After having the Thunderbird LX for several years, I was getting more comfortable with buying and playing with old cars (maybe a bit too comfortable, as it turns out). As a result, I was starting to look at some of the other cars that I was a fan of back in the ‘80s. One that I was looking for was a Crown Victoria or Grand Marquis from the boxy era (1979-1991). Because my car tastes are a bit odd, I was more likely to be found reading old brochures in the 80s about Caprices and Town Cars rather than Corvettes or Lambos. (This post is a bit longer than usual, as there’s a lot to pack in – buckle up for a bumpy ride.)
The internet came to my rescue with a 1991 Grand Marquis LS at a classic car dealer fairly close to my old homestead in Akron. The car looked to be in great shape in the pictures and only had 27,000 miles on it. It came with the original window sticker and some other miscellany as well. The dealer was open to taking my Thunderbird LX as a trade, solving the problem of what to do with that car.
I was feeling pretty confident about my ability to find nice older cars and buy them without seeing them myself, as I’d gone two for two on the Thunderbirds. As a result, I made what turned out to be a rather towering mistake in that I bought the car without seeing it in person or asking for additional photos. A deal was struck via phone, email, and FedEx and I arranged to swap cars over the Thanksgiving weekend as I was already going to be there visiting family. I loaded up the Thunderbird with the extra set of wheels I had and began what turned out to be an uneventful road trip. The dealer transaction was also uneventful, but that day was about the last “uneventful” day I had with the car.
We were staying in a hotel for the Thanksgiving weekend that was not far from the dealer, so my drive back to the hotel was a shakedown of sorts. The car seemed to perform fine, but it wandered on the highway a bit and there were some odd smells when the car warmed up. That was about all I learned from that short trip.
Once I got the car back to the hotel and was able to take a longer look at it, I realized that it would need some work just to get it back home to Maryland. The front two tires were fairly new-looking but were a bit flat-spotted. The rear tires were Firestones that matched the original spare in the trunk. As venturing out on the PA Turnpike on 20+year old tires was a non-starter, I took the car to a tire and repair shop that happened to be just across the parking lot from the hotel (very convenient) for two rear tires. They agreed to get them installed the next day, which was fortunate as getting whitewall tires like the ones on the car was not exactly easy.
I got the car back and decided to take it out for a brief spin. I got no further than the edge of the parking lot before I noticed a periodic scraping noise that got faster as I accelerated. So, back to the repair shop it went. Since the tire shop had two more whitewall tires (and only two, as it turns out), I figured I’d replace the flat-spotted front tires as well as address the noise. I asked them to take a closer look to see what else might be needed as well.
They came back with several things: the scraping noise was a parking brake that was stuck slightly engaged, with the shoes barely contacting the drum and making the noise. The odd smell I’d noticed on the drive from the dealer to the hotel was coolant leaking onto hot engine parts, indicative of the need for a new radiator. The replacement of the front tires showed the shop that the front-end alignment was way out of whack and needed to be redone. All of these sounded like fairly necessary repairs. So, I’m into this car for about a grand worth of repairs and I’ve only driven it 20 miles.
However, the trip back home went smoothly and I got the car back home without any further breakdowns. Getting the car back in my well-lit garage showed a few areas of concern – the car was very clean overall, but there was a bit of rust bubbling on the left rear fender, and some obvious corrosion on the exhaust system and other undercarriage parts. The car’s aluminum wheels were a bit worse for the wear – they were painted in the center and polished/clearcoated on the rim, and most of the rim clearcoat was peeling off in big chunks. It was obvious to me upon close inspection that the car, originally sold in the Ohio Lake Erie snowbelt, had been driven some in the winter and put away without being cleaned.
It cleaned up pretty well, though, and as a result won third place in its category at that year’s Ford Carlisle show. (If one were picky, it should be noted that the car was one of only four in its small Mercury category, so this wasn’t exactly a huge win.) It did garner some attention at the show as well as in my neighborhood. Probably the only good attention the car would get during my ownership, unfortunately.
Later that summer, I had gotten the car back out for a bit during a fairly hot stretch of weather. As one might expect, that was when the elderly air conditioning gave out. Fixing it required the replacement of the A/C compressor, but the system worked great when I got the car back. The next repair was for the wheels – because I needed to do all four at once and didn’t have a place for a car with no wheels, it took until the end of summer for the wheel shop to have space. They did an amazing job in cleaning up and painting the wheels to make them look essentially like new. On the way back to the storage garage where I kept the car, I was admiring the newly restored wheels in the shop windows and basking in the cool air from the repaired A/C but noticed as I drove that the acceleration was a bit more sluggish than usual. It got worse as I got close to the garage, a trip of only a few miles. Time for another trip to the shop, probably for transmission repairs this time.
The shop, luckily, was only a few miles from the garage, but the problems with the transmission got bad enough that I had to drive on the shoulder for the last mile or so as the car wouldn’t go faster than 35 mph. Of course, the diagnosis was that the transmission was in serious trouble – the shop was willing to try and rebuild the existing transmission but suggested it would be cheaper and more reliable if I went with a replacement rebuilt unit. Sure, it’s only money, right?
Several thousand dollars and a week later, the Grand Marquis was returned to me with a replacement transmission. I should be all set, right? New radiator, new tires, restored wheels, rebuilt A/C – like a brand new car! Well, not exactly. The exhaust that I had noticed was slightly corroded on the outside turned out to be extremely rusted on the inside, and essentially disintegrated when the shop removed it (which of course they had to do, since the catalysts were tight against the bell housing and the crossover for the single exhaust was directly beneath the transmission). The exhaust note was a bit louder than it had been before the transmission repair – it went from unobtrusive luxury car to glasspack flathead. The parking brake was also stuck, again – this time, enough that the car essentially would not move with the foot brake off. So, back it went to the shop for the parking brake (I decided to try some temporary fixes to quiet the exhaust while I looked for parts).
Back from the shop, the car was now shifting well and the parking brake was freed up, so it was on to collector car bliss, right? Well, not exactly. We were living in a new neighborhood and the street was unevenly paved while the heavy earthmoving equipment traversed our street. I parked the car on an uneven spot, and when I tried to move it the brake was jammed, again. No idea why, but it was pretty well stuck. This time, the shop sent a tow truck to get the car and diagnosed the problem as a sticky parking brake foot pedal. Despite the very high production levels for 1979-1991 Panther platform vehicles, getting the requisite parts was rather difficult and the parts were rather eye-poppingly expensive. I made the executive decision to simply have the parking brake cables loosened to the point where they wouldn’t stick and I’d figure it out later.
At this point, I had driven the car around enough and gotten enough dirty looks from the neighbors that I decided it was time to replace the exhaust. Everything from the exhaust manifolds back was pretty much toast, including the cats, but I could easily find the parts online and a coworker accepted the challenge of installing it. Since he and I lived in opposite directions from the office, I made arrangements to meet him halfway and drop the car and parts at the office for him to pick up. When I went to get the car from the storage garage, it was already out front ready to go. I chatted with the garage owner for a bit and then went to start the car – nothing. Not even a click. A quick battery check indicated that this wasn’t the problem. Another tow truck, and another trip to the shop.
The shop called me a day later confused as to why the car was there, as it started right up for them. I asked them to keep it to see if the problem occurred again, and luckily it did. I suspect that the starter contacts were corroded as the car had been sitting for a long time, and the Russian roulette of the starter spinning and stopping finally caught up with me and the starter rotor happened to stop directly over the corroded areas. The jostling and bouncing of the car in getting it on the truck and towed to the shop probably moved it enough to shift the rotor a bit – probably could have done some percussive maintenance myself to get the same result. Several hundred dollars and a new starter later and I was back on the road.
At this point, I was so disgusted with the car that I didn’t even want to get it out and enjoy it, which is the whole reason to have a collector car. If I didn’t want to drive it, why keep it? The starter incident was the last straw that drove me to sell the car on eBay. It worked well – the car sold in a week to a happy new Panther fan. However, the financial picture wasn’t pretty – I’d invested as much money repairing the car as I’d spent buying it, and I only got about a quarter of that investment back.
Even sending the car off to a new owner on a truck was a problem – the shipping company was originally supposed to show up late in the evening, but I got a panicked call from the new owner first thing that morning saying the truck would be there between eleven and noon. I stood around in the parking lot waiting for the nonexistent truck to show up for an hour, before phoning the company and finding out they’d not even left home base yet. They finally showed up about seven in the evening, and I happily waved goodbye to what had been a year of hard lessons.
What did I learn? Some obvious things, like always go and look at the car you’re buying (or have someone inspect it for you). Failing that, ask for lots of extra pictures, particularly underneath. I also learned that if you want an old car to drive around, even just a few hundred miles a year like I do, there’s such a thing as too few miles. I probably could have (and should have) learned these lessons without spending a ton of cash, but these are lessons that I’ll certainly not have to learn again.
Ouch! Caveat emptor…
Did the guy you sold the car off to come and inspect it himself?
If you ever find yourself looking for another classic car and can’t go yourself, there are third party inspectors you can pay to look at the car for you. Check it out:
https://www.yourmechanic.com/services/pre-purchase-car-inspection
I’m getting better at looking at a car I am thinking of buying but still figure it has been mostly luck that has kept me from a car like this.
I did buy a retired police car that drove real nice for about a year, then my garage told me I wasn’t imagining it, the car was louder because the rear axle seals were leaking. A year after the rear axle was replaced, I needed new tires, at least one pair. I had all four replaced but was told by the tire shop that two wheels were badly bent. Those two wheels needed massive wheel weights and there was still a bit of shake at 55+ mph. Got 2 newer wheels and car settled a bit. I guess I have put nearly as much money into car as it cost to purchase.
The best line I ever heard on the subject came from a friends dad;
Would you show up at church and marry a girl you’d never met before?
NO!
Then why would you buy a car that way?
It is just a tiny bit harder to trade in a bride than it is a car.
Well, um, look, if there was a billion in it, um…(“She could easily pass for 43/In the dusk, with the light behind her”, per Gilbert and Sullivan in Trial By Jury on why the ambitious main character married the “elderly, ugly attorney’s daughter”). I’m getting no younger than my bank account is getting larger, y’know? I just might go to that there church.
And the auto hunt’s inverse equivalent – it’s very, very cheap, and very, very shiny – might trump reason. (Two words that look odd side-by-side, but I digress).
Your term “percussive maintenance” is new to me and is wonderful. In the Navy for many jobs we would just “get a bigger hammer”. Great concept.
Ouch.
The sad thing is when this vintage Panther was good, it was very good. When it wasn’t, well, it wasn’t.
When we were house shopping a few years ago, one house we had under contract had an identical Mercury in the basement. It’s plates had expired seven years earlier, so it no doubt would have had some of what yours had. Thankfully, we walked on that place to some various issues.
My ’91 Crown Vic was a lot of trouble. Purchased new, it had been babied by my grandfather for most of its life, and then well maintained by me for 2 years. By 80k miles and less than ten years old, it had eaten two transmissions and four window motors, had broken engine mounts and a cracked gas tank.
You bring back many memories of time spent in the driveway and garage with my son’s 89 MGM. We did better than you but a packed-in transmission finished it off with us. Ultra low mile cars present their own problems. I have concluded that I am more tolerant of those kinds of problems in something older and simpler than anything from the post-CAFE era.
It IS possible to drive and enjoy an older car as reliable transportation.
BUT!!!!!!
Actually there are are many ‘but”s. And one of them is that after a few years, low mileage REALLY means “looks nice but needs mechanical restoration.”
And I’d ALWAYS study my subject. You may fall in love with a well-kept, low mileage X Car but it’s still as much a total POS Deadly Sin as when it rolled off the assembly line 38 years ago. Unless you have a plan to totally re-engineer and upgrade those components known for failure back when it was new, RUN.
Learn what components had a good service record on the make/model of vehicle you’re considering…and what parts were prone to early failure…AND ESPECIALLY! Were those “early failure” components upgraded with newer, better-engineered stuff as time went on. Replacing GM “metric” transmissions with Turbo 350s…or pre-1987 TH700R-4 for the much beefier 1987 and after units, etc.
Buying an old “W” Blazer? Replace the intake gasket unless you have proof it had already been done, etc.
Subaru 2.5 non-turbo 1997-2011 over 100,000 miles? Budget for head gasket repair.
Yes all this sounds like a royal pain but I’ll bet money the new owner of this Marquis isn’t having the trouble you had, because so many systems were repaired/replaced.
I’ve owned and relied upon several older vehicles as daily transportation over the years. Unless your intent is to just drive to the Dewdrop Inn Cruise Night between May and October, the best course of action is to assume you need to do some replacing/upgrading – and budget for it. Time and money.
It can be done.
But you gotta see past the dream and decide if you can handle the reality.
And on top of everything else, there are components that were reliable but through age/neglect need to be addressed. That sounds like the case with your Marquis, as the Panther platform was pretty solid overall, especially in the later years.
Automatic transmissions in vehicles of this age group are a major expense and a major failure point. Even when we tested my son’s 89 MGM before purchase and it shifted perfectly, this is no guarantee that it will not fail after awhile. Even the simpler OD units are a $1500-2000 problem, which can put you upside down in a car like this really fast. Upgrades on these old AODs are difficult as the newer and better transmissions were electronically controlled where these were not. These were also susceptible to a mis-adjusted TV cable which would cause even a healthy AOD to lunch itself in short order. This was not what happened with ours, but has happened enough that NOS TV cables were getting a little hard to find when I last paid attention.
The older generation of 3 speed automatics (THM, C6 and Torqueflite) are so much less expensive to deal with.
I generally agree that the AOD’s in stock form were great. Keep in mind thought that it was released in 1980 when fuel economy was put above all else, including durability. In the case of the AOD, there were several compromises made to reduce parasitic losses at the expensive of durability (such as reduced line pressure in 3rd and 4th gear). My Grand Marquis did make 200K on the original trans but by then it felt like it was on it’s last leg. I know some have mentioned shift issues with AOD’s, but mine was fine. I got used to it’s shift patterns and could manipulate the shift points with slight adjustments of my left foot.
While at one time the automatic OD transmission such as the AOD, the TH200-4R and the TH700-R4 were at one time considerably more expensive to rebuild, it’s not the case anymore. Yes the old traditional C6/TH400/727 are stronger and cheaper to rebuild, but the gap has closed considerably. Having a local shop rebuild a AOD or a TH700-R4 isn’t very expensive (in relative terms) compared to many other transmissions. Summit Racing has a TCI street fighter C6 transmission listed at about $1500 while an TCI street fighter AOD is about $1900. That isn’t a big price difference when considering you’re getting the OD.
FWIW, the AOD had some inherent weakness, but the fundamental design is good. Today transmission builders can modify them to withstand substantial horsepower and remain durable. Broader Performance, one of the best Ford transmission experts around, sells complete AOD’s for a little over $2000 that can handle 600 hp. He also sells AODE 4R70W’s but they are more expensive. I would have no issue running a correctly built AOD in one of my vehicles.
Sorry for your trouble. Your car is a twin to the one I totaled August 13, 2004. I hated to let mine go.
The one thing I got from this was the advantages of buying that type of car in the rust-free West Coast zone. A ’91, in our scheme of things, isn’t that old. And a mint, rust free example wouldn’t be that hard to find with a little patience.
Articles like this make me feel like I live in an alternative universe, given how few issues I’ve had with my two old-timers (’66 F100; ’77 dodge Chinook). And what issues there were, have been quite easy to fix myself.
Of course, they’re simple vehicles. And the F100 finally needed some wrenching recently, after about a decade: the cheap rebuilt water pump I put in about 20 years ago got noisy. And that seemed like a good time to replace the leaking radiator. Bought a new radiator and pump from Amazon; about $150 for both. Took about 2 hours total.
The Chinook’s rock-solid original A727 Torqueflite is leaking a bit from its rear seal, but I suspect that would be a fairly easy fix. But I’m getting ready to sell it anyway.
Trading this ordeal got me feeling “deja vu”. While I’ve never bought a “classic” type used vehicle, my inner tightwad makes me always buy used.
Wanting a “side ride”, particularly a pickup truck for those “manly” duties, I picked up a ‘03 Silverado work truck with 123k miles off our wholesale lot at the dealership. It ran great, was just what I wanted, a plain-jane, half-ton long bed. Price was…okay…with my discount. I knew it needed u-joints and an axle seal. No problemo. Then the brake pads. Then the AC compressor. Needed a radio. Then the entire rear end. Then it had a shake in the driveline. That was brutal trying to isolate. This was supposed to be the perfect truck. Let’s just say it was starting to leave a bad taste in my mouth. Put it on Craigslist and managed to get out only a few hundred dollars short.
Lesson learned: The used car manager sends some trade-ins to wholesale (the auction) for a reason.
Back when I had my landscaping company, I picked up a ‘00 base model F-150, with only 80k miles in 2007. Again, a…fair deal. Then it was the AC compressor. Then melted transmission wiring. Then the torque converter. Fuel tank strap failed due to rust. Further inspection necessitated replacement of rusty brake lines, just in case. At that point the entire underside was discovered to be flaking away, yet the sheet metal was perfect. Huh? Then a tie rod snapped as it was being parked, right after a 50 mile high speed trip. That could of been…messy. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the rear axle seals. One year and 20k miles later, I wholesaled it for a third of what I paid, not including repair costs.
Just happened to stumble upon it a year later. I asked the new owner, “How had it been holding up?”. “Great! Not a problem!” Me: WTH? Such is life…
The first word is supposed to be “Reading”. Not “Trading”.
Waited too long to edit…
I would bet that most of us here who think we know a lot about cars is because we have had experiences like this. The school of hard knocks.
I had a similar experience with a similar car. Around 2010 or so, I bought a one owner 1994 Crown Vic with less than 20k miles. It looked amazing inside and out, but it had some issues. I ended up having to replace the injector harness because mice had eaten it. Then all the window motors began to fail. It turns out the grease in them turns to stone as they age. Of course, when I replaced them, I only replaced the motors, and the new motors overwhelmed the old window regulators. On the positive side, I can pull the door cards off a CV, replace a motor, and reassemble in about 5 minutes. In addition to all that, the car just never drove well. I suspect all of the rubber bushings and anything permanently greased (ball joints, tie rod ends, etc) were hard and ruined from lack of use.
Whenever I have a bad day sometime soon, I’ll reread the feature to make me feel better. And yeah, been there done that.
The AODs are turds. Expensive turds also, as they’re specific to a panther; one can’t simply swap one from a Mustang for example.
It wouldn’t go faster than 35 because 4th gear dropped. If you had put it into 3rd, you could have kept going.
I’ll explain all my AOD troubles when I get around to my own COAL series.
“The AODs are turds.”
In stock form, yes. The AOD/4R70 can be made bulletproof fairly cheap by any trans shop that knows what they’re doing and are willing to do it. A simple hard parts swap “rebuild” doesn’t fix what Ford did wrong.
I was shocked when the “heavy duty” E4OD in the ’94 F150 (underpowered gas 5.0) failed at about 110,000 miles. Same basic problem as AOD, Ford under engineered some parts that the rebuilders upgrade. I have not had issues with the equivalent GM 4L80E.
nikita, that’s not an apples-to-apples comparison.
4L80E was a heavy duty box derived from the old TH400 and not used in 1/2 ton pickups.
E4OD/AOD would more accurately compare with GM’s 700R/4L60E, which was plenty problematic in heavy service.
The E4OD is a heavy duty transmission that was the sole transmission for 460 and the 7.3L diesels at one time (it was used with some other engines too). It actually shares some internal components with the C6 and was designed to replace the C6. Many people use E4OD gear sets in a C6 to strengthen and improve the gear ratios.
That said, the E4OD did have some inherent design weaknesses that made them prone to failure. In particular the lubrication system is poorly designed, relying bushings that are prone to wear out to maintain oil pressure. In any case the 4R100, which has a much better reputation, is essentially an E4OD that has the design flaws removed. The problem with the E4OD is that it’s a monster transmission, physically large and heavy which is why it doesn’t see much aftermarket use outside of the pickup truck world. However, it can be built to be strong and reliable.
The AOD is considerably more light duty, although it is still fairly large and heavy (slightly heavier than a C6). The main issues with the AOD was a weak direct drive drum (only three clutches and steels), a small OD band (only 1.5″ wide), a weak two piece input shaft and the valvebody is set up to supply 30 percent less line pressure to Third and Fourth (OD) gears, making them weak. This last change was engineered by Ford at the time to reduce parasitic losses from the transmissions oil pump and help increase fuel mileage. In 1980 with a 130 hp 302, I suppose it worked. Today, all of these problems can be removed with a proper performance build.
I had the E4OD in my 94 Club Wagon with the 351. At around 100k I started getting some slip in OD. The transmission shop rebuilt the torque converter and made a modification which increased fluid pressure in forward gears. The tradeoff was slow engagement of reverse, which I assume donated line pressure to the more commonly used forward gears.
“This last change was engineered by Ford at the time to reduce parasitic losses from the transmissions oil pump and help increase fuel mileage. ”
It is stuff like this that makes me stick by my conviction that CAFE has done more damage to the US auto industry than we will ever know. A million little engineering tradeoffs made to eliminate an extra ounce or that last bit of friction that left us with fragile assemblies costing hundreds and thousands of dollars to fix down the line. The Japanese and European companies were not so affected because they never offered reasonably priced cars of this size.
I can appreciate your taste in cars, an ’87 Mercury Grand Marquis LS and an ’89 Thunderbird LX sat side by side in my garage in the early ’90s. Having been an unreformed former owner of pre downsized GM A and B/C bodies, it was about the best garage I could put together to keep living the early ’70s with modern updates.
Both cars ran well for me until about 8 – 9 years of age and 80,000 miles. After that, it seemed like the life span of many components was coming to an end.
It’s almost like I sold you my Grand Marquis. After stranding me half-way to work one day, and shortly after becoming apparent I needed a set of tires for it after a blow-out, I got distracted on my way to the tire store and stopped at the Chrysler-Plymouth emporium to check out the 1995 Cirrus. It became apparent that it was way too small for a Grand Marquis driver, and the salesman encouraged me to take a Concorde home for lunch and show my wife.
She was impressed with my level of ADHD on a run for tires, but, bless her, she let me search for a tightwad special Concorde. I eventually took home a brand new mongrel from the back of the lot that had hail damage repaired by paintless dent removal (very successful and a generous discount). I bought a pair of very nice, but used, tires for the Grand Marquis and traded it away.
I feel bad you had such horrid luck with this car. I think this goes to show that low mileage cars can be problematic. In you case, it seems to have been compounded by the salty conditions it was exposed to, and lack of proper maintenance and storage. Aging in some ways is worse on cars than high mileage.
I have bought older cars, some with low mileage. I have always lucked out that they have been relatively well maintained. However, when I get an old car, I typically give it a big once over and replace and change anything suspect. Change all the fluids, service the brakes, give it a tune up, new filters, etc. Buying something older like this, I expect these up front costs and then at least I know where the car stands.
I had a ’88 Grand Marquis that was a very good car overall. It was the opposite of your car though, I bought it with higher than average mileage. At the time it was just a used car and I worked at the dealership it was traded, so I got it for a song. I did have a few problems, but nothing too major for an older car (an alternator failure, A/C failure, power window failure). In the end rust set it, and by the time it rolled 200,000 miles the AOD felt like the OD band was about to give out while the 302 developed a light knock. It was 15 years old by then, so I sold it off for cheap, but by then it owed me nothing.
I had one of these, summer of 2016. Like yours, but no leather, and it was a Crown Vic, see pic. Low kms, but not that low. But I have a rule. Any shop repairs over $1000 and it’s gone. Coincidentally I only paid $1000 for it.
Had to replace the battery, no surprise there. Within the first month had to replace a nylon ring on the Excelerator cable so it would kick down to passing gear. On two separate occasions a front brake lock up front heat. Oh, and a heater hose burst.
I had just gotten a new job and was in for a long commute. I realized the car was not up for it. The moral of the story, as you said, there’s such thing as too few miles. There are potentially many problems just because of how long it’s been sitting.
BTW, I did the repairs myself, but had a feeling it was going to be a problem down the road. Only had it for 2 months.
There are people in this world who rhapsodize over these cars and how they’ll easily go eleventy-seven hundred thousand miles on nothing but oil changes, etc. Eeeyeah.
This what you describe with your ’91 is very much more in line with my own experience being bitten hard (and watching others get bitten just as hard) by Panther cars: an insatiable appetite for parts and service, an endless stream of unpredictable
cigarettesbreakdowns andmagazinesfailures—and that was when they were recent enough that any part was readily available in your choice of dealer-new, parts store-new, or wrecking yard-used.You’re well rid of it.
I’ve had nothing but good luck with Panthers. Three cars, over 450K miles, minimal issues. BUT, they were all newer versions (’97, ’98, ’01), purchased 1-2 yrs old, driven daily, and properly maintained. I’ve mentioned before rust is a non-issue in our part of the world.
The only older used vehicles I’ve bought were both full-size Ford trucks, a F150 and a Bronco. Neither could be called low-mileage (146K & 185K), but they seemed to have been cared for and came from the original owners with most service receipts. The pickup served our son well for 5 years and recently got traded for a new Powerstroke. The Bronco resides with my daughter and her husband, and can be described as work in progress. SIL is turning it into the Bronco of his dreams- lift, wheels, tires, etc… so we’ll see over time how that works out. So far, so good (knocks on wood).
I agree that well maintained these cars can be great. My dad owned an 89 CV but maintained it well, onissues for more than 200K. I was driving for a limo company back then and had some units that had over 300K miles. My kids are now driving age and in 2015 my daughter bought an 89 Lincoln TC well maintained with 34K miles and has had overall great luck. She has double the miles and is driving back and forth to Campus regularly. We’ve had to do the head gasket but hey age is age. My wife’s first car was a Dodge Shadow and we had to replace head gasket on it a couple years in. My son followed and bought a 91 Merc GM with 37K miles. This one sat for over 10 years and transmission was NEVER maintained as we learned when we dropped the pan! We nursed it for a year but a 2,000 mike trip last summer smoked it about 700 miles in. We had a shop rebuild it in NJ but it is now in on warranty repair because we feel it was upshifting too soon and so they dropped it and found some smoked parts. This transmission has to be adjusted right and kick down cable is key. If you own one and it seems to upshift too soon get it into the shop before you smoke it. All I can say is my kids love the cars have no intention of getting rid of them and frankly they have been good cars for the age and price. However, my son’s GM has required more work vs the well maintained TC.
Had you been looking for a 1991 Grand Marquis with low miles(48,000+) but well taken care of back in 2015, you could have found it for $1800 plus taxes and tags closer to your home in nearby Laurel MD.
A small dealer on RT 1 called Americar was selling this car in the Spring of 2015. It was MD inspected(which means it had to be almost perfect). I looked at it and it was in great shape but passed on it when i was able to get a nice condition 1994 Ford Probe.
I have had nothing but good luck with my old cars that I have bought but i came prepared to turn wrenches.
My tale of automotive woe – sold a friend of mine my 2006 CTS on payments when he needed a car after he sold the 1999 GMC Suburban I sold him the year before…and he ended up trashing the motor in the CTS (ran it without oil). Since he owed me money for the car, he ended up giving me back the 1999 Suburban. After overheating it – head gaskets.
“Not a problem” I think to myself – not too bad of a fix, and I want a truck as I may be moving soon. Get it to my mechanic, and I end up having to replace the heads as he cracked them.
So a couple thousand dollars later, I’m finally going to get the Suburban back. My luck, just in time to have the transmission blow up.
At least the Lincoln is running fine…for now
Ugh. I feel your pain. Right after 9/11, I’d had enough of my crappy 1990 Topaz and sold it off to some guy for $300. With that bounty, I was on my way to look for a new driver which I found at a local iron lot: 1991 Mercury Grand Marquis GS. It had a 302/AOD with all of the toys except a sunroof and leather. It was just over 100K miles, and had a tow hitch. All of the stuff that I wanted in a car. In the aftermath of the attacks, fuel had gone up substantially and big boats like this were lot poison. IIRC, I drove it away for $2100 G.W. Bush bucks.
There was a lot of commonality between this car and the Mercurys of my childhood. I thought it would easy to fix and maintain this car. I would later realize this as the fatal mistake in my thought process; my immigrant parent’s Mercurys were far less lavishly optioned and the technology at that time was much simpler.
This should have been a sign: I got the car home and the following Saturday went to change the oil. I’d seen the the dampness under the car when I inspected it, I thought that it would need valve cover gaskets. When I tried to remove the oil pan plug, it just fell out. With that about 2 quarts of oil came out of the pan. Some dumb@ss had stripped the engine oil pan drain plug. So, this dumb@ss bought one of those self-tapping drain pan plugs, thinking it would work like it did in my dad’s car. Nope, dumb@ss number one also torqued the metal tang that held the drain plug in place, the action of me trying to get the self tapper to re-thread broke the tang off completely.
Fabulous.
The next Monday, I called around to all of the local garages, oddly, the local Ford dealer was the cheapest for parts and labor. I took it there (and that experience was a whole other post) and used my G.W. Bush tax break bucks to pay for the oil pan. So, what started out as a $20 oil change was a $600+ oil pan replacement. This set the tone for rest of my time with the car. Brakes, air conditioning, cooling system and axle issues were part of the list of problems I had with the car. About 2.5 years later, I’d had enough and donated the car to a local homeless shelter charity. All told, I think I had about 6K into that car over the time I owned it.
It remains the last Ford product I’ve bought or owned.
MD, as much as there is stuff from home that I’d like to have here in the Dutch midwest (I mail order Kolachi from a bakery in Youngstown, for example), a car would not be one of those things.
I applaud your tenacity in putting up with all of the issues, but my tolerance level for that kind of thing isn’t that great. Let’s just rack it up to a “learning experience”…
It makes for a good read, though.
I had an experience like this some years ago with a car that was meant to be my new daily driver. The hell of it was, I bought it locally and had my mechanic check it out, and it seemed OK at the time. Things were OK for 4 months, and then all hell broke loose. I’d kept my previous car just in case. After almost three years I cut my losses on the Antichrist, as I’d come to call it, and drove the existing car for several more years.
I am very leery of low mileage older cars. In my experience, age is a bigger factor in wear than mileage. Low mileage or not, that 20 year old o ring inside the transmission or A/C Compressor has Had. It. Seals dry out, electrical components get flaky, etc.
In addition, a low mileage car was probably owned by someone like my mother who puttered off at 35 miles an hour 5 miles one way and 5 miles the other and the car never really got warmed up and its blood flowing. Ma has run out of gas once because she didn’t know what the gas gauge was for. She says, “I put $5 worth of gas in the car every week! That’s what I do!” A lengthy argument ensued. If you aren’t really dependent on the car every day to go long distances, when something minor goes wrong with it, it gets put away in the garage until you get around to it and although the car may look very nice, it really is not in great shape.
I have bought three cars sight unseen; a Grand National, which turned out to be perfect, a Turbo Riviera, which turned out to be a basket case rustbucket which barely ran, and an Oldsmobile station wagon, which was ok. I ALMOST bought a Riviera convertible from ebay, which turned out to be listed locally, and then went to go look at it. The pictures were beautiful but in person the car was very, very tired and would have needed a lot.
My now secondary car is a 91 Cadillac Brougham, which is the Hatfield to the Panther McCoy and I would say that overall the GM versions of these cars did seem to be more robustly built than the Panthers.
My ’04 Titan (bought new) has just 16,201 miles on it. I’ve been careful to drive it at least every 2 weeks, and if it’s a short errand take the scenic route home, often with a quick acceleration ramp run up on the close by highway to get it warmed up good and blown out a little. Run the AC often as well. Changed the brake fluid and coolant when it hit age 10.
Only put about $25.00 of gas in at a time so it gets fresh gas once a month. Change oil once a year. Battery lasted 12 years, tires look good but the back tires spin a lot easier then in the past, rubber is getting hard. Need to replace them soon, especially if a road trip is coming up. Have had no trouble with the truck other than a new battery.
The key to keeping an old car on the road is being able to do most of the work yourself. Having a car which has a durable drivetrain is a big help. My ’86 Jetta I bought in ’91 had Ohio plates on it but has never shown any signs of rust, I guess the original owner didn’t drive it in the winter. It had about 100k highway miles when I got it, it would be a long post to state the repairs over an additional 200k miles and 27 years, but none of the repair were ever very expensive, using my labor and using affordable parts, the internet has been a big help. It’s held up well, engine and 5 speed trans have been problem free. Paint and interior still look good, have held up exceptionally well. It is garage parked since ’97, but was weekday to work driver until the end of ’08. It still gets used 2-3 times a week locally and still runs well, never has used oil.
Plan to stick to this fleet until they pry the keys out of my hands, hopefully another 27 years…
My experience with cars like this is often about 2500-3000 miles a year is actually ends up being the best if you want something in reasonable condition without too much accumulated wear and tear. That’s enough mileage to avoid a lot of the sitting-around-unused problems, that the tires and fluids are reasonably newish, the gas hasn’t gone bad, and for a caring owner to notice problems and have some incentive to address them. Also, hopefully that means it also got some freeway time every once and a while.
Of course, buying a used car, you often have no idea what you’re actually going to get. If I had to guess, the car you bought was someone’s daily driver for a few years (including winters), then for some reason got parked and sat for the last 20 years. From the sounds of it, you may have managed to fix it up to the point where it would have been relatively problem-free, but really there’s no way to tell.
“… like a brand new car! Well, not exactly.”
True, cars age sitting around. No, they are not “preserved” as non-car people assume.
But it is hard to convince some of these people. “But it only has miles!” is heard often when problems arise for ‘auto atrophy’.
Yeah. It’s often better to buy something that has had 10,000 to 12,000 miles a year put on it even if that means the total mileage is 150,000 miles. At least someone has been driving it!
Unless it’s knocking or blowing funny colored exhaust, I’d rather have something with a bit higher mileage. My own experience with ultra low mileage vehicles has been that they develop mass leaks as soon as you begin driving them, and just in general require repairs of very strange issues, whereas the higher mileage cars need things changed out, but seem mostly to involve routine maintenance. Typical repairs on the low mile classic cars I’ve had have included tons of gasket, exhaust, and sometimes internal engine issues and bizarre warping and other issues with brakes and cooling systems, whereas the higher mileage cars it’s shocks, tune up parts, paint, and interior, maybe a new radiator, but the engine and transmissions are usually ok and no big leaks.
I’ve purchased several cars online.
Pictures are good. Need undercarriage pics.
Pictures are no guarantee. Also: old is old.
Wear parts like brakes, tires, exhaust, alternators, water pumps are destined. Count on the radiator, and the “little radiator” the heater core. All rubber parts: hoses, belts, motor mounts, tranny mounts, seals, grease cups, Brake flex lines,power steering lines, tires, all fluids must be replaced. Count on carb rebuilds, and major tune up.
Don’t forget bearings and u-joints. These are the stuck-on-the-side-of-the-road things.
If you want comfort, you’re in for a compressor, maybe a evaporator and condenser.
Trouble free cruising in an old car is a tall order.
Key?
1) Really love the model: really.
2) Count on a refurbish/ minor restoration
3) Remind yourself and the seller: it’s old… I’m gonna pay a lot to reinforce it. I WILL NOT OVERPAY for the the basic car.
4) No one sells a car that they have meticulously restored except high dollar dolls: Ferrari, Porsche, Rolls,Bentley, etc.
5) Once you restore: you must keep it and enjoy it.. Live equity. Drive equity.
6) Don’t buy it if you don’t love it. Like marriage… get out what you put in, or don’t go there…
She will take care of you like you do her.
7) Lack of exercise is bad for everyone. “Very low miles” means just as much deterioration. Recognize this up front. Recognize this after restoration.
8) Love it or leave it. Love hurts is one song.
Love can make you happy is another.
I had a 91 Grand Marquis back in the day. It had only two problems:
1) I had to add a quart of oil every week.
2) The A/C leaked freon.
It had several good points. Two most notable:
1) Driving that car was like sitting in your easy chair.
2) The square shape and smooth lines made it a very beautiful car.
I got the A/C fixed, and lived with the oil leak. The car ran like brand new, so I was advised that it wasn’t worth spending the money to fix the oil leak. On the bright side, adding a quart of oil per week kept the oil a bit cleaner than otherwise.
Four letters
FORD