After 12 years of the same car (95 Jeep Cherokee 2.5 cyl), I took the plunge in October and scored an 07 Base Vibe with 83K miles. I drive ~120 mi roiund trip to work 3-4 days a week, so that odometer is going to get a quick workout.
Got a few things to work on - some necessary, some preference. Hopefully start ticking more boxes soon...
First thing I did was clean the throttle body & MAF - big ups to those who put together some good threads on that.
Next, I got underneath and tried to get over the shock of how much corrosion was evident (compared to my somewhat doted-on 22 year old Cherokee) that I conveniently chose to ignore when buying the car (only 83K miles!). I brushed away what I could and put a few coats of Krylon on it before the winter. Ball joint and control arm areas were the worst - not a huge deal - something to look into in the spring. I'll look into replacing what needs replacing (ball joints) and undercoat the rest.
I poked around looking for the source of a chirp / rattle and have narrowed it down to the exhaust manifold area. Only an annoyance when the windows are down, so perhaps another spring job! (I did get a bundle of hose clamps to clamp down the lower manifold heat shield which is inexplicable missing a bolt).
I installed Yakima bars (one set with rail-grabs on the rails, one set of Q-clips up front) - tested them when toting a surfboard on roof while dropping my wife at the airport- seemed to work well at 70mph. I love the utility look of a good roof rack. A fairing with some cool stickers will round that out.
Driving back from the beach the second week I had it, the radio LED display started to go out. I heard of this being an issue so I ordered a new JVC stereo & install kit from Crutchfield. With all that driving, I depend on a good radio and really wanted an aux port, so this is well worth it (install turned out to be fairly easy).
I fixed the lower passenger door trim - needed to order the clips from eBay, as mine were busted: https://www.ebay.com/i/201138874806?chn=ps&dispctrl=1
I also took on the probably not entirely needed job of replacing the drivers side wheel well trim (the old trim had a small hole from where the wheel rubbed through when it came loose). Man, was that a b!#(h. Reward not really worth the effort, but it's in there now. It was definitely good to clear the drain though - there was probably 10 Autumn's worth of leaves and dirt packed in there. Because of that, I decided to take off the wiper motor cover and clean out as much as I could from that area as well. A coat hanger was key to at least somewhat clear both drains from the windshield edge down through the frame. That felt good.
I picked up a pack of 45 trim fasteners which have been key, as a bunch have worked loose or were missing all over the place.
To Do:
1. Snow tires - scouring Craigslist for a decent set already mounted. Hopefully I can then address the crappy state of the current steelies (need a good brushing and painting).
2. Fix the roof - it seems to be separated from the cross braces from the rear doors on back. It's like having a piece of loose sheet metal on top of the car - loud WHOMP when I close the rear doors or hatch. Need a warm-ish day to pull the headliner and see what's what up there. Probably a spring job as well, as I'll probably need to use some sort of panel adhesive or cold weld to re-attach it (hopefully it's that easy).
3. Replace the serpentine belt tensioner (possibly) - belt has more deflection than I think it should, but it's not making any noise yet.
4. Headlamp rejuvenation - pretty "foggy" looking right now.
5. Engine mounts (?) - a bit of vibration - front was replace before buying - might at least try the passenger side if I'm replacing the tensioner.
6. Front brakes - they were done at something like 40K, but I'm noticing some vibration when braking when they warm up - rotors probably need replacing.
7. A good cleaning!
8. I'd really like to bedline the trim around the doors and fenders - not digging the light grey that looks pretty faded. Cosmetics will have to wait though.