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Comments
Someone, somewhere, actually picked this over a Lexus SC400.
"Euro" = who cares?
who cares x2
The last real SAAB?
Also, with that many pics, he could have just made an animated gif out of them.
No one loves the Z31.
Lord Vader's starter car.
Andre needs a new old truck, part 2.7 x 10^4
How am I supposed to fix all the stuff wrong on this 535i for $100?
The Andre-mobile looks bad with its rear up in the air.
I bought an aftermarket warranty for the E55, I had to use it twice not long after I bought it (one of those was planned before I bought the warranty)...nothing has gone wrong since, knock on dark colored marble-looking wood.
"GREAT MUSCLE CAR"
Gremlin Part 2
"Very Nice & Rare"
I think the $100 would fix one of the dings, the other 34 things wrong with it are on you! What laugh - needs a GPS because the speedo doesn't work - yeah, that's a $7 item, I'm sure...even if it was in good shape, it sound like a rough ride, sports shocks/springs/bushings/low profile tires. Ouch.
Back up the list, that Olds Delta is cheap. If it runs good it would make a good in town first car for some kid. Or, as I tell my son, "You want something with more bling and cool factor? Get a job."
I was shopping for one at some point in time, but could never find a well-cared-for example.
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
I talked with my wife about last night, and the first answers were no, no, and no.
Then I explained to her that I'm not going to strip the Benz for the track until it's paid off (another 6months to a year), and until we have another daily driver. So she warmed up to the idea.
I have H&R race springs on it already, probably could use some good shocks, a straight pipe or an aftermarket exhaust, different wheels, and that's about it for starters.
I'd strip the whole interior, rear seats, stereo, speakers, headliner, climate control, seat heaters, but I don't know if I'd leave the door mounted airbags or not, or the stock steering, and replace the rear windows with plexiglass.
I think it would be a fun thing to do, and amateur racing doesn't cost that much anyhow. I have a few buddies that are mechanics, so I can assemble a crack team for a pit crew.
It wouldn't be till next year though. I still need a place with a garage, so if our house hunting goes well and we end up buying something, I'll make sure I have a workshop in there.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
I haven't tinkered with my cars since my new Civic in 97. Just haven't had the time or space to do it.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
Also, you are scaring me away from German cars again. I don't mind repairs like water pumps and clutches. It is the $1000 climate control modules, abs lights, etc. that I can't stand.
By the way, I am starting to get interested in my friend's '95 S6 again. At least it is the devil I know. He's had it for over seven years and it has been impeccably maintained during that time.
I have a small exhaust mod on my E55 - the resonator has been removed and an "x-pipe" installed in its place. I doubt it has much of a power benefit, but it sounds nicer.
I figured if Isink money into it, it might as well be for my enjoyment, and not someone else's.
I owe about $9k on it. If I put $5k into it fixing the stuff that doesn't bother me, but would bother most other buyers, I might be able to sell the car for $10-$12k if I'm lucky. So I might as well pay it off, and put $5k into it prepping it for amatuer racing.
And fintail is right. I can sell some parts like the CD changer, stereo, door panels, headliner, glass, power window motors, trunk lining, carpeting, back seat, stock exhaust, other interior trim pieces, steering wheel with airbag (although if I remove it, my cluster will probably be lit up in permanent red due to the lack of SRS).
And in the end I will have some fun with it, bang it up here and there, race it, and if worse comes to worse I'll sell the rest for parts, or to someone else who might want to race it.
And I haven't seen any Benzes on the local SCCBC (same as SCCA) cicuits. Most of the racers are in older Civics, CRXs, MGs, and for german cars you see a lot of E36 BMWs.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
From your description, there probably aren't many '80s Fleetwood Broughams left in this condition. On the other hand, the high fuel prices puts you in a good bargaining position for this large V8 car, even if it is pristine. Your challenge is to negotiate a better price, but not lose it to someone who just has to have this car, and is willing to pay up to own it.
How many garages do you have? I imagine you'd want to keep the '87 Brougham garaged.
Good luck with the Caddy, and let us know whether you buy it.
So until the seller sobers up, I doubt that even the most generous real offer is going to work here.
I'd say that you would be extravagant to offer $4,500, and that real world value is around $3,500.
For $8000 you can buy a 1997 Cadillac with 40,000 miles on it, just to give you some perspective.
I could see this car as nice cheap transportation but it does not have, nor will it ever have, any collector value, so paying the asking price would be a reckless purchase IMO. At $3,500 ---$4,000, no harm done, as the condition and low miles would offset the gas consumption, and you might be able to bail out in 10,000 miles and not lose much or any money on it. It won't be an easy sell however. A Cadillac dealer would offer you about $1,500 on trade in.
I'm no Miata expert but from what little I know about them, the cars seem easy to work on and maintain. I bet they're much easier to repair than, say, an Audi or Mercedes of the same vintage.
Looks like maybe you should be in our BMW 5 Series Sedans topic. Here's the link for you to join in. You can cut and paste your question and take it over there:
BMW 5 Series Sedan Topic
MrShiftright
Host
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
I would probably be more competitive with a 99-00 Civic Si which comes out of the box with 160hp.
But then again since I have this car already I might as well play with it instead of taking a loss on selling it, or selling it for parts.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
Yours is in the nebulous "not otherwise classified" group of Benzes, which fall in H Stock. Funny thing about H stock. One of the fastest stock guys overall at the few events I've been to is in H stock with a Honda Fit. He regularly outruns a number of Miatas and S2ks.
BUT, as soon as you change to non-OEM-sized rims or touch the intake, engine, or most parts of the suspension, you are no longer in the stock category.
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
For example, I had a '78 Scirocco in great condition, but no matter how well I maintained the car, it broke down constantly. I sold it to my stepbrother and it did the same for him. They were generally unreliable cars, so that was no big surprise. But alternatively, I had an '84 Jetta that wasn't all that well cared for and should have been even less reliable than the Scirocco. I bought it from a friend, drove it for a short time, then sold it to the same stepbrother. It was incredibly reliable for all three of us from new up to around 175,000 miles.
Every car that I have owned where I knew the past was consistent with this pattern - reliable examples stayed that way and unreliable examples couldn't be made reliable. It is almost as if my cars were predetermined to be good or bad. Does that hold true for anyone else? Any ideas why?
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
My fintail is also what I consider a good car, at its age...I often think it should be more troublesome than it is, but the car is really drama-free, it just keeps going, never fails to start right up. I hope I didn't just jinx it.
I think a lot of it is maintenance, and moreso, just plain old luck.
I think maintenance is definitely a major factor. There's a guy at work who used to have a 1987 Buick Electra Estate wagon. It had the Olds 307 and the THM200R4 automatic...the one based on the lightweight THM200C, but in later years it was pretty durable.
Anyway, we were talking about our old cars one day, and he brought up that wagon. He mentioned that it had a "Canadian Oldsmobile" engine in it. I dunno if he was trying to insinuate that it was crappy because it was Canadian or what, but he thought it was a crappy engine because he had the combustion chambers and valves all carboned up by around 130,000 miles, and it wouldn't pass the emissions test anymore! He was shocked when I told him that we got my grandmother's similar '85 LeSabre up to 157,000 miles on the original engine and transmission. He had needed a tranny rebuild at some point in the car's life. Further, the last time it had to go through the emissions test, it ran so clean that it would have passed by 2000 standards! I knew this because I still had my 2000 Intrepid's readout, and going by the standards listed there, the LeSabre was well within them.
Heck, if I had put about $1000 into that car, it would probably still be running today. But it just got to the point that I had too many cars, so when the brakes went out on it, I decided that was the last straw.
And heck, Lemko's '89 Brougham is the same mechanically as that old Buick wagon, and he's got about 157K miles on his car. And it probably looks about as good as it did when it was brand-new!
About that "Lipstick Edition" Mark, I suppose it wouldn't be a good choice for most guys! And I remembered that the Mark V was limited to the 1977-79 model years after you mentioned it, so the '75 would have been a Mark IV. These cars were never my cup of tea, to be honest.
Sure there are cars with defects but the concept of a "lemon" is completely fallacious IMO. A TOTAL car of 15,000 separate parts being "all bad"? Hard to believe.
When you meet someone with the "car from hell" you will probably find these factors at play:
1. One or more factory defects that needs correcting.
2. A lack of driver awareness, that is, when to stop driving the car, when to track down an oil leak or bad smell, etc.
3. Incompetent repair shop working on the car.
I feel confident that I could take any "car from hell" and make a reliable driver out of it---question is, is it worth my time and money?
CREDENTIALS: Have driven MGB, Fiat 124, Renault R16, Porsche 914, Saab Turbo many times across the Nevada desert. Never broke down in any of them. Drove Lambretta scooters, Norton and Triumph motorcycles, Fiat 600, Morgan, Jaguar XK140 --- very rare occasional breakdowns on these.
Worst type of car I ever owned: 900 Saab Turbos-- 3 bad ones in a row, I give up.
Cars I am genuinely afraid of: Maserati Bi-Turbo, GM diesel cars, Triumph TR-7, VW Dasher, Audi 5000.
I think that's the start, I imagine it's a matter of odds, some cars have zero, most might have one or two, some have the bad luck to have several, then you toss in a bad shop or hypochondriacal owner and it's now a :lemon:
JRW
I had a customer who bought a Civic from me and had some minor problem with it which got fixed under warranty. So she was a bit choked already because it was a new car.
Then she drove over a nail which was sticking out, but didn't cause the tire to go flat, but was making loud rambling noise when she drove it, and she called me saying she wants to return the car case she thinks it was a lemon, her dad called me and also didn't want the car, and said he was going to get a lawyer (before we found out it was a nail in the tire), yelling at me that the car was bad, and it'snot safe, and it's making all kinds of noises etc etc.... :mad:
Once we found out it was a nail in the tire they felt a bit embarassed and apologized.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
Once I bought the factory manual and straightened out all the dealership screwups, it was rock solid and reliable.
We used to have a saying around here: "Fieros and Ferraris have something in common; you can't get either one of them fixed in Austin Texas."
I especially "liked" the partially exposed timing belt. One winter we had a blizzard that filled up a good portion of the engine compartment with snow (no garage back then). Even after I cleaned off the engine as best as I could, there was enough snow on the belt to cause it to slip -- and of course the car wouldn't start or run.
The other main problems were the finicky carburetor and a clutch that started to fail after only 13K miles or so. (And I knew how to drive a stick, actually learned to drive on one -- a '67 Chevy Bel Air.)
Items that failed included throwout bearing (immobilized the car, jammed the ring gear on the flywheel), shocks, rear axle, fuel tanks, steering wheel (honest). It burned the exhaust valves but good, but that could have been the shop's fault; we did pay to have valves set per the maintenance schedule, the mechanic could have set them too tight.
Whatever broke was fixed, for a price, but I'd call the car a lemon.
My Rover P6B (3500 S) was nearly as bad, but since I'd bought it used some of the blame may lie with the original owner. Shift linkage broke. Transmission failed. Right-angle drive at rear of speedometer failed repeatedly; every time it failed it through the speedo serveral thousand mph off calibration. Repeated thermostat failures. Repeated brake master cylinder failures. The vacuum reservoir failed in midwinter; no vacuum to work the valves in the heater/ac system, no heat. The vacuum lines failed repeated; no heat, no ac. The cam lost a lobe. Rear brake calipers grew leaks.
Whatever failed could be fixed, for a price, but I'd call that car a lemon too.
And you wonder why I so like my Hondas, whose existence you deny. Thinking of nonexistent cars, the '04 Civic EX you say I lie about has a little more than 223 k miles today. Two timing belt replacements (with water pump too) on schedule, one set of brake discs, and two thermostats that had the good sense to fail open. Not a lemon, I think. Oh, yeah, last year I hit a deer. Hood, right front light cluster, some supports, the grille and the bumper cover had to be replaced. I don't think we can blame that on Mr. Honda.
It's no coincidence that Fiats run much better in Italy than they ever did in America, for instance.
Did they make better cars for home use than for export? I don't think so.
I'm not sure what you mean about non-existent Hondas and lying. That went right over my head, but let's not go there and instead stay on topic okay?
My grandparents on my Dad's side of the family had a '75 Dart Swinger that would stall out at random...any time, any speed, and without warning. The dealer never could get it fixed. They gave up after two years and bought a '77 Granada which promptly dumped its transmission. Thankfully though, it did that under warranty, and other than that, was fairly reliable. They'd usually trade their cars every 3-4 years anyway, so they usually didn't have them long enough to start running into serious problems.
I always thought my Mom & stepdad's '91 Stanza was a bit of a lemon. The tranny was starting to go bad around 90,000 miles, and at that point it needed exhaust work and had other issues. So compared to their '86 Monte Carlo, '85 Silverado (which I still have), and even their '84 Tempo, that Stanza was a lemon. But I guess everything's relative. Their '99 Altima, which replaced the Stanza, dropped its transmission at 35,000 miles, and I thought it was on track to starting a tradition of crappy Nissan products. But they still have that car, with over 250,000 miles on it, and it's been running fine. So in the long run it's proven itself. I do remember the battery died around the 90,000 mile mark and left them stranded, which I thought was odd. I've had old cars where you could run the car without the battery in it...just hook up some jumper cables right to the terminals, and it would fire up. Just don't turn it off or let it stall!
I guess it's possible though, that the Altima could have been under a heavy load situation. I know it was at night, so they had the lights on. Maybe if they had the a/c blasting too, and came to a red light, it might have been enough to kill it?
Period N-gauge toys (1:160, I think these are the same as my tiny plastic fintails) should be collectible, too.
His current old car is a 1966 Volvo 122 wagon, which he's in the process of selling. One thing his wife should be thankful for is that, at least he only has one old car at a time, whereas I tend to get ahold of them and they sort of pile up over the years!
The 1985 S-10 Blazer would count as the worst...as a kid I remember it going to the shop many times, even when it was relatively new. The thing couldn't hold an exhaust manifold properly, it had stalling and hard starting issues, the paint was of dubious quality, it was rusting pretty good at 5 years old - in a climate where cars usually take much longer to rust, and it just seemed to be of slipshod build quality.
I do remember the big mid 70s (year has slipped my mind...1975?) T-Bird my mom had when I was very young began to get troublesome before it was let go for a Ciera. This would have been in the early 80s...I remember my dad tinkering with it now and then, I think it had issues with emissions stuff and PCV valves, it was a 460 I am pretty sure. The cruise control would stick on it as well.