OT Buying Good Used Car

Then pick up a used Volvo.

Escorts are , quite frankly..pieces of shit. Not as bad as the Focus..but nearly so. An escort with 4 people in it......

And gas is not going to go up again for a fair amount of time, in fact, its still on its way down. I figure it will stabilize at about $1.50ish

I hope so ! I got a job offer today , but it's a 40 mile one way drive . Two ways I could do that , carpool or ride one of the bikes . The Kawasaki supposedly gets 70 mpg , I know fershure the Harley gets 42-48 . The one with the fairing and lowers wins ... 'sides , it's got tunes !

I had bad experience with one of the earlier Escort wagons. It was a good car for a few years then one problem after another. If I understand correctly, the later Escorts were mostly Mazda. My wife used to have an old Mazda 323 that we picked up for $500. Got 3 or so years of mostly local miles on it, it was reliable for most of that time. I read reviews of people being happy with the Escorts but don't know if that is early life or later life.

I would love to have a 4X4 mini truck, a Ranger with some kind of extended cab would be great. The down side is that the 4wd would be handy a few days a year but the better gas mileage of a car would benefit year around. Still, if I end up stuck in the snow in a car the 30mpg won't mean much at that moment!

RogerN

Gunner, I saw an ad for a 1992 Ranger for $1250, are the pre 94 models good? If I could save that much money I could afford to put some $$$ into the mechanicals if needed.

RogerN

1994 was the year Ford and Mazda went into partnership making the Ranger series. Prior to that..they were the Courier (spit) and I think another model. Mazda plants turn out the Rangers here in the US. New Jersey IRRC

The Mazda trucks are identical to the Rangers, the only thing different is the emblem on the front grill and the owners manual in the glove box.

The Mazda trucks are the B2300 (2.3 liter engine), B3000 (3.0) and the B4000 (4.0 liter)

The 3.0 engine is a V6 (as is the 4.0), and has gone into many Ford and Mazda vehicles besides trucks. The Ford Taurus had a sidways mounted 3.0. The only difference was the water pump housing and the intake manifold.

That 3.0 in a Ranger/Mazda, is well known for going 300,000 miles with few problems and the trucks themselves are extremely well made and rugged. Ive no experience with the 4x4s. Several friends have the

4.0 engines in their 4x4s and have said they like them.

The key is post 1994.

Gunner

Thanks Gunner, that's what I was wanting to know.

RogerN

Some of my dads friends have a 1988 full size Ford with an inline 6 cylinder and 5 speed overdrive manual transmission. It has been in their family since new and currently has ~88K miles on it. They claim that on a long trip they once got up to 25mpg on it. Has new tires with ~500 miles on them, plus new clutch and new exhaust. The family member that has it now doesn't use it and is only asking what they paid for it from their other family, $800. So I'm thinking of giving it a try and if it isn't a good enough work truck then I shouldn't be out much if anything, if it works out well, then I'll be able to pocket (errr pay bills with) ~ $2800 after tax, title, and License.

RogerN

Don't expect fantastic gas mileage, but that baby will ou-pull a 5 liter V8 any day of the week, and quite possibly a 5.7 on Sundays.

Like Chevy/GM's old 292. Outpulled a 327 any day, and a 396 (or 377) on a good day. Back in my younger years we had one in a 1 ton pickup and hauled a 3 axle trailer. 22 tons of farm machinery was just playing.

The primary role of this truck will be transportation to and from work, 66 miles per day round trip. My major concern is reliability for right now, I don't want to have to call for help very often. I thought for the price and condition, I could use this truck at least temporarily until I can find better transportation if needed. Did you have any reliability problems?

Searching with Google, I found some reviews, some people had excellent reliability, others did not. The previous owner is a friend of my dads and believes the truck to be reliable. Anyway, for $800 if I could get a year out of it, I would be more than satisfied.

Thanks!

RogerN

On Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:53:55 -0500, the infamous snipped-for-privacy@snyder.on.ca scrawled the following:

My '91 F-150 EFI-fed 5L outranked my old '68 Ranch Wagon 5L V-8 by nearly 100 horsies, and probably a bit of torque. Though the old I-6es were torquey, I seriously doubt they'd out-pull a newer EFI-fueled

302.

In '88, the 300cid I-6 put out 170hp @ 260lb-ft while the 302cid put out 220hp @ 300lf-ft (130hp in '68 with 2bbl.)

-- Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived. -- Helen Keller

I think it would be easily worth $800 Reliability on a 20 year old vehicle is always a crapshoot. The 1980s were not the high-water mark for quality in U.S.-made vehicles. IIRC that 5-speed may be the weak point. List for noises. I'd consider replacing the radiator as a preventative measure.

For a few weeks at most. OPEC is scaling back production as we speak.

The Left tree huggers in congress and now the White House are not going to do anything to increase domestic production of energy.

We are not looking at good times ahead folks.

Mark

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Our '82 Bronco with I-6 had ~140K on it when the clutch gave out... at that time I had put a carb rebuild into the engine and nothing more... though come to think of it, I may have changed the water pump out around '90. It was driven in the salt a lot, so by '94 the tailgate and rocker panels were rotted out. Also had the 5-speed OD tranny, which needed an input shaft bearing fairly early in its life... maybe '87. (Changed on the dining room table in our Nürnberg apt. with limited tools, so it obviously wasn't *that* big a deal)

Mixed town and highway driving usually got 19-20 mpg. We did get 25 mpg on one tank during a NH to TX trip. Overall 23+ mpg for the trip, IIRC.

Ours only stranded us once. Bad voltage regulator killed the battery, IIRC. Engine itself; a solid 10 for reliability.

Wish I had the car I saw today! It had the most God Awful paint job I have ever laid eyes on - poorly sprayed on aluminium paint - but still wish it was mine. 50+ years ago, I could have had the one year newer coupe w/rumble seat for $50.00 but wanted something that I could get in and drive! What did I see? A 1928 Durant 2 door coach parked at Princess Auto here in snow land. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

I guess the one you saw today was more than $50.00? :-)

RogerN

Thanks for the info. If I don't see any major objections, I plan to buy the truck and give it a try as work transportation. Even thought the mileage should be worse than my Chevy Prizm it's replacing, the currently lower gas prices should make it reasonable in fuel costs. I figure for the $800 I shouldn't be able to get hurt too bad. If I were to buy a new car and it last 10 years, it would cost me twice that or more per year.

I'm glad to hear that the engine is reliable. For my purposes I can live with some failures but I don't want to get stranded or miss work very often.

RogerN

RogerN

Volvo 240 or 740. For maintenance help see www.turbobricks,com

Regards,

Boris Mohar

Got Knock? - see: Viatrack Printed Circuit Designs (among other things)

void _-void-_ in the obvious place

Not from it's looks! Gerry :-)} London, Canada

The 240 bricks, were EXCELLENT cars. Ive owned several of them. And you can get them cheap.

Two issues...trannys tended to go, but are easily and cheaply replaceable from the wrecking yard.

Pre 1987, Volvo used a special "green" environmentally safe insulation compound on their wiring harnesses. In hot conditions, such as where I live in the desert, the insulation turned to dust. Most California/Arizona etc Volvos will eventually have wiring problems in the engine compartment. When you strip off the loom wrapping..dust falls out leaving nice shiney bare wires touching each other. The quick fix is a $150 aftermarket wiring loom (google) and they only take an hour or so to install..maybe two. Put the new one in so it matches the old one, then simply unplug stuff and plug it into the new loom.

In not aware of this issue in the North East or midwest. Again google is your friend.

But the basic car is excellent, good mileage, tough, designed for snow driving, easy to service and maintain and there are lots of parts available.

A lot of the volvos you find in the wrecking yard were bought new by mom and dad, and when they upgraded to a new Volvo, they gave Jr. the old one, and he tried to drive it like a Cobra. A 4 banger just isnt up to it..and though the engines held up, the tranny swollowed its ass.

Gunner

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..." Maj. Gen. John Sedgewick, killed by a sniper in 1864 at the battle of Spotsylvania