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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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Replying to: maryh3 (May 06, 2009 10:26 am) Hell, I'd love to drive a tank. If they can build a 48 ton Sherman series tank for under 20 grand, and get 26 mpg hwy on it... sign me up! Wouldn't matter if it only got 25mph... the shortest distance between 2 points thing. 
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Replying to: jipster (May 06, 2009 12:14 pm) 
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Replying to: maryh3 (May 06, 2009 10:56 am) The car did have some maintenance items. It also had only a 12/12,000 factory warranty, probably just before manufactors went to the 36/36,000 warranty. So, I was happy I had purchased an extended warranty. But actually, even with a few 'issues', I think I only broke even on what the repairs cost verse the cost of the warranty. But, it still had over a year left on the warranty, and I strongly suggested to the guy I sold it to that he should pay the $50 transfer fee so he could have about 18,000 mile and 18 months of warranty on the car. Overall, the car was very nice. The interior looked great. Ours was black, and looked nice outside until the paint started to evaporate off. It was very quiet and stable at speed. I actually compared it to a Lexus - until you slamed a door - then it sounded like a Ford. But driving the car - it was great. Problems - various things failed, I actually don't remember what at this time - AC clutch failed and leaked, motor mount loose, etc. The biggest problem was the clutch, an even bigger problem on the 1989 models. It just required more and more effort to push as the car aged. We drove it from the midwest to NJ area one summer, hitting some extended traffic slowdowns on the trip, and the clutch was terrible, inching along in trafffic with constant upshifts/downshift with high effort for miles and miles of construction zones, heavy traffic, etc. This trip made me decide the car had to go. And, this motor had no torque at all. To get any speed, you had to really get it into the higher rpms, or it was dead. At 3,500rpm the valves on the secondary set of intake runners opened, and the engine came to life. But cruising on a two lane, even with a long passing opening, you better drop down from 5th to 4th, or you would take forever to pass at 65mph. Several times at more moderate speeds, like 45 or 50, I got the car into a place where it was almost dangerous because it had no acceleration available in the gear I had it in - you had to downshift, at times more than one gear, and go to full throttle to get it to move. And then the torque steer jumped up. You just can't beat big iron, high torque motors for these situations. And, this is why I don't really like to drive a manual, you have to be thinking about what you need to be doing with the gears and throttle all the time - with an automatic you just mash to throttle and let the auto tranny decide how far down it can downshift. It was fast. I can attest to 135mph and this was not topped out. A car that was nice to own, but I was happy to sell.
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (May 06, 2009 12:59 pm) Well, of course. Without any ammunition, the marketabillity of the things go waaaaaayyyy down. 
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Replying to: jipster (May 06, 2009 2:06 pm) I would certainly run a CARFAX on any used tank. You just don't know where they've been.
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (May 06, 2009 2:18 pm) |
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Replying to: fezo (May 06, 2009 2:22 pm) People buy up old ones and rent them to movies, I guess. Some big businesses like that down in L.A. |
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (May 06, 2009 2:30 pm) I have no idea if they still do this kind of thing but they used to open up the local military base on Armed Forces Day and show off what they had. Certainly convinced me this wasn't where I was heading....
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Replying to: fezo (May 06, 2009 2:33 pm) |
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (Apr 30, 2009 3:07 pm) So, I've driven worse.
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