Monterey Car Week - Two Visits to the Yugo Doctor - 1989 Yugo GVL Long-Term Road Test

Edmunds.com

Monterey Car Week - Two Visits to the Yugo Doctor - 1989 Yugo GVL Long-Term Road Test

Our 1989 Yugo GVL had to drive from Los Angeles to Monterey under its own power, and there were a few issues to iron out. So we visited an old Fiat mechanic. Twice.

Read the full story here

kirkhilles1

Wow, that's quite a good deal given the amount of work performed. Still a lot of money for a POS, but well worth it.

diondi

More Yugo stories please - love reading about this car!

daryleason

So far, this car is my favorite one they've had. It doesn't have the quality, features, pizzazz or anything else going for it. But there's nothing else normally on the road like it (although it does remind me of an old VW Rabbit). Older cars have personality and, even for an econobox, a sense of style about them. Cars from the 90s until present seem to be bland and blend into their surroundings. Its like color choice. The most popular colors now are so boring, white, silver, gray, etc. I miss the days of screaming colors and extravagant styling. Of course, I'm also that Texan that misses the Big Hair Days on women from the 70s & 80s. But remember when Trans Ams had big screaming eagles on their hoods? That'd never happen today on a Factory vehicle, even if Pontiac was alive and kicking.

prndlol

See now I don't want to sound like a dissenting jerk, but this is just another example of a mechanic actually profiting from additional work required resulting from not diagnosing the issue correctly the first time. Unless you specifically told him the carb required tuning, then some of that cost should be deducted from the second bill.

If the car came out of the fist visit running like champ then it's justified. But it actually ran worse after the first trip, and when you end up spending $566 for a brake and carb adjust, additional filter and dash light contact repair over two visits it becomes another example of why people generally don't like or trust people who work on their cars.

thecardoc3

prndlol said:

See now I don't want to sound like a dissenting jerk, but this is just another example of a mechanic actually profiting from additional work required resulting from not diagnosing the issue correctly the first time. Unless you specifically told him the carb required tuning, then some of that cost should be deducted from the second bill.

Was it diagnosed correctly? NO. But was it really diagnosed at all? They did a lot of testing according to what was written on the invoice and while some of it answers your concerns quite easily it really reads as a bunch of random testing without a good game plan in play.

They removed the air cleaner for a visual check and found that the "Center Venturi has fuel dripping out of it". That statement alone says a lot about what the vehicles present condition was while it was being examined. The first possibility for fuel dripping from a venturi is that the float level is too high and incorrect, but the more common cause is an engine that is unable to idle on just the carb's idle circuit. So that means to me that someone has turned the idle screw up to the point that fuel is starting to flow from the primary circuit just to try and keep the engine idling. What they have succeeded in doing is making a moving target of the diagnostics and repairs by adding an additional problem on top of some basic failure. (failures)

prndlol said:

If the car came out of the fist visit running like champ then it's justified. But it actually ran worse after the first trip, and when you end up spending $566 for a brake and carb adjust, additional filter and dash light contact repair over two visits it becomes another example of why people generally don't like or trust people who work on their cars.

I believe it says they spent $287 and were clearly told about additional repairs that were discovered but not approved at that time, and it wasn't running well enough yet for them to go on their trip and they finally approved the rest of the work. Now during the rest of the work the description of the events works to reveal that once previously discovered issues were remedied, another picture became clear. On top of all of the other problems there was/is still a fuel quality issue which the Band-Aid of a second filter might help but is very unlikely to solve IMO.

This story isn't over, there is quite likely going to be a lot more to this. Having personally repaired a lot of those Holley-Weber Model 740 carbs, and having dealt with the emissions controls on cars of that era the shop is in for a steep learning curve before they actually get this to run "right". Each symptom will need to be first experienced by a driver, and then investigated and repaired by a technician and then they will then have to wait and see if anything else shows up. The idea that anyone could solve a performance issue on these without a drawn out, and possibly painful process just goes to show how little people really know about what the job demands. The idea that they should be discounting any of this, when they probably have lost a ton of productive time to it already couldn't be more wrong and trying to force that perception has worked to make it less likely for consumers to find talented technicians. This car presents as a once in a career experience for them and that's why they didn't find someone who could do it all in one shot. The biggest thing that the article gets wrong its the idea that their racing experience makes them more qualified to service this car. It does explain why they appeared to have an undisciplined approach to the diagnostics when they were playing musical plugs and wires etc.

desmolicious

" We had a sludge problem in the fuel tank which, like the rest of the car, had sat for roughly 10 years starting in the early 2000s"

Not surprising really. I get a sludge problem after sitting 10 hours at work.

ebeaudoin

So are you going to have the tank cleaned after the Monterey trip? That would make sense.

subytrojan

Great LT update, benzito!

For those who haven't read Josh's R129 SL500 blog, you can at 500benz.com!

gslippy

This car is a direct descendant of my former 74 Fiat 128SL. Its recommended fuel filter change was 15,000 miles. Its Weber carburetor passages and jets were so small that they would clog if the car went 15,001 miles without a filter change. So keep after that.