Bought the vehicle for $300 needing some repairs.
Already had a new clutch, alternator and timing belt.
When I bought it, it needed:
Shocks & Struts - $150 + 3 hours.
Manual Steering Box - $25 (salvage) + 1 hour.
New front wheel bearings - $50 + 2 hours.
Tune up - $50 + 2 hours.
New tires and alignment - $170 + 3 hours.
Great car! Handles hills 'good enough', have to downshift to 4th on some steeper ones. Gets >45mpg, usually around 50mpg for normal driving at 65mph. Have about $700 invested into a car that costs about $1/day to drive (18 miles one way to work, factoring in insurance, licensing, etc). Handles well enough, although I keep a toolbox in the back end, seems to help when a big semi comes from the other direction. The carb'd engines (88 and earlier) get better gas mileage than the fuel injected models (89 and later). The main problem I have with the car is the fact that it doesn't produce much heat in cold climates (North Dakota) and I've got the radiator completely blocked off with a working 198F thermostat.
Up to 175,000 miles on the original engine now. Still not burning any oil, but does leak about 1/2 quart every 3,000 miles or so. Had to replaced clutch x2 (bad installation) and transmission due to worn input shaft, will have to replace 2nd set of axles (due to negligence of mechanics when tranny was replaced). Engine stumbles under low throttle (not low rev's), can't find tiny vacuum leak. Still gets over 50mpg if I keep my foot out of it, low 40's in the winter driving normally. Still doesn't want to warm up completely when cold outside (below 30F) even with radiator completely blocked off. And with 175,000 miles, it's rough around the edges, all of them, front, rear, side, all; it rattles here and there, shakes a bit when going over 60mph, windows don't quite roll up like they used to, shift is a bit sloppy, brakes are a bit spongy. You name it, it does it. But it's still running like a champ, one pump on the gas, cranks right over, fires right away, every morning, no matter what temperature.
Amazing for a $300 car back in '98...and I can still fill the tank with less than $20 and drive on it for over 2 weeks... I think I lucked out a bit when I picked this up.
182,000 miles now!!! Another set of axles and tires. I can't seem to get rid of the high speed (over 65mph) shake and that chews up tires and axles. Smokes a little bit on take off if I've been sitting at a stop light a long time with the engine idling. The easy fix for that is to blip the throttle every 30 seconds or so. Still getting great gas mileage, 50-ish summertime, 45-ish wintertime. Change the oil every 3,000 or so, check all the fluids and it just keeps running...
And I'm up to 195,584 miles... and still going. I've almost owned/driven this thing 100,000 miles for a $300 initial investment. Crazy ain't it?
Fixed the bulk of the heating problem a couple of weeks ago. Took the dash apart, laid it out on the ground, pulled the heater box out and found the heater core to be completely plugged up with leaves, big leaves laying on the fins, tiny leaf-chunklets plugging up the insides of the fins. Cleaned it out and at least now the heater motor blows air, roughly 10 times as much air. It's not very warm air in the winter, but at least it's a load more than it used to be.
Fixed the shake/wobble down the highway too... Bad tires... Don't remember what brand, doesn't matter. Got new ones at... believe it or not...Walmart. Only place in town that had 12" tires. AND.. believe it or not... the kid working there knew how to set the balancing machine to spin the tires at a higher speed to double check the balance. As tiny as those 12's are, they probably should be spun faster.
Still getting low 50's in the summer and high 40's in the winter for MPG. Hybrid-shmybrid, Prius, eat your heart out. The ol' Sprint may not be perfectly comfortable, but A to B, it does the job, especially for $300.
208,000 miles now... and like that little Energizer bunny rabbit... STILL GOING!!!
The windshield has cracks, the body has all sorts of rusty spots on it, had to replace the left transmission output shaft seal (didn't have to change the half-shaft) for a fluid leak, nothing else.
Engine STILL has good compression. Switched over to synthetic blend oil 5W-30 last fall. Still gets 45-55 MPG depending on the season.
Note: A Comments RSS Feed is available. New comments appear in the Members Area before the main site