Automobile Survey:

What kind of a car (manufacturer, model, year) do you have?
I am doing a survey to see which cars are most popular.
Please e-mail all replies to pooh@cyberspace.org
(Please also include your geographic location)
thank you.
gary

49 responses total.

I have a VW Jetta, 1995.

Saturn SC2, 1994
Nissan/Datsun 720 pick-up, 1983

Dodge Colt 1987, I think.  And Jeep Wagoneer 1978, 1978, 1979 (one may be
drivable, none insured).  We use the Dodge once or twice a month to haul.

Chevy Nova, 1986   Subaru Brighton, 1995.

   1983 saab 900.  i'm in ann arbor.

1992 25th Anniversary Chevy Camaro RS

Wow, nothing like waking up an old item. :>

1994 Honda Civic Si
1982 Volkswagen Vanagon Westfalia Diesel

1996 VW Jetta (I'm in Ypsilanti)

1993 Volvo 940 Wagon

1997 BMW M3
1993 Alfa Romeo 164S (currently in the shop)

Ann Arbor

1987 Plymouth Dodge Colt and 1986 Toyota (?). A2  I am surprised that so many
other people also have two motor vehicles.  

1996 Subaru Legacy
2000 Volkwagon Passat
2001 Subaru Legacy L

(These serve 3 people.)

   The Saab was totaled in January of 2000.  Currently I drive a 1991
Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser station wagon.

Re #11:  We have two people, who often need to be different places. 

1991 Honda Civic 1500 DX
5.7 l/100km (41 MPG)
Peotone, IL, USA

2005 Toyota Matrix (replaced the Civic)

2002 Chevrolet Cavalier
2001 Jeep Grand Cherokee
1994 Mercury Grand Marquis

New answer: 
1983 Mercedes 300D Turbodiesel (soon to be sold) 
1989 VW Cabriolet Wolfsburg Edition 
1995 Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor (picking it up tonight) 
 

Check that Crown Victoria for puke and other nasties in the back seat.
Bring a good nose with you.

Doesn't smell, even after being closed up all night.  Someone went
through and detailed it rather thoroughly.

Well, if it doesn't smell then you probably got an execmobile. Nice 
score.

It is fairly impossible to get puke stink out of a car.

Entirely possible -- the mileage was racked up pretty slowly.  The
CarFax shows about 113,000 miles in ten years, which would be pretty low
for a patrol car.  It was clearly a full-dress marked car, though.  It's
still got push bars and a spotlight, and there are plugged holes where a
second spotlight and wiring for a light bar were installed.

What does the driver's seat look like?

Pretty worn, but not completely shot.  The steering wheel shows heavy 
wear, too. 

My guess is that while the car might not have very many miles on it, 
the engine probably has a lot of time on it. The car most likely spent 
a lot of time sitting on the side of the road in speed traps and such.

Very possibly.  There's also a lot of wear on the brake pedal pad, 
suggesting lots of low-speed driving. Too bad no one puts hour meters 
on cars.  Fortunately, the 4.6L V-8 has a reputation for being stout, 
and this one doesn't smoke or ping or show any other obvious signs of 
wear, yet.  I haven't had it long enough to get a good feel for oil 
consumption, but it can't be too high or I'd be seeing smoke. 
 
It's an interesting car to drive. The suspension is much stiffer than a 
normal Crown Vic, and it corners very flat.  This is quite a contrast 
to the '85 Crown Vic I had years ago, where after taking curves at 
speed you felt like checking the door handles for scrape marks.  The 
gearing seems fairly tall.  Acceleration at around-town speeds isn't 
particularly notable, but flooring it at 50 mph gives completely 
different results.  It downshifts to 2nd and builds speed at an 
impressive rate. 

Yep, the 2.55 diff they put on the standard panther-platform cars is 
for better gas mileage. The HPP Crown Vics and Police Interceptors have 
a 3.27 (IIRC) rear end which gives you some nice acceleration at 
highway speeds.

Also something to check out: Does your car have a button in the middle 
of the dashboard so you can remove the key and keep the engine running?

Nope. Not that I've seen, anyway. 

Turns out the slow acceleration below 40 mph is because the transmission
isn't downshifting into 1st most of the time. Sometimes, when the
transmission is cold, it will decide to cooperate and the car will take
off like nobody's business.

I had kind of mentally calculated in the cost of an eventual
transmission rebuild, because my experience with Fords is that their
transmissions rarely last much past 100,000 miles. This is a new failure
mode for me, though.  In the past they've either started slipping in
overdrive or failed to go into gear at all; this one drives and shifts
very nicely except that it forgets to go into 1st.

I'm going to get the trans fluid changed this weekend and see if that
makes any difference.  It probably won't, but it needs doing anyway. 
This is one of those newer electronic automatics, where the shifts are
controlled by an array of solenoids, so I'm going to check the solenoids
as well to see if one has a bad coil or bad wiring.

My Grand Marquis has 130,000 and the transmission is still strong. Just
be sure to follow the regular maintenance schedule, and you should be okay.

You may be right. I'm kind of curious how many more miles I can get out 
of this one. The "no 1st" thing is only a slight annoyance to me, since 
I'm not planning on any stoplight drag racing.  Who knows, it might 
even improve the fuel economy. 

I just listed Jim's car on Craigslist for $300 and 156,000 miles.  It had
150,000 when it was given to us about 10 years ago and we drove it on a couple
of long trips and also to Detroit quite a few times.  The engine appears to
be working fine still, but the exhaust system fell off.

> The engine appears to be working fine still, but the exhaust system fell 
> off.

Yeah, cars that sit for long periods of time accumulate a lot of rust.
Weird how that works.

Especially if they're parked on an unpaved surface.  I think they pick 
up dampness from the ground. 

re 29: My old Ford F150 (1994) had the new style tranny and when it
started shifting weird (couldn't get past 2nd, which was a real pain ;)
it took a new speed sensor, which cost about $50 to fix it.  Worked fine
after that.  I don't know if your problem could be fixed the same way
or not, but I was pleasantly surprised to have my transmission working
perfectly again and it didn't cost an arm and a leg. Make sure you go to
an honest mechanic, though.

Jim's 1987 Dodge Colt is now officially on display in his driveway.  He took
off the tarp, replaced the mirror that the tarp somehow knocked off, put more
air in the tires and removed the bricks, and one potential buyer looked at
it for a couple of minutes and said something about power steering (which I
presume it has) and left.  Is $300 a fair price for something that has 156,000
miles (we put on the 6,000 in 10 years), a little rust around the wheel wells,
and needs a new exhaust system but otherwise runs and has 2 new tires and new
fan belt?  

I think that $300 is a fair price for anything that runs. They might
have to spend a hundred getting a new muffler and maybe some more if the
pipes are bad but I'll bet someone can get a running car for $600. 

If a tarp can knock off a mirror, I'd say $300 may be a bit high.

Jim is rather rough with tarps - he says he broke the plastic part of it and
he is going to put it back on somehow.  He also forgot to mention that one
of the bumper supports rusted and he wired on the bumper, but it seems to
work.  There is some rust around the wheel wells but the floor of the car and
the trunk is okay.  We had to replace most of the floor in the car we are
keeping, and the rust around the wheel wells was much worse.  

I got two more emails about the car today, including one from Toledo that
understandably wanted photos and to know about rust and interior.
It is not just the muffler but the connecting pipes that rusted off.  Jim put
on some gas pipe or plumbing pipe instead to take the exhaust to the rear of
the car.  A professional replacement around here would be $300, probably
cheaper in Ypsi or if someone can bend a part to fit instead of ordering the
special expensive OEM piping.  

Two tires are almost new, but the wheels themselves must be a bit out of round
because he has to refill the tires about once a month due to a slow leak. 
The engine is working fine and always has been.  The brakes are fine ever
since Jim undid what the professionals did (they used the wrong side brake
parts).

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss