and feeding all the slack I could back it was way too loose to be acceptable.
The rear seats not being a flat bench don't help but the biggest thing is not being able to latch the top of the carseat to anything. There isn't even a headrest to secure it around.

Any of you with kids in a carseat have any sugestions?
This is going to be a third car so it won't be used all the time but I still need to make sure my daughter will be safe while in her carseat as well as when she graduates to a booster seat.

I agree the price is high, about $1,500 more then what I'd expect.
He must have set it at dealer price instead of private seller price.

I'll give a call tomorrow and see if I can check it out.

Havn't had a look at it yet but can I get some opinions on this car?

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.jsp?ct=p...;standard=false

I don't have one yet, thats whats wrong.

lol, thanks for confirming what I suspected.

Thanks for the great info everyone.

Once I'm done paying for two recent surgerys I'm planing on making a sporty sunday cruiser (third car) and with that setup it looks like I can lean into the car quite a bit more then stock without the wife complaining about the stiff ride like she did when we rented an Elise in Vegas.

BTW I like your TC wheels SwissFerdi.

Thanks for the pic.

Do you like how they ride?

I see in your profile you have sportline springs, how much did you drop? 1.5 inch?
Am I correct in assuming you didn't have any problems with rubbing?

Interested if anyone is running 215/45/17 tires and if you have any pics?

I know a lot of people running 215's usualy go with 40's but I don't want that low of a profile as there are some rough roads I have to drive on occasion.

You have any dyno runs with the beams?
I'm interested in what it puts down.

I'm in Clayton which is about 25 min east of Cary.

Looks like quite a few Triangle area people on here.

Good luck with the build.

The car looks great but as others have said the price is above market for a private seller.

First, you don't know if the engine was rebuilt or swapped and I'm guessing you have no paperwork on it either.
This will probably turn some people away reguardless of price.

The pink accents, though minor, may turn some guys away.

Tire size and how much tread is left is can impact price a bit and most buyers would want to know.


To get it sold in any reasonable time I would list it for $7,000 but accept $6,500 if offered.

If you are not in a hurry to sell and can fix up some of the small stuff on your list and you get the car state inspected before sale (I believe most state inspections are good for 90 days) that should alleviate some peoples concern over the condition of the engine and I would think you could stand firm at $7,500. Even if the state inspection runs out before you complete the sale a buyer should feel confident that they aren't buying somone else's problem.

Have you had the chance to get it on the dyno?

I'm hoping to do a Beams swap at some point in time. Always seems like others things come up though.

How long were you riding on the spare tire for it to blow? or was it low on air?

I would vote Skyline Drive/Luray VA

Thats what I was figuring but it's convincing the wife on spending an extra $1000 on rims and tires "when the car already has perfectly good tires on it".

I told her if I have to get rid of the S2000 I would be getting a 4 seater but it would be a project car.

If she had her way I would be driving a mini van (we have no kids yet) and buying a pop-up camper for it to tow.
;(

Right now I have a Honda S2000 that I will be selling and picking up a gen6.

Chances are I will be doing some improvements to the Celica to increase performance.
Selling the S2000 is not exactly my choice and I still want something I can throw around some twisty roads.

I have driven them before and know I will be doing some suspension work and want some good tires for them but I'm not sure if I should get a really good set of all season tires or get a set of summer only performance tires for the 17s I'm going to get and then put a cheaper set of all seasons that get decent snow traction on the stock rims for the winter?

I know with the S2000 if I hadn't had a winter beater car (which is very close to death) I know I would have needed a set of heavy snow tires and a larger life insurance policy if I even thought about driving in the snow.

I would assume that the Celica being FWD is better.

Any imput would surely be helpfull.
Thanks in advance.


-Fr3AkAzOiD