Need an old car...

[fury]

That '94 T-bird is starting to feel like it's got more miles behind it than ahead of it. (whoops, about 80,000 miles past that point, even)

Problem is my credit sucks, so I don't know how likely I am to be rolling out of the lot with anything better than what I already got.

Do I have any hope of getting a decent car for less money than it takes to keep fixing the T-bird when it breaks? Do dealers typically cut broke schmoes like me any slack, and if so, what kind of gotchas should I look out for, what questions should I ask of such a dealer, etc.?

And most importantly, what kind of car should I follow up a '94 T-bird with? I like the A/C, leg room, head room, cruise control, and the comfy seat, mostly, since some of my drives are pretty long. Other than that, I'm flexible.

 

[Dave]

Make a couple calls to local lending institutions to see what the high end interest rate would be for used vehicles. If your credit is that bad, its a good place to start. Then figure out what you can afford for monthly payments and work backwards from there. Once you know about what you can afford, all the used car sites online will let you put price parameters in the search.

Take into consideration the sales tax, if applicable, and registry fees.

This calculator might be helpful

Some good test drive tips

oh...and ask for a Car Fax report. There is no good reason why they won't be able to get one for you.

...and no, they won't cut you any slack..

 

[Professur]

OK, as a guy who's been there ... dump the fluff. You claim tight finances ... lose the luxuries. They're just other things to fail. A/C ... it's nice but I've made it this far without, so can you.

I offer myself as an example .. I just bought a '85 Parisienne (caprice clone) full sized car .. with a carb. Almost zero electronics to fail. Less efficient? Perhaps ... but when I look under the hood, there's no inch thick conduit of wires (which can fail) leading to electronic components (more bits to fail) and sensors (which usually fail long before the mechanical parts they're supposed to be monitoring do). More importantly ... there's nothing buried. I don't have to drop the engine or remove the exhaust just to change spark plugs. 25 year old tech, doesn't take any special diagnostic mainframes to find the issues ... any mechanic over 40 cut his teeth on this stuff. Engine is a small block chevy ... the single most common engine in the world. Period. The best after market support of any engine ever built. Part prices are dirt cheap, easy to install. Hell ... a brand spanking new engine for this can be had for $1100 ... with a 7 year warranty on it. Installed inside of 4 hours .... the Transport need 5 hours for a dealership sparkplug replacement.

The car itself ... again, minimal failure options. Steel frame, steel body, steel bumpers. Rust repair is easy, and the steel is thick enough to resist for a long time ... unlike the paper thin tin foil they clad cars in today ... when it's not plastic.


One question . what's wrong with the T-bird now?

 

[fury]

A couple of repairs ago, my cooling fan had to be replaced. The last thing I had to have done to it was the brake line a month or two ago. Since then, I've bought a new battery in anticipation of the old one failing, since the one in it is about 10 years old now. Right now it's running OK. *knock on wood*

I'm thinking ahead to the next thing that goes wrong with it that's gonna cost $700+. I've paid for enough of those repairs to amount to another car by now, not to mention how much my dad put into it as well (new engine about 80k miles ago, rebuilt transmission about 40k miles ago, etc).

If I wait for another one to happen, I'll be back to square one in trying to save up to get some other clunker that probably has fewer things that might go wrong with it than the T-bird. If I make a decision and pull the trigger before that happens, I'll probably be in better shape than if I'd keep on knocking wood with the T-bird.

Problem with getting another old car is not knowing it as well as I know the T-bird; I may just be hopping out of the frying pan and into the fire, ending up continuing the same regimen of a few hundred bucks here, half a grand there every few months. And, indeed, problem with getting a newer car is they don't make em like they used to. If pigs fly and the planets align and I get an auto loan, by the time I get done with car payments, it'll probably be old enough to start needing repairs. Maybe I'll be older and wiser and slightly more gainfully employed by then and it won't hurt as much, I don't know.

It's hard to hop off the fence in either direction. I've cut out every expense I can, don't even have a home internet connection anymore. Right now a bunch of that extra money I save is going toward the debt collectors and trying to repair my credit score.

The third side of the fence that I was thinking about hopping off of was learning how to fix the damn thing myself. Don't know where to start, there...other than the hardware store to buy a box of automotive tools

 

[Professur]

You won't find a bigger advocate of learning to do it yourself than me. but that again puts you back into the old is better field. If you can find a local school or community college that offers a basic auto repair class, you'll be well ahead of trying to learn it yourself ... but a total DIY experience isn't impossible. Just don't forget that they 1hr tv shows take upwards of 40 hours of filming to get the job done, and those guys don't lack for tools, or help.

the more advanced the technology, the better it runs when it works ... but the easier it is to stop up the drain. Personally I'd never buy an old car with OBDII, that's just asking for trouble.

Might be worth the effort to get in contact with Chic or Kruz and get their input .. they work on all manner of cars every day.

 

[Winky]

Need a new, old car?

Sitting in my driveway is a 100% reliable
1987 2.3 liter 5 spd Ford Mustang

I purchased it new off the dealers lot.

380,000 miles in 23 years still gets 25 mpg city 32 highway.

One caveat, if you can't do car repairs your are screwed.

I have always purchased only manual transmission cars.
Never buy auto-trans cars, them things always fail.

If you learn to replace the items that normally wear out
you can keep a car running forever.