2004 Chevy Monte Carlo SS

Bought August of 2008!
The Back Story

A Little Pre-Story:
Well, a lot of savings finally paid off!   I had a plan back when I bought the '93 Buick Century (which was bought so I never had to drive the Camaro in the winter again).   That car was rather inexpensive and nice, but my plan was to pay it off and then save my payments for something BETTER.   Sadly, that car and the '93 Grand Am I had after it both got wrecked before I could put that plan in motion.   My '94 Grand Am has finally survived long enough to allow this plan to work.
Back when I had the '93 Grand Am, I got to borrow my father's '98 Gran Prix (with a 3800 v6) and loved it.   Originally, that body type and drive train was what I wanted.   By the time I started searching, that body style of Gran Prix was older then what I wanted and I also learned the rocker panels tend to rot out on them.   I'm not 100% sure what made me choose to search for a Monte Carlo (other then I wanted a 3800 v6).
My '94 Grand Am had somewhere between 170K-180K miles on it.   Sure it was still running good, but I decided I had saved enough money and I need to prepare for the "how much longer will the Grand Am run?".   I finally go started shopping for a new(er) car.

The Search Story:
I decided I wanted a Monte Carlo that resembled the 2003 Pace Car (blue with silver/grey ground fx, the pace car spoiler, 5 spoke rims, power moon roof, fully loaded with a 3800 fitting my price range).   Every dealer and listing I found, I thought these people were out of there minds (asking a lot of cash for cars with high miles).
One of my searches was on eBay, I found a seller outside of Buffalo, New York (which is about 4 hours away from me).    The car was a lot of what I was shopping for (different style spoiler and rims, but the rest was perfect).    Initially, due to the distance, I was going to forget about it.   When I shared the listing with my dad his response was "so, when are we going on a road trip?".
After that, I decided to contact the seller.   We spoke over the phone, I extended an offer pending the car met with my satisfaction upon inspection.   Sadly, we did not reach an agreement, but it sounded like we were close to one.   After that, I did some more homework on this specific car.   About a week later, I extended my final offer (not much more then my last one, but I also had some additional information).   The seller decided he wanted to let the eBay auction finish and see what happens.   Shortly after it ended, the seller contacted me back.   He was interested in my offer and was willing to meet me half way.   I traveled to Quaker, Steak and Lube in Erie, PA with my dad and my friend Jeff and a cashier's check to meet this guy and check out the car.
Obviously if I did not buy it, I would not have this page.   The car was not perfect (but again, it's a used car).   But it was far better then anything else I looked at previously (I was shopping for '02-'03 with about 70K miles, this was a year newer and had about 52K on it) and was the best match to what I wanted.   Now, as long as my '94 Grand Am keeps running, I the Monte Carlo will be parked during the winter!

Here's the info on it:
Year - 2004 Chevy Monte Carlo SS (6th Generation)
Engine - 3800 Series 3.8 Liter v6 L36
Automatic Transmission
Full Instrument Cluster
Power Door Locks, Windows
2 Door
Power Moon Roof
Air Conditioning
Cruise Control
Keyless Entry
Mileage at time of Purchase - 52,000 (as of 8-30-2008)

And so now I present pictures of my 2004 Monte Carlo SS (my newest daily driver to be):
These pics were taken about 1-2 months after I purchased this car on 8/30/2008.