Wanting to come to the experts...there's a 91 automatic (150K miles) maxima in a car lot in my town. Guy said his bought it from his wife's cousin, who had bought it new. Sold it to one guy, that guy brought it back shortly after he bought it. It was then sold to a young guy who put 20K miles on it in 5 months. He repo'd it from that young man and now wants $1500 for it. Said when he has to repo, he just wholesales the car, and will be taking it to the auction next week. He said he expected to get about $1500 for it at auction. He says it has a loud hum when driving that he expects is either the axle going out or the throw out bearings. My son is looking for a maxima. Does this sound like a decent deal? If the problems are what he thinks they are, are these serious problems? He said he'd had an axle replaced on other cars and it was only a couple hundred dollars. It has had a new transmission put in before the original owner sold it. To me, pending whatever the young man who put 20K on it in 5 months...sounds like it was a sound car as it has all the maintenance records. My fear would be did the young man drive it into the ground during the 5 month he had it. Opinions appreciated.

 

Auto = no throw out bearing because only manual transmissions use them.

The "hum" could be from many various things, cv, wheel bearing, alternator, pulley tensioner, power steering pump, worn tires, stereo noise etc........

Hard to judge if it's a good deal until you find out what the problem(s) are.

 

alright, i have a question about a hum.
you know in the morning when its cold, the tranny makes a "whirring" noise? well mine seems to do that all the time now but its to the speed of a baseball card in a bicycle tire(same noise, but it more or less pulsates). i can feel it in the shifter, but thats all. its also related to vehicle speed and seems more pronounced when decelerating (maybe i just cant hear it over the exhaust while accelerating).
any ideas?