How much of a financial “burden” has your GTS been?

I’ve been looking for the right GTS to buy for a while, and I’m just trying to get an idea of how much an investment beyond purchase it’s going to be. Have you guys found it to be pretty reliable or is it needing a lot of upkeep? I know this is going to be unique to be user based on mileage etc. but I’m just trying to get a feel of what I may be getting myself into. I’m looking for something that I can drive and enjoy, not collect

As long as the car was well maintained and not abused, they are very reliable cars. As with any car of its age, rubber does time out. Hoses, suspension bushings, belts, plugs, wires, etc. will need looked at for overall condition. The cars that seem to have the most issues are ones that were beat on, regular maintenance neglected, or modified poorly. As a whole, I would consider Vipers far more on the user friendly spectrum of cost and upkeep compared to anything else in the exotic game.

The newest GTS is 24 years old and the oldest are now 30 years old.

You'll find that with regular service the engine and trans are pretty much bulletproof.

Rubber items and trim age our over time, some faster than others. All the suspension bushings go at some point so the service and repair records of any potential Viper's are really a key. When it comes to body and trim, there are virtually no new parts so quality replacements may be hard to find or expensive. Headlights lead that list, a good set of headlights can cost you $5k or more.

If you find one with little to know service records budget at least $5k to replace the suspension pieces and all fluids and align. If your a good at DIY, then budget 1/2 of that. Add another $2k if the tires are old or worn out.

Good luck, low number of owner cars accompanied by lots of service records are far better than the amount of miles on a Viper

I’m not great at DIY. Not yet anyway. Looking for a gen2. Great responses. I really appreciate it!

Opinion: based on 30 years of very active participation in the Viper world, I would say that they are very solid cars in general...with each year having a few peculiar quirks of their own.

Whatever Gen II that you may ultimately choose, keep an extra $6,000 to $10,000 in your car account to offset surprises.

Once you have one and get to know it well, they are easy to maintain for the most part.

Vipers attracts sausages so not having the financial burden of tacos or roast beef sammiches is a net positive.

Goggles Pizano said:

Vipers attracts sausages so not having the financial burden of tacos or roast beef sammiches is a net positive.

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Truer words have never been spoken.

I've had mine for 10 years, bought at 36k km and now sitting around 59k km.
When it comes to actual replacement of faulty parts it's been two parts:
1. Passenger window regulator clip (plastic piece that always breaks)
2. Water temp sensor, twice.

Other than that it's been preventative maintenance and/or maintenance due to aftermarket parts such as exhaust leaks from the Corsa exhaust (slip on fittings *****, now V-bands), billet PS pump pulley etc.
I haven't even swapped spark plugs on it yet, it's the same as when I bought it 10 years ago. Never even had them out.

What ***** is tires. Tires are always needed on these and always expensive. I hate buying tires and my car needs tires as of right now.


This winter I've probably spent around $4k on it's suspension, not because it was needed but because I wanted to.

OEM replacement parts is inexpensive, at least wear items.
Aftermarket parts and/or non-wear items like headlights will empty the bank account.

I've only had mine for a bit under a year, but so far I have serviced it entirely myself and haven't had any big issues (to be fair, I picked up a well-looked-after example). The biggest issue I had was replacing the harmonic balancer and pinning the crankshaft. A real PITA job, but still DIY-able. This forum and YouTube are great resources for learning about this car and it is a heck of a lot more DIY friendly than anything modern. At the end of the day, it's just a regular car with a big@$$ engine and you'll get more thumbs ups than all those self-absorbed folks with their modern bling. None of that new stuff resonates with our primal instincts quite like this car. On good days (dry, warm), I'll commute to work with it and merging onto the highway with free space ahead of you is always a blast.

I've spent a few grand on tools and additional parts to make the car a bit more reliable (more like trying to get ahead of potential problems before they show up). I plan to keep investing in tooling for DIY work on this car. The irony is that I live not too far from Tator's Garage and, although I know they have god-like status in the Viper community, I'd rather do the work myself if I can (saves on labor costs, I learn stuff, and I can do it on my own schedule in my own house). I'll lean on them if I absolutely need to (e.g., mounting tires), but otherwise this car has motivated me to learn how to do more of my own car work. I think as long as it's nothing super serious, like an engine pull/rebuild, then you can do most of the maintenance yourself with the right tools and a bit of research.

If you don't want to do any of the maintenance yourself, then just be prepared to spend more and also make sure you find a trustworthy Viper tech in your area. In some areas, that's simply not possibe and so you have to man up and do it yourself. As long as you have a good example, then your costs should not be high as you're just dealing with consumables (oil, brakes, tires, etc.).

I've had my 01 for several years now. Initially I spent around $15k on it, but that's because it had a built engine/supercharger and really sketchy supporting mods (e.g., the Paxton external fuel setup, VEC2, etc.) that I upgraded to proper components.

Had it had a regular engine and no blower, other than oil changes I think I've spent maybe $500 on misc stuff like a new belt and new coolant hoses.

Gen 2 vipers are pretty straightforward to work on - they're like an OEM kit car basically.

Buy a well maintained car, not a 0 miles car that hasn’t moved or had maintenance in 30 years, and it shouldn’t be a burden at all.

I had to put tires on my car. Knew that when I bought it.

The rest has been all elective stuff such as engine mods and suspension mods.

Prior owner did clutch/throw out bearing/clutch master cylinder. That would have been pricey. Lots of other maintenance through the years. New radiator, thermostats, hoses etc. my car had 38k miles on it. Kind of my whole point.

new tires, 2k. radiator rebuild, 1k, all fluids, few hundred bucks, new brake pads, few hundred bucks. 25k miles '00

serafins said:

Buy a well maintained car, not a 0 miles car that hasn’t moved or had maintenance in 30 years, and it shouldn’t be a burden at all.

I had to put tires on my car. Knew that when I bought it.

The rest has been all elective stuff such as engine mods and suspension mods.

Prior owner did clutch/throw out bearing/clutch master cylinder. That would have been pricey. Lots of other maintenance through the years. New radiator, thermostats, hoses etc. my car had 38k miles on it. Kind of my whole point.

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Tires are boring.
Mine needs tires, I hate buying tires.

So I've had one for 26 years. I have to say that with the exception of a Toyota Matrix that went close to 320,000 miles with oil changes, the Viper has been an absolute Joy. I have spent money on it but it's in customization. A great deal of it has to do with responsibly managing the car throughout its full life. I can't speak for a car that you get with miles on it. Though this was originally a truck motor for the engine is robust to say the least. I do know that the costs are directly correlated to how much driving you do and how you drive.

I have finally realized a way that I can go almost anywhere, seeing extraordinary things. Not even sure how to explain it. It puts no wear on the Viper and any accident or trouble usually occurs when I exit the vehicle. So far, once I get off the floor and dust myself off everything is okay and generally never cost me much by way of repairs.

ViperTim said:

Tires are boring.
Mine needs tires, I hate buying tires.

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Agreed. I can’t stand spending money on tires. Especially when the old tires have great tread but are dry rotted.

$25k on the engine? No problem. $1500 on tires, hmmmm.

Bought mine in 2018 with 85k miles. It wasn't in the greatest shape but It was the dream and got it for a great deal.

I've discovered its really easy to work on, and this community is a great resource for alternative parts and DIY. Everything that has been done, I've done it except mounting tires and alignments.

Needed tires off the bat, $1-2k
Then radiator and hoses - almost another 1K
Then transmission rebuild - another $1K in just parts, new clutch went in then too.
Had the bottom of the front bumper repainted due to scrapes and rock chips from previous owner

Those are the major items, but other things I've done:

Passenger side door switch was bad, sourced and wired in a new one. Took some searching but found them online
Rattle Canned the dash black as the rubber coating was trashed on my 96 dash
Spark plugs and wires
Repainted "speaker" grills in the hood easy to do
Repainted valve covers, went with black as I wasn't going to find red that matched the intake.
Replaced rear and front tie rods and tie rod ends
Replaced rubber control arm bushings and sway bar bushings
Replaced sway bar links up front
Re painted and rebuilt brake calipers, as front paint was peeling bad. Used High temp paint, and they turned out fantastic
Replaced all the upper engine gaskets with Cometic, timing cover, water pump, thermostat
Replaced water pump
Replaced power steering pulley with metal pulley


I've actually enjoyed working on the Viper due to how easy and straightforward it is. All told I've prob spent $5k - $6k so far in 8 years of ownership.

In that time I've drove it around 12k miles. While buying it for $29k. I knew going in there were things it needed, but I love it and have no regrets.

The biggest factor (outside of the condition of the car you purchase) imo, is if you will be the one doing the work on the vehicle.

I’m not interested in that, never have been, so I’ve had all my work done by a specialty shop. And just upgrading all the parts that are known to be a potential problem at 25yrs old, I’ve probably easily spent another $20K.

Now, if upgraded everything myself then it would've been probably half that. But from all the research I did prior to purchasing, youll want to replace alot of stuff so it not only runs in perfect condition for the foreseeable future but also lives up to the spirit of what these cars were meant to. Even having done that, I’ve still had battery issues which were a pain in the ass, tire problems, and coolant problems, all of which I thought i had preemptively addressed but things happen.

So, my experience might be an outlier here, but viper parts are costly and while i dont regret getting my dream car, she has not been a cheap date by any stretch, and mine was mint and only 11k miles at purchase.

Hope that helps, definitely watch all the viper maintenance content on YT to get an idea of what you'll likely want to replace/upgrade and read through the forums to see the diversity and severity of the types of issues people run into.

I bought a 2002 Viper from the original owner with 11,500 miles on it eight years ago. He had it for 15 years and rarely drove it. I put another 18,000 miles on the car since then. Same as Badinternet, I put a ton of money into it since I don't work on cars. Gaskets, hoses, AC system, slave cylinder and clutch went out, condenser, evap core, etc. Three sets of tires, too. No regrets. Love the car.

I’m broke and homeless now, forced to sleep in my Viper

For what it's worth, the Viper parts availability is hopefully coming around and getting better. As the cars get older they start wandering into "classic" territory, and there is an initiative out there to get people making parts for them that are approved by Mopar as official replacement pieces (like how AMD is an approved vendor for sheet metal parts for the older muscle cars). Vendors are getting access to official Dodge specs and whatnot to get parts built. Doesn't mean they will be cheap as they are still going to be low production volume pieces, but I'll take expensive and available over even more expensive and salvage.

ViperTim said:

Tires are boring.
Mine needs tires, I hate buying tires.

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Agreed. Are tires hard to find and/or relatively expensive for it?

-TRQuixote- said:

Agreed. Are tires hard to find and/or relatively expensive for it?

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If you buy a gen2 with 17" wheels it can be tricky to find.
But mostly it's just expensive.

MoparMap said:

For what it's worth, the Viper parts availability is hopefully coming around and getting better. As the cars get older they start wandering into "classic" territory, and there is an initiative out there to get people making parts for them that are approved by Mopar as official replacement pieces (like how AMD is an approved vendor for sheet metal parts for the older muscle cars). Vendors are getting access to official Dodge specs and whatnot to get parts built. Doesn't mean they will be cheap as they are still going to be low production volume pieces, but I'll take expensive and available over even more expensive and salvage.

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As far as I can tell, things are getting worst, not better - for ***** sake we now have to struggle to get basic maintenance items like OEM oil filters.

Dodge doesn't give a shit about us - I recently bought a 98 Diablo roadster. I did an extensive service on it and virtually every part I needed was available from the factory within 1 week.

30 year old lambo parts - available

10 year old dodge parts - NLA NLA NLA NLA NLA NLA NLA NLA NLA

It'll hopefully get there, but it's going to take time. You can't really compare a Lambo to a Viper as far as parts as they are two very different companies. Every car Lambo builds is low volume from the get go and their whole factory and business is based on that. Dodge builds millions of cars and the Viper was just a small pet project that had to figure out how to function in the corporate system. I think the fact that the Lambo parts are older actually helps them out as well because they've had more time to need to be reproduced.

Dodge doesn't make their own parts, which is potentially some of the issue. They would have set up suppliers with contracts to build X amount of parts of Y years with tooling costs and all that kind of stuff built in. I'm guessing Lambo is probably better set up as a "job shop" that can have parts built to order and not necessarily at high volumes or stocks. Doesn't mean I like it, but I do think Viper parts will eventually get better, it's just going to take time for people to start reproducing them again.

My cost breakdown over 23 years...

(Before its asked, ive not done much the past
couple of years so its not fully updated yet.)

-TRQuixote- said:

Agreed. Are tires hard to find and/or relatively expensive for it?

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The cost of 4 tires averages $ 1,800, give or take. Try JonB or Tire Rack.

Jon B for Tires, Last time I bought some from him they were fresh (Date Code) and extremely quick delivery.

Bonkers said:

My cost breakdown over 23 years...

(Before its asked, ive not done much the past
couple of years so its not fully updated yet.)

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At first glance that’s intimidating, but 23rs is a good run!

Slowly putting together the pieces to a 15k mi 1997 GTS local purchase. Hoping it pans out and proves to be reliable! I’m definitely intimidated.

-TRQuixote- said:

Slowly putting together the pieces to a 15k mi 1997 GTS local purchase. Hoping it pans out and proves to be reliable! I’m definitely intimidated.

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Don't be, I haven't even come close to that for my 96