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Maintenance & Repair To Fix Up or Trade Up, That is the Question
536 messages, Last post on Jul 24, 2009 at 9:12 AM
You are in the Maintenance & Repair Forum. Your Host is mr_shiftright
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I need advise. I had an accident yesterday with my 1995 Ford Taurus SHO. I rear-ended a woman who was merging but changed her mind suddenly. Must have hit her in a bad way since she had almost no damage but I will probably need a hood, headlight and turn signal assembly and radiator work. Haven't shopped around yet for body work but a casual quick estimate was about $3000. I dropped collision insurance last year due to the age of the car and the fact that it is not driven much. The car is supposedly somewhat rare and coveted. It is an automatic 1995 Ford Taurus SHO with 107,000 miles on it. Runs perfectly. A slight amount of rust (garaged most of the time). May need dual exhaust system in a year or two. Has new tires, brakes. Like all SHO's it has lots of upgrades. Was never abused, we are original owners, and it still is fun to drive since it has the coveted powerful engine. Fix it up or donate it to charity in its damaged condition or fix it? The car is liked but will it hold it's value to make it worth the costs? Hate to see the fine and fun 95 SHO sent to the graveyard due to a stupid accident, but can I justify the expense of repairing it? Any advise? |
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Replying to: maryh3 (May 02, 2009 2:36 am) Your only other option, which is also the only way there can be any upside to this situation, is for you to find all the pieces you need at a wrecking yard, all in the same color as your car, and install them yourself and drive the car around as it is. |
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Replying to: maryh3 (May 02, 2009 2:36 am) Our 95 T Bird has been repaired several times by such a bodyman and the work is perfect. Right now, he has a 55 T Bird in his shop. If you can find a retired or moon lighting body mechanic as outlined above, fix it. 
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Replying to: euphonium (May 02, 2009 9:18 am)
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (May 02, 2009 9:58 am) 1995 Used Ford Taurus SHO Sedan, White, 3.2L V6, AUTO 4SPD, FWD, 4 door, Stock# 17441 Dealer: Reposses Auto Sales, Inc. 877-299-9140 $3,500 Van Nuys, CA In addition there is: 1995 Used Ford Taurus SHO Sedan, White, 6 Cylinders, AUTOMATIC, FWD, 4 door, Stock# 2248 Dealer: Phillipsburg Auto Sales 888-839-0013 $3,290 90,000 mi Phillipsburg, NJ |
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (May 02, 2009 9:58 am)  The only other option would be to buy pieces on e-bay, like you say, and install them myself or have someone do it for me for labor costs only. I see a hood on e-bay for $40.00 in my color, that is 2 hrs away. Headlights are reasonable on e-bay too. I may be biting off more than I can chew though - I'm not mechanically inclined. Will I be able to find all the brackets and screws and monuts that I need? Probably won't know until I try to install the replacement pieces. Do you think I should pursue this route? Basically it needs a new hood, some radiator repair and headlights with the mountings etc. These things do appear on e-bay. This ins't a question of money rather its that I hate to see things go to waste.
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Replying to: maryh3 (May 02, 2009 12:28 pm) "waste" is, as you say, a subjective term. To me, it's a "waste" of your time, but to you, maybe not. Fixing a smacked up car is often not just a matter of bolting new parts on there. Things have been bent, pushed, etc and there are little bits and pieces, such as brackets, trim parts, that you may not yet know are damaged. Why don't you go to a "real" bodyshop and get a real estimate to start with? That would give us some idea of how much you can save doing it all "on the cheap". Also posting some photos would be good. To help you with a frame of reference, I think your car could be replaced with one in kind for about $2,500.
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Replying to: maryh3 (May 02, 2009 2:36 am) When I first read your message, the first thing I thought was '$3,000 to repair a car that probably worth about $3,000, at the very best'. And this is NOT a good 'deal' to get into. I'm not a body repairman, but my guess is that the problem you would get into by buying the parts yourselves, is that you can find the hood, headlights, all the large external parts. But, you probably have broken smaller plastic parts - brackets, braces, clips, etc inside the nose and around the radiator. These will have to be bought from Ford, if available, or gotten from a salvage. And any salvage car hit in the front will not have these parts, since they were also damaged in it's wreck. I'm sorry, but I would not repair this car. I'll bet with 100,000+ miles, the leather on the seats is in rather bad shape. The car has its supporters, but overall is not that special. At it's time, which actually was the early models, 1989 or so, this car was a powerful sedan. But by 1995, many, many sedans had surpassed the power and handling of the SHO. This advice is being given by someone that owned a new 1991 SHO for about 6 years. And, I drove a new 1995 automatic, considering the car to get away from my standard transmission car. The 1995 automatic seemed less powerful, and as I said, there were other options to buy in the 'sport sedan' class rather than SHO's. When we sold our car, it only had about 42,000 miles. It still ran well, but the paint was fading off all over, and I was very happy having the extended warranty we bought for the car, because it had been used quite a bit. The clutch was getting harder and harder to push, and it was going to need work soon, which was not covered by the warranty. Overall, don't put 100% of the value of the car into it. Not even 50%. It's time to move on. A newer Honda Accord V6 will have about the same power, comfort, and handling as your SHO. |
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (May 02, 2009 1:24 pm) Had 2 people who seem professional look at it and both said, as I suspected, that the hit just wasn't that bad (and since I'm the one who did it I can verify that I didn't hit her very hard). I think the bumpers on the SHO are just so low that I slid under her bumper hence, an unprotected area was hit. One repairman, that I like, says he can do it for $1000 which includes everything. I picked up the quote for the original body shop ($3000) and noticed they were using some ridiculous things like $795 for a brand new hood and $293 for headlights etc. He and I looked at new and used parts on E-bay, the internet, catalogs etc and I know I can save $1000 off the original quote for parts alone. IOW I think this Craigslist man's quote is pretty reasonable, fair, and he is still making a decent wage. We were "educated" about where to use new and where to use used parts for the repair. I also advertised it on Craigslist for sale as an "AS IS" and have received NO responses. So I have to assume the value is below $500. The way I'm looking at it is that I don't think I can get ANY used car for less than $1500 (the $500 sale price plus $1000 to fix it) that runs as well, still has AC, and with a known history of not being abused. Plus, just about 2 months ago I put new tires and brakes on it (they were the OE brakes). Another factor is the "ego". I came out of church last week and there was a man looking at it and his wife dragging him away and he is telling her "I just want to see which engine it has in it". We do get questions and comments and people looking through the windows at it occasionally. Not a big deal, but I would never get that with a V-6 Honda (yawn). Agree that this should not be a factor in the decision but it can be fun anyhow. So how do you feel about the $1000 quote? I'm pretty comfortable. I will post pictures later. For bolivar -- the leather seats are actually in very good condition. We had an 89 stickshift SHO before we traded it in years ago for this automatic 95 SHO. The 89 leather did not wear well and I remember there were cracks in it. I think Ford may have gotten enough complaints that they changed something so the later model SHO's leather wore better.
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Replying to: maryh3 (May 05, 2009 6:33 am) On the other hand, your argument that you can't find a decent car for $1500 is reasonable---however, we (or at least I) was suggesting that you just buy a clean 95 SHO---in other words a BETTER version of your car, for about $3500. You can argue, and it's not a bad argument either, that you're better off with what you know than what you don't know. Once again, the whole scenario is "marginal". If your position is emotional rather than logical, then you have every right to fix the car, or even spend $10,000 on it--who are we to tell you what to love? but if you want to be coldly logical, your approach is risky---not crazy, but risky. In other words, you could come out all right (and I hope you do) or you could just be throwing good money after bad and end up with something you don't like and doesn't look good. Once again, without photos of the damage, I can't say much more about it.
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