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Hubby has a friend in the automotive repair biz and, sure enough, said friend introduced him to a 1995 T-Bird, excellent condition, about 100K miles, owned by a little old lady (yeah, right) and being driven by friend's wife, who now wants a newer car.
All my instincts say to run screaming out of the room, yelling, "NO, NO" as we already went down this road once when we poured repair money into a 1994 POST (Piece-of-S*** Taurus) until we nearly rebuilt the damn thing.
I went online and, much to my chagrin, there were PAGES of rave reviews on this year Thunderbird sedan, with the only cons I could see being poor mileage, head-gasket issues, tranny problems, and cramped back seats.
Has hubby got his head on straight here? Or will the hussy T-bird break his heart and wallet? (The friend wants $1200.)
Hubby has a friend in the automotive repair biz and, sure enough, said friend introduced him to a 1995 T-Bird, excellent condition, about 100K miles, owned by a little old lady (yeah, right) and being driven by friend's wife, who now wants a newer car.
All my instincts say to run screaming out of the room, yelling, "NO, NO" as we already went down this road once when we poured repair money into a 1994 POST (Piece-of-S*** Taurus) until we nearly rebuilt the damn thing.
I went online and, much to my chagrin, there were PAGES of rave reviews on this year Thunderbird sedan, with the only cons I could see being poor mileage, head-gasket issues, tranny problems, and cramped back seats.
Has hubby got his head on straight here? Or will the hussy T-bird break his heart and wallet? (The friend wants $1200.)
Help!
Those are a better car than the Taurus. I owned a 1993 Mercury Cougar, and my friend owned a 1992 Thunderbird. The problem is if the car has its original transmission with 100,000 miles, it is ready to go. That is definitely a weak point in those cars. Another thing is what engine it has. If it has the 4.6, I would say go for it. However, if it has the 3.8, run, don't walk away from it. The 3.8 is a junk engine with head gasket and overheating issues. It is also really underpowered, and does not get better gas mileage. The 4.6 did not have issues until 1996 when they put in the plastic intake manifold, so you will be ok.
Hubby has a friend in the automotive repair biz and, sure enough, said friend introduced him to a 1995 T-Bird, excellent condition, about 100K miles, owned by a little old lady (yeah, right) and being driven by friend's wife, who now wants a newer car.
All my instincts say to run screaming out of the room, yelling, "NO, NO" as we already went down this road once when we poured repair money into a 1994 POST (Piece-of-S*** Taurus) until we nearly rebuilt the damn thing.
I went online and, much to my chagrin, there were PAGES of rave reviews on this year Thunderbird sedan, with the only cons I could see being poor mileage, head-gasket issues, tranny problems, and cramped back seats.
Has hubby got his head on straight here? Or will the hussy T-bird break his heart and wallet? (The friend wants $1200.)
Help!
I fell under the spell of a 1995 T-Bird a few years back. It only had 52K miles on it and "looked" great. From day #2, I had transmission problems that nobody could seem to figure out. Then came the head gasket problems. Sure, the back seat was a joke and the mileage was poor. I finally fell out of love with that heap of crap andtraded it and took quite a loss. RUN!
Those are a better car than the Taurus. I owned a 1993 Mercury Cougar, and my friend owned a 1992 Thunderbird. The problem is if the car has its original transmission with 100,000 miles, it is ready to go. That is definitely a weak point in those cars. Another thing is what engine it has. If it has the 4.6, I would say go for it. However, if it has the 3.8, run, don't walk away from it. The 3.8 is a junk engine with head gasket and overheating issues. It is also really underpowered, and does not get better gas mileage. The 4.6 did not have issues until 1996 when they put in the plastic intake manifold, so you will be ok.
Well put. The 3.8L is a junk heap (from a head gasket standpoint), while the 4.6L is much more solid and reliable.
Hubby has a friend in the automotive repair biz and, sure enough, said friend introduced him to a 1995 T-Bird, excellent condition, about 100K miles, owned by a little old lady (yeah, right) and being driven by friend's wife, who now wants a newer car.
All my instincts say to run screaming out of the room, yelling, "NO, NO" as we already went down this road once when we poured repair money into a 1994 POST (Piece-of-S*** Taurus) until we nearly rebuilt the damn thing.
I went online and, much to my chagrin, there were PAGES of rave reviews on this year Thunderbird sedan, with the only cons I could see being poor mileage, head-gasket issues, tranny problems, and cramped back seats.
Has hubby got his head on straight here? Or will the hussy T-bird break his heart and wallet? (The friend wants $1200.)
Help!
If it's a Super Coupe then I would jump on it but you should run away. The back bumpers on them say Thunderbird SC and the engine says 3.8 Supercharged. They have great engines and suspensions but they're a pain to work on. I like working on cars but there were times when I wanted to drop my SC off a cliff.
For the V8, I agree. But it is way too much if it is the 6 cylinder. Hopefully the OP will come back and tell us which engine it has.
It IS a 3.8L, ho ho, so I was able to shake hubby out of romanticized daydreams with the reality check kindly provided by all of you who took the time to educate me so I'd have a no-fail strategy to avoid purchasing another POST. (See definition above.)
Also, armed with your replies to my thread, hubby got friend to admit the tranny would probably bite the dust pretty soon and need to be replaced and that those pesky head-gasket problems DID show up regularly on the older T-birds he repairs.
So now hubby is converting his mid-life crisis to a yen for a Harley Hog, and we agreed that I would whole-heartedly sign on the dotted line for the coolest ride they make -- as soon as he pulls in that 100K a year he says is possible with his sales manager job. (Of course, I'll be grinding my teeth as I sign the papers, as I HATE MOTORCYCLES.)
Thanks to you all for your help!
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until we nearly rebuilt the damn thing.
