'95 Camry Wagon - Problem Areas?

The station wagon should basically be the same as the sedan. As such there will be info on buying, checking out the engine, harsh shifting trans, electrical problems and more on the past TN Camry forum threads.

If it is the trans shift balls, they can be replaced with the trans on the car. Can’t guess what the cost would be. The parts should be cheap, labor 2-3 hours, just a real guess. It could be something else. How is the trans fluid, color (red or black), does it smell burned?

Does the car make a clicking noise in the hot weather? What kind of groan? A bad CV joint will normally click (or click louder) when turning sharp corners.

Found out when the timing belt and any other parts such as water pump were changed. At this many miles you are getting into the zone where you may need to start replacing a few parts. Noisy shock upper mounts, noisy stabilizer bar bushings, cracking radiator (the top and bottom are plastic), worn engine mounts, leaking valve cover gasket, etc. All normal Camry aging problems. Can you pay a mechanic to check the car out? Might be worth the price.

The 5SFE is a very good engine and with proper maintenance will last a long time.

Not sure the station wagon is that rare, there have been several for sale in this area at reasonable prices. If the car checks out OK, with proper maintenance it should give you a long service life.

TN? I haven't tried to search newsgoups in a long time. What's the best search engine to use for this? AFAIK, the wagon is the same as the sedan from the rear doors forward, except for a few interior extras that maybe top-end sedans had and ours doesn't - like the in-cluster shift indicator, and the fake wood-grain trim.

That's good news about the balls, anyway. I didn't sniff the fluid. I'm assuming it needs a flush, but I'll do a quick check when he drops the car off, in daylight.

Yeah, I know the symptoms, and they don't seem to match. This car just makes that groan when starting and stopping (it's not loud or harsh sounding). I can't detect anything loose when I rock the car stopped. It sounds a little like drum brakes sound when you creep the car forward with the brakes on slightly.

Too late for that. It's going to be a yes/no decision, based on whether this car has ever had a major service. I find it hard to believe that someone who thinks he's fussy about maintainance would avoid a dealer's service bay so thoroughly, but this guy seems to have just trusted his local mechanic.

Our sedan has 160k miles, and the only thing we've had to replace is the radiator, a couple of engine mounts, and a trunk seal. They seem to be good for at least 180k, and over 200 with care. We bought ours in '99, with 99k on the odometer, went into hock to buy it, and haven't regretted it.

What are the prices there? I'm paying $3950, which I figure is top book, but it's a two-owner car with little rust, in an area where the wagons are rare, even more rare than Accord wagons, and no one seems to sell them before they hit 150k miles, so I took a chance...