Your DeSoto still looks good and modern today. I'm not sure you'll be able to say that about a lot of today's vehicles several decades into the future. Personally, I think too much of it depends on gimmicks and gadgets rather than classic design.
No, I'm a Petrol-Head through-and-through. I'd love to get an AMG C-class with that silly V8 under the hood.
Though I do love the old 1950s and 1960s Mercedes just because of their horrendously loud and purely mechanical nature. It's the same feeling that you get when you see an old steam locomotive still in service - there's something very cool about low-tech brute-force engineering.
But how old was this car and how had it been maintained? IMO any MB diesel letting off inordinate quantities of smoke in 2010 would likely be 25+ years old and probably have over 200K miles on it, with deferred maintenance.
There is just something about driving old cars. Today's cars are just too... perfect. I miss my old 79 Continental. It was beat to death and guzzled gas, but I loved driving it.
There's more involvement - the driver is required to keep the thing on the road. The noises and smells also add something. Most people these days probably can't relate, but you pretty much feel more alive driving an older car. You also might be a better driver, just out of having to pay more attention.
Older cars are also far easier to maintain because of that. While they are far less reliable, you know the second anything is starting to have an issue. Today's cars are like isolation pods where the only time you know something is wrong is when the display says "game over". And, of course, if we're talking a pre-smog car, there's also literally no electronics or sensors or anything except the mechanical parts.
note - the difficult part of course is fixing all of the old and corroding parts that are 40-50 years old. But once that is done(and often for less than a new Civic or similar), they'll last another 20 years without major issues.
But, of course, they aren't for everyone. My 230S got 15-18mpg, took a long time to get up to speed(even with a manual we were talking 15 seconds), and the carbs were always needing adjustment(rule of thumb - always get the fuel injected classic Mercedes). It did drive on the highway as well as any modern full-sized sedan, though, which always impressed me. Upgrading the tires and brakes to more modern parts made it into a whole new vehicle.
The Volt gets an EPA rating of 93 mpg when on electric mode (don't ask me how), and 37 mpg on gas. This makes the Nissan Leaf the best rated vehicle ever : 99 mpg.
It wasn't smoking, it just gave off odor that would empty a football field. I'd guess the mercedes was pre '95.
My son just commented last night how his 98 Mustang V6 has been a good car. He's had it 5 years and put 35k miles on it. Tires are the major expense since buying it with 83k miles on it.
2 yrs ago a belt separated and the tire dealer was only willing to cover half the expense of a replacement. He said the worn out struts ruined the tire in 15,000 miles. According to him, the replacement tire should be ruined by now. It's been another 20,000 miles and the strut is even older and more worn out. Next time I will rotate a separated belt tire to the rear before bringing it in for a warranty claim.
I don't like driving it because of the factory headers and the whiney Ford trans combine to make it noisy inside and out. Reliability is very good. In it's 13th year, it required a radiator cap, coolant top off, and a tire rotation.
The car must have had some kind of weird failure...usually a diesel smokes if it stinks.
Is the Mustang a 3.8 or something better? I knew someone who had a V6 Stang of that era...horrible engine noise and less than quality interior, also not a good performer, in essence a 2 door Taurus.
One of the mechanics at the shop which services my cars jokes that old cars like mine will be the ones on the road if there's a nuclear war. Unfortunately, mine has an electronic ignition conversion, but I guess that wouldn't be hard to reverse :shades:
My car is a FI model, thankfully. Needs almost no maintenance, no cold running issues, no syncing of the carbs. It can get 20 on the highway, and like you say, has a highway driving quality as good as a modern car.
The GM pickups you guys mention (I had a '91, BIL, a '94, and FIL a '95 S-10) all had fuel pumps in the gas tank. Factory replacements are about $300, although there are cheap aftermarkets that can be had for less than $100. Fuel filters are obviously after the pump (this is no help). Only 2 ways to access fuel pump; drop the tank or raise the bed.
It's a 3.8. It has a perf mode that changes gearing in lower 3 gears. 9.9 sec for 0-60. It is the opposite of my Riviera. People try to start my Riv when it's already running. That can't happen in the Mustang with factory headers. Some attributes like the $300 per year depreciation, close to 30 mpg hwy and GTO reliabilility are perfectly acceptable.
It's a 3.8. It has a perf mode that changes gearing in lower 3 gears. 9.9 sec for 0-60.
I thought a V-6 '98 Mustang would be a bit quicker than that, but then I looked up the specs for the 3.8: 150 hp and 215 ft-lb of torque. So, more of a cruiser than a bruiser.
I know they got that 3.8 up to something like 190-200 hp, but I don't think that was a year or two later. I think I saw a 0-60 time of around 7.1 seconds for one of these, which ain't too bad, in my opinion.
BTW, how's that Riviera doing these days? I still admire those cars. My 2000 Park Ave has been pretty good so far. It'll be a year on December 14 that I brought it home, and I've put about 10,000 miles on it. I'm probably into it about $440 so far, which includes all maintenance, an emissions test, changing the supercharger oil, and two swaybar links. It does need a few things though...rear window defroster quit working. Passenger door window got stuck the other day, but started working again. And I suspect it needs new struts, which surprises me for only 66,500 miles. My Intrepid didn't bounce this bad at 150,000 miles, and it was on its original struts! Unless the PA is just supposed to bounce like that?
I've always run the tank down toward E, often waiting until the light comes on. I've never had a fuel pump die on me and I've lived through lots of below zero winters and 105 degree summers. I don't think they are all that fragile that you have to coddle them.
If you always drive around with a half tank, you may as well throw in two or three full sand bags too. Knock the mileage down another few tenths. I bet real hypermilers never fill their tanks over half full.
If you always drive around with a half tank, you may as well throw in two or three full sand bags too. Knock the mileage down another few tenths. I bet real hypermilers never fill their tanks over half full.
Yeah, but if you're constantly running on a half tank and never letting it get full, wouldn't you have some evaporation? Maybe that's not a big deal with the tighter, closed systems of today.
I think gasoline weighs about 6.25 lb per gallon? So even with a big tank, like the 26 gallon tank in my '67 Catalina, you're only talking about 162.5 lb. My Park Ave has a 17 gallon tank, so that would be about 106.25 lb, full.
I don't think an amount of weight that small is going to make much difference, unless you have a vehicle that's already underpowered for its weight, and is already straining.
I think the real test would be to look at what the fleets do. I'd be curious if there was a fleet operations manual out there that recommended that the drivers keep their tanks filled up to avoid fuel pump problems. Even on empty there's usually a gallon or more of gas in the tank.
Oh, I'm with you on that! I had a 1968 Buick Special Deluxe wagon. It was very basic, but I probably had more fun with that plain-jane car than any of it's successors. One great thing about beaters is that you aren't afraid of things happening to them. I could park my 1988 Buick Park Avenue in the worst 'hood in Philly and nobody would mess with it. If I got a ding from a shopping cart, I wouldn't go ballistic like I would any of my other cars.
My 1998 GMC Sierra fuel pump made it to 127K. The thing buzzed for 2 years before finally going kaput as I was (luckily) pulling into my driveway. The mechanic I use for my old car (67 New Yorker), who is rather expensive but does good work, wanted $1100. I quizzed him on the cost of the pump itself and he said $600. Looked up on internet and ordered a Delco for $250. After an argument about him doubling the price of the part he reluctantly installed for $450. Thus, it cost me $700 (Another mechanic had quoted $685 including a Delco pump) Both mechanics did say that the cheap ones fail like crazy and neither shop would have even bothered putting a cheapo one in but the Delco should be fine for quite some time.
I gotta say, I love that commercial...but then I'm nostalgic, a bit sentimental, root for the underdog, root for American companies, and have bought new Chevys for three decades.
2024 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 2LT; 2019 Chevrolet Equinox LT; 2015 Chevrolet Cruze LS
I found my Riv got it's best mileage between full and half a tank but I did a 47 mile commute each way. With me and a 3/4 tank, the car weighs 3965 lbs. With 1/4 tank, it weighs 3895. Seriously, adding a 7 yr old child as a passenger and expecting mpgs to drop a few tenths? I figured the engineers did wind tunnel testing with a 3/4 to full tank. Wouldn't weight in the back reduce the windshield rake angle and reduce the height of the car? Front/rear weight dist also improves. None of this works for stop and go driving. I also try to minimize time spent going to the gas station.
How much weight difference between a Prius with 1/4 and 3/4 tank? 42 lbs?
I've got to agree with Steve that keeping the lightest amount of fuel you need in the vehicle is preferable. Sure it may only be a very small, small savings a year, depending how much you drive, but if a driver saved $10/year you're talking real money.
When I've had performance automobiles, I've especially tried to make them as light as possible. I don't usually have rear-seat passengers, so out come the rear-headrests; helps visibility too, keep the winshield washer reservoir 1/4 full, looked into light-weight batteries. It's not the individual savings from any 1 thing that will lighten your vehicle and give better mpg, it's the tens-of-things you do to find 1 or 2 LB here or there that can help. Over the years you'd probably pay for a nice vacation.
I haven't had the guts to buy a pound can of Fix-A-Flat and leave my spare at home, but I threw away one of the seats in my minivan a decade ago and never missed it. Probably saved enough in gas by now to buy a replacement seat. :-)
Yeah, that would've been cool! I ended up having to pull off on the side of the road to take that pic, because it took me a few mins to figure out how to disable the automatic flash, which washed out the display.
On the subject of fuel economy, according to the trip computer I got around 28 mpg on that trip, but I didn't do the pen and paper method yet. Not too bad, I guess, for a supercharged Park Ave running speeds that occasionally got up to 80 or so.
You've probably got a lot of life left in that PA--many years, I thinking.
But if somehow that thing died tomorrow, what do you think you might consider to replace it? Would you ever buy new again a la the Intrepid, or are you into only used these days?
But if somehow that thing died tomorrow, what do you think you might consider to replace it? Would you ever buy new again a la the Intrepid, or are you into only used these days?
I really don't know what I'd do if the Park Ave died tomorrow. If I was going with a brand-new car, I'd consider something like an Altima, Acord, Fusion, or Malibu, in no particular order. And for some reason, the Mazda6 is starting to grow on me a bit. I dunno if I'd go for a Malibu though. It's not a bad car, and I liked it when it came out, but it just seems like its magic has worn off. And, I wouldn't go for a fancy, decked-out car...just a 4-cyl, and just nicely equipped enough that it has a sunroof.
As for used, well if the Park Ave died because of a wreck or another parking lot hit-and-run, I might actually seek out another one if I could find one that had the same combination of miles, features, condition, and price. Or perhaps a used Bonneville, or maybe even a LeSabre if I could find one with a sunroof.
If, however, the car had to be retired because of some major catastrophic failure, it might spook me enough that I wouldn't want to get another for fear of getting burned twice. However, I dunno if there's really anything in my Park Ave that, if it failed, would make it worthwhile to total it. Maybe if a combination of things went all at once, like the engine, supercharger, and transmission? And once it got to really high miles, if something major went I wouldn't hold it against the car, but with only 66,666 miles on it, I'd be disappointed.
With other used cars, I think I'd also consider something like a Crown Vic/Grand Marquis, or maybe a Charger/300 with the 3.5. But looking around, I've even seen cars like fully-loaded Altimas with the V-6 that seem reasonably priced. I guess with the Japanese cars, the 4-cyl models might hold their value better than the V-6 versions? Even though the V-6 models are still pretty efficient considering their power, I guess the vast majority of buyers are more worried about fuel economy, so they pick the 4-cyl.
If I had it to to all over again, I don't think I would have bought that Intrepid brand-new. It seemed like a great idea at the time though. Less than a year before, I had finally recovered financially from a bad divorce, and just a couple months before, I had refinanced the condo. When I did the math, I figured that the savings on the mortgage payment, plus the fuel savings in going from an '89 Gran Fury police car to the Intrepid, covered the car's $347.66 monthly payment.
And even that $347.66 seemed cheap to me at the time. I knew people who were paying about that for 5-year old Monte Carlos, and 2-year old Trackers and S-10's and such, but these were also younger people with poor credit. I was also still delivering pizzas back in those days, and a half-way decent week at the part time job would actually cover the car's monthly payment. So, at the time, it seemed like a perfect storm of events.
But, looking back, if I really wanted an Intrepid, I probably could have found a low-mileage 1-2 year old example for $12-14K. Interest rates were a lot higher back then though. I remember the credit union wanting something like 6.75-7% for a used car, while Chrysler Financial gave me 0.9%. So, even though the APR was higher, I would've also been financing $6-8K less, which would have resulted in a smaller monthly payment, or getting it paid off quicker.
Shoot, there's a girl at work whose monthly lease payment on a Mercedes C-Class exceeds the monthly note on my Cadillac DTS! Of course the cheapest payment is none at all!
Shoot, there's a girl at work whose monthly lease payment on a Mercedes C-Class exceeds the monthly note on my Cadillac DTS! Of course the cheapest payment is none at all!
Ouch...now that's painful! It's funny though, how as time goes by, my perspective on money changes. 11 years ago, that $347.66 per month didn't seem too bad, but I'd hate to have to pay it today! But, I also haven't had to make a car payment in 6 years, so that might be why...it's been so long that I've gotten used to not having one.
I wonder if that's why people often trade in as soon as their car is paid off? They're so used to having a payment, that they feel naked, somehow, without one?
Some people believe a car payment should be an ongoing expense like the gas or electric bill. Trading in a car before it is paid off is a good way to ensure you'll have a perpetual car payment. My wife is doing the right thing. She will probably keep her LaCrosse until the wheels come off. If she takes care of it, (or at least allows me to) I see no reason it won't last as long as my 1988 Park Avenue barring any catastrophic accident. Just paid off the DTS this month. Seems like it took forever. I wonder if I'll have it as long as the Brougham, (22 years at the end of January).
Just paid off the DTS this month. Seems like it took forever. I wonder if I'll have it as long as the Brougham, (22 years at the end of January).
Wow, you paid that car off that quickly?! I'm impressed! I knew you were paying extra each month, but not that much. Haven't you only had it about 3 years?
I really want my 2000 Park Ave to last as long as possible so I don't have to get a replacement, but for a more realistic goal, I want it to at least get to the point that its total cost allocates out to around $250 per month. That's about what my 2000 Intrepid cost, from cradle to grave, 10 years, ~150,000 miles. Plus gas and insurance.
Right now, my Park Ave comes out to around $750 per month, but that's because I paid for it all at once, and haven't even had it for a year yet. My estimate is that it'll come down to around $250/month sometime in early 2013, unless anything really major fails on it.
lol, too funny... My trip to Italy back in September, I saw only one fire which was an older Citroen.
Still, these are Mexican built IIRC... Still not great. There have been a few reports of this and even a recall for "Premium Fuel required" otherwise similar consequences...
Three years as of November 23rd. The car only has 11,780 so far. I kept the miles down so I can have the car for a long time. I put her away for the winter last week. Cadillac or Buick will have to come up with something truly impressive for me to trade it. A V-8 powered full-size RWD/AWD car would do the trick! My next goal will be to see if Panther platforms really can go 300K+ miles.
Yep, after the fiasco trip home from Germany last week (late and missed flight, canceled connections, added nearly a full day to my trip) the taxi that took me home as my ride chickened out because of snow, spun out and went up an embankment a few miles from home. Messed up the rear bumper, nothing else thankfully.
Comments
Though I do love the old 1950s and 1960s Mercedes just because of their horrendously loud and purely mechanical nature. It's the same feeling that you get when you see an old steam locomotive still in service - there's something very cool about low-tech brute-force engineering.
Would I buy a new GM? No.
A December to Remember, from General Motors!
2025 Ram 1500 Laramie 4x4 / 2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic / 2022 Icon I6L Golf Cart
note - the difficult part of course is fixing all of the old and corroding parts that are 40-50 years old. But once that is done(and often for less than a new Civic or similar), they'll last another 20 years without major issues.
But, of course, they aren't for everyone. My 230S got 15-18mpg, took a long time to get up to speed(even with a manual we were talking 15 seconds), and the carbs were always needing adjustment(rule of thumb - always get the fuel injected classic Mercedes). It did drive on the highway as well as any modern full-sized sedan, though, which always impressed me. Upgrading the tires and brakes to more modern parts made it into a whole new vehicle.
This makes the Nissan Leaf the best rated vehicle ever : 99 mpg.
My son just commented last night how his 98 Mustang V6 has been a good car. He's had it 5 years and put 35k miles on it. Tires are the major expense since buying it with 83k miles on it.
2 yrs ago a belt separated and the tire dealer was only willing to cover half the expense of a replacement. He said the worn out struts ruined the tire in 15,000 miles. According to him, the replacement tire should be ruined by now. It's been another 20,000 miles and the strut is even older and more worn out. Next time I will rotate a separated belt tire to the rear before bringing it in for a warranty claim.
I don't like driving it because of the factory headers and the whiney Ford trans combine to make it noisy inside and out. Reliability is very good. In it's 13th year, it required a radiator cap, coolant top off, and a tire rotation.
Is the Mustang a 3.8 or something better? I knew someone who had a V6 Stang of that era...horrible engine noise and less than quality interior, also not a good performer, in essence a 2 door Taurus.
My car is a FI model, thankfully. Needs almost no maintenance, no cold running issues, no syncing of the carbs. It can get 20 on the highway, and like you say, has a highway driving quality as good as a modern car.
Ask me how I know
I thought a V-6 '98 Mustang would be a bit quicker than that, but then I looked up the specs for the 3.8: 150 hp and 215 ft-lb of torque. So, more of a cruiser than a bruiser.
I know they got that 3.8 up to something like 190-200 hp, but I don't think that was a year or two later. I think I saw a 0-60 time of around 7.1 seconds for one of these, which ain't too bad, in my opinion.
BTW, how's that Riviera doing these days? I still admire those cars. My 2000 Park Ave has been pretty good so far. It'll be a year on December 14 that I brought it home, and I've put about 10,000 miles on it. I'm probably into it about $440 so far, which includes all maintenance, an emissions test, changing the supercharger oil, and two swaybar links. It does need a few things though...rear window defroster quit working. Passenger door window got stuck the other day, but started working again. And I suspect it needs new struts, which surprises me for only 66,500 miles. My Intrepid didn't bounce this bad at 150,000 miles, and it was on its original struts! Unless the PA is just supposed to bounce like that?
If you always drive around with a half tank, you may as well throw in two or three full sand bags too. Knock the mileage down another few tenths. I bet real hypermilers never fill their tanks over half full.
Yeah, but if you're constantly running on a half tank and never letting it get full, wouldn't you have some evaporation? Maybe that's not a big deal with the tighter, closed systems of today.
I think gasoline weighs about 6.25 lb per gallon? So even with a big tank, like the 26 gallon tank in my '67 Catalina, you're only talking about 162.5 lb. My Park Ave has a 17 gallon tank, so that would be about 106.25 lb, full.
I don't think an amount of weight that small is going to make much difference, unless you have a vehicle that's already underpowered for its weight, and is already straining.
I think the real test would be to look at what the fleets do. I'd be curious if there was a fleet operations manual out there that recommended that the drivers keep their tanks filled up to avoid fuel pump problems. Even on empty there's usually a gallon or more of gas in the tank.
Meanwhile, GM Says Thanks To Nation For Helping Them Get Back Up and channels John Belushi no less. (Edmunds Daily)
How much weight difference between a Prius with 1/4 and 3/4 tank? 42 lbs?
When I've had performance automobiles, I've especially tried to make them as light as possible. I don't usually have rear-seat passengers, so out come the rear-headrests; helps visibility too, keep the winshield washer reservoir 1/4 full, looked into light-weight batteries. It's not the individual savings from any 1 thing that will lighten your vehicle and give better mpg, it's the tens-of-things you do to find 1 or 2 LB here or there that can help. Over the years you'd probably pay for a nice vacation.
On the subject of fuel economy, according to the trip computer I got around 28 mpg on that trip, but I didn't do the pen and paper method yet. Not too bad, I guess, for a supercharged Park Ave running speeds that occasionally got up to 80 or so.
You've probably got a lot of life left in that PA--many years, I thinking.
But if somehow that thing died tomorrow, what do you think you might consider to replace it? Would you ever buy new again a la the Intrepid, or are you into only used these days?
I really don't know what I'd do if the Park Ave died tomorrow. If I was going with a brand-new car, I'd consider something like an Altima, Acord, Fusion, or Malibu, in no particular order. And for some reason, the Mazda6 is starting to grow on me a bit. I dunno if I'd go for a Malibu though. It's not a bad car, and I liked it when it came out, but it just seems like its magic has worn off. And, I wouldn't go for a fancy, decked-out car...just a 4-cyl, and just nicely equipped enough that it has a sunroof.
As for used, well if the Park Ave died because of a wreck or another parking lot hit-and-run, I might actually seek out another one if I could find one that had the same combination of miles, features, condition, and price. Or perhaps a used Bonneville, or maybe even a LeSabre if I could find one with a sunroof.
If, however, the car had to be retired because of some major catastrophic failure, it might spook me enough that I wouldn't want to get another for fear of getting burned twice. However, I dunno if there's really anything in my Park Ave that, if it failed, would make it worthwhile to total it. Maybe if a combination of things went all at once, like the engine, supercharger, and transmission? And once it got to really high miles, if something major went I wouldn't hold it against the car, but with only 66,666 miles on it, I'd be disappointed.
With other used cars, I think I'd also consider something like a Crown Vic/Grand Marquis, or maybe a Charger/300 with the 3.5. But looking around, I've even seen cars like fully-loaded Altimas with the V-6 that seem reasonably priced. I guess with the Japanese cars, the 4-cyl models might hold their value better than the V-6 versions? Even though the V-6 models are still pretty efficient considering their power, I guess the vast majority of buyers are more worried about fuel economy, so they pick the 4-cyl.
If I had it to to all over again, I don't think I would have bought that Intrepid brand-new. It seemed like a great idea at the time though. Less than a year before, I had finally recovered financially from a bad divorce, and just a couple months before, I had refinanced the condo. When I did the math, I figured that the savings on the mortgage payment, plus the fuel savings in going from an '89 Gran Fury police car to the Intrepid, covered the car's $347.66 monthly payment.
And even that $347.66 seemed cheap to me at the time. I knew people who were paying about that for 5-year old Monte Carlos, and 2-year old Trackers and S-10's and such, but these were also younger people with poor credit. I was also still delivering pizzas back in those days, and a half-way decent week at the part time job would actually cover the car's monthly payment. So, at the time, it seemed like a perfect storm of events.
But, looking back, if I really wanted an Intrepid, I probably could have found a low-mileage 1-2 year old example for $12-14K. Interest rates were a lot higher back then though. I remember the credit union wanting something like 6.75-7% for a used car, while Chrysler Financial gave me 0.9%. So, even though the APR was higher, I would've also been financing $6-8K less, which would have resulted in a smaller monthly payment, or getting it paid off quicker.
Ouch...now that's painful! It's funny though, how as time goes by, my perspective on money changes. 11 years ago, that $347.66 per month didn't seem too bad, but I'd hate to have to pay it today! But, I also haven't had to make a car payment in 6 years, so that might be why...it's been so long that I've gotten used to not having one.
I wonder if that's why people often trade in as soon as their car is paid off? They're so used to having a payment, that they feel naked, somehow, without one?
Wow, you paid that car off that quickly?! I'm impressed! I knew you were paying extra each month, but not that much. Haven't you only had it about 3 years?
I really want my 2000 Park Ave to last as long as possible so I don't have to get a replacement, but for a more realistic goal, I want it to at least get to the point that its total cost allocates out to around $250 per month. That's about what my 2000 Intrepid cost, from cradle to grave, 10 years, ~150,000 miles. Plus gas and insurance.
Right now, my Park Ave comes out to around $750 per month, but that's because I paid for it all at once, and haven't even had it for a year yet. My estimate is that it'll come down to around $250/month sometime in early 2013, unless anything really major fails on it.
Still, these are Mexican built IIRC... Still not great. There have been a few reports of this and even a recall for "Premium Fuel required" otherwise similar consequences...