Quote Originally Posted by Loop
Hello everyone!
1) Of course maintenance prices can vary from shop to shop, but do you see it more expensive to work on an Isuzu compared to your other imports?

2) Do you see a difference in prices for parts? i.e.; VX parts are more expensive as it is discontinued

3) Hypothetically you bought this '99 w/ 70K and do not know the maintenance history. What would be your mechanical checklist to have done first?
1) VX-specific parts are hard to find. Eg, people will kill for a roof rack or a hood insert. But many of the mechanical parts are common with the Trooper and Rodeo, so there's a big pool of those parts in dealers and in salvage. Replacing the door handle clip is cheap and easy. EGR? Not exactly cheap, but still easy to find. The ABS system? Time to take out a loan, but you'll be able to find plenty of them.

2) I haven't seen them as more expensive so much as just some are hard to find. As I said above, most of the parts you care about are standard across a pretty wide selection of GM and Isuzu vehicles. Aftermarket parts are suprisingly well represented. Getting a sun roof or a supercharger is easy. New springs can be slightly tricky, but the intelligence on this group helps a LOT. Body parts, though... ugh. Body parts are rare, and you'll probably have to ship them.

3) I'd like to give you a giant list of things to check for, but considering I bought mine without even driving it, I have little room to speak. In retrospect, I wish I would have tested the ABS, and knocked $3k of the price for its repair. I wish I had driven a couple other VXs, so I'd know what noises were normal and which weren't. Oh, and I would have checked to see if the windows rolled down and back up.