I'm a "between cars" kinda gal at the moment, praying to resolve that issue this weekend.
I owned Hannah, my darling "Delta Demon" (88RB), from March 2002 until some [expletive deleted] decided they wanted her more than I did last month. She got chopped, and not even by anyone "good" at it -- horribly sloppy and ONLY enough to be totalled. After 6.5 years of rebuilding her a part or few at a time (including a tranny-rebuild in 2006), I was heartbroken to see her totalled-out with such stupid damage.
I got her at 62Kmi, and only had her long enough to hit 132Kmi. She was starting to have Ohio salt problems on the lower body panels, but her undercarriage still looked more than reasonable for such a long-lived car, and mechanically speaking -- I always kept her fully serviced and repaired as needed; no procrastinating or jury-rigging. I kept repairing her even after it seemed as though The Prince of Darkness (ghost of Joseph Lucas) had taken up residence in her wiring harness. Any repair I couldn't do for myself was done by either my dad (Capricorn engineer) or professional certified mechanics,
not "a guy I know who works on cars." Thanks -- I would rather that
*I* be the only non-mechanic to make any non-mechanic mistakes on my own cars
Just two days ago, I looked at a 1992 Toyota Camry the owner
claimed was very well serviced/repaired. Before I arrived -- I was thinking [wow, only 149Kmi -- I can get at least another 100-150K!], but after I arrived, I found out the beautiful topside photos were a total ruse for positively criminal jury-rigging underneath. A lot of the supposed "repairs"
seriously compromised its driving safety. This was
NOT amateur tuning -- this was "I know a guy" style jury-rigging of the
worst variety!
Back to GM for me!!! Given a little time, you can always find somebody selling their grandmother's low mileage GM.
I'm looking at a couple of 98's as well as another 88 this weekend. What can I say -- that 3800 has me all shades of messssssmerized.
When I was considering buying Hannah back in 2002, I ran across a comment on Cartalk that said "any mechanic who can't work on [the GM 3800] isn't worth the tools in their box!" All of my own mechanics echoed the same thing.
Ahhhh! engine love. Of course floatin' around town or down the highway -- feeling like I'm riding on my grandmother's sofa -- doesn't hurt none either, particularly because I
know what that engine can do when I need to jack-rabbit up an entrance ramp into a narrow highway pocket at rush hour
