Cruise control didn't work when I bought it. (2000)
Snapped a fan belt.
Replaced Alternator.
Replaced thermostat.
Tends to overheat quickly on hot summer days.
Headliner inside has come almost completely loose. I had to pin the cloth to the roof with a bunch of push pins.
My '82 Thunderbird has a lot of power and is very quick.
It has a very comfortable interior.
The black enamel paint is near-flawless to this day. No chipping or peeling. The body has no rust.
Very roomy interior. Lots of legroom. The car also has a huge trunk.
The vinyl top has very little cracking... still in great shape.
Car handles a little loosely.
The big V-8 engine tends to overheat, regardless of any repairs.
The '82 "Boxbird" looks like it's ready to pounce on something?
The money in your wallet, maybe?
Heh, it hasn't been too bad as far as cost goes. The car is very easy to work on and parts are easy to find.
My eighty-two thundrbird landau town coupe has an in-line six (200 cu. in.), which people more conversant with Ford and t-birds than I am have told me is unusual; I've owned it for about six months; nothing has broken, but it feels like the front end needs some work or maybe its just the power-steering pump, which leaked, but now, with additive, seems to have quit leaking.
The car sat for a while before I bought it; but it was under a carport, so the body looks really good. the paint is amazingly good and there are no dents, only a few scratches and a little fade which a good wash and wax would take care of; but I haven't done this yet and probably won't.
I like cars, but I'm not psychotic about them; the thing I look for in a car is beauty and balance in the design, a unique style that works from most if not all angles; this is not as easy to achieve as most people might imagine. My 82 t-bird landau town coupe somehow does this, and does so sparsely which is probably the most honest situational reality by which all enduringly true style is arrived upon and achieved (as I don't think the style of the 82 T-bird landau town coupe was wholly intentional, but most probably was neccessary due to limitations of materials and re-tooling requirements/changes leading up to the big across-all-models design change of the following year).
The split-top dashboard, center console and interiour design, however, I do think were intentional; and they are my favorite, ever; the framed, traditional dial and hands clock has a certain centering appeal; probably the very last year for a genuine clock-in-the-dash car.
The drive-train seems solid and the automatic transmission behaves appropriately; except for shifting from very low to low when going up a hill from a dead stop, at which intance a feeling occurs that is probably a bad U-joint doing a little wallowing.
As I said earlier, the car sat for a while before I purchased it; there was a jiffy-lube sticker on the windshield dated three years before I purchased the vehicle; the sticker recorded the mileage at that time, the mileage then being only slightly less than three thousand miles fewer than the reading on the odometer when I purchased the car three years later; in other words, only one thousand miles a year were put on the car in the three years since the oil had been changed at jiffy lube.
All of this inactivity probably accounts for leaking of fluids that has, with regular driving and a very slight tightening of tran and oil pan bolts, greatly lessened to the point of what would be normal for a twenty-six year old car.
This is a Ford with guts and heart and a unique body and interiour design that will with time become desirable and sought after by collectors, particularly so when one considers that the 82 T-bird (to say nothing of the landau town coupe) is probably the lowest ever in numbers of production (about 49,000; or so I hear).
Happy motoring.
Doubledelta32@yahoo.com.
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