Hey gang,

I’m a Canadian gal looking to buy my first sidekick after selling my Cherokee (was costing me way too much in every way haha). Have one on the line, a ‘97 5 speed Geo. It’s had an upper rebuild with lots of new parts and pretty low kms for a 97. Only issue is apparently it’s begun to drip oil into chambers when not running, causing smoke only on startup, not while driving so it’s gotta be either the valve guides or seals. Wondering how quickly this can escalate or start to hurt the carberator? Would it be better to drive it till dead and replace the whole head (this is what guy is suggesting I do, that it’s got 100k on it before it becomes a problem) or do the potentially costly fix now if I buy?

Thank you for any help! Trying to get some more knowledge so as to not make any hasty decisions. Hoping to get into doing my own work (hard for us gals, especially without many males in my life who know about cars or a pops to help) and this forum looks like it’s going to be an awesome resource!

A 97 Geo Tracker doesn't have a carb, it's going to be fuel injected (all of the Tracker's were), and the problem is going to be the valve seals, not the guides.

My first question is to you is - what is an "upper rebuild"?  If it's a rebuild of the upper part of the engine, then the valve seals would/should have been replaced as a part of the rebuild.

My second & third questions have to do with how honest is this guy being with you, and, what was the quality of this "rebuild" - the vehicle would have to be priced really attractively for me to consider it, and I have the skills to do such a repair myself.

Constant oil burning, can "poison" the catalytic converter and kill the O2 sensor, fairly expensive parts, and if you forget to check & top-up the oil, you can get yourself into big dollar repairs very easily.