I had an 86 LeBaron coupe that wouldn't die. I bought it for my daughter as her first car in 93. She drove it for 5 years and gave it back to me. I drove it another 4 years and traded it. The thing was still running great but it was eating a quart of oil (or more) for every tank of gas. The strange thing was, it didn't leak and it didn't smoke. I am not sure where the oil was going. I guess the computer just compensated and got on with it. When I got the car back, there was 6-8" of free play in the wheel. All
4 of the rack bolts were stripped or missing. It was only captive by the frame. We gave her our Accord and took it on the spot. The only bad thing was we were in Pensacola and home is Ft Myers. My wife said "your daughter was driving it, don't be a pussy" and we brought it home. In real life it is only 600 miles and one right turn. ;-)
I replaced the bolts and I was good for 50,000 more miles. The only thing that ever broke was the sensor in the distributor, a couple of those headlight door actuators and a master cylinder.
We used to get the little sticker on the plate. One morning I got pulled over. Trooper noticed the lack of sticker, but the car was registered. I had no current paperwork either. He just gave me a written warning.
Got home and found the registration paperwork just where I put it a year earlier. It was December and maybe crappy weather so I set it aside.
ALL 2.6 Mitsu engines used in Chryslers were hemispherical head engines and were marketed as "hemis" They also had counterballance shafts and 2 long timing chains, with tensioner problems and shaft lubrication problems that were ALMOST solved byhrysler stopped using them. They were very lubrication sensitive as well.
I drove my dealership "demo" for a whole year with an expired sticker
- didn't realize it untill we went to sell the car and pulled the plates to transfer to my next car.. Used that car for my honeymoon - with expired plates.
While I was in Guatamala with a broken leg, my plates expired and my drivers license expired -- I'll leave out the details.
Car in long term storage just inside the beltway around San Antonio. I would have just appeared unannounced to get the car, but the plan arrived at 4:15 on a Friday, and if I didnt' get there by 5, I wanted them to wait.
Got there by 5, settled up, drove out and a cop pulled me over less than
200 feet from their entrance. Considering it was a dead-end road, they must have called him so he could wait for me.
He radioed downtown and asked about the plates. My mother had written me that there had been a flood at the prison so the plates were extended a month and then a second month. It was in the newspaper. San Antonio police only knew about the first month, so he gave me a ticket. He didn't notice my expired license**
**My mother had sent me my new license, to posta restante in some Central American country, told me to sign it and send it back. Even though I'd done this before, I was on vacation and I truly coudlnt' figure out why I should send it back. I just didn't understand the whole thing. So I just kept it. In slightly darker green on light green it said "Void unless validated". I couldn't figure out what that meant when I was still in Central America, and the cop in Texas didn't notice it.
On Monday I went to the police and they teletyped to Pa. Took an hour for an answer (they say with other states it takes 5 minutes) but the answer confirmed my 2-month story, so the tags hadn't really expired yet. He tore off the teletype, signed it, and I went straight to traffic court, even though my hearing was scheduled for weeks later.
I said something to the clerk, waited until all the cases were heard, and presented my case in a sentence or two. The judge voided the ticket and had them stick the teletype in his big book. Hmmm. I should have kept it, don't know why that didnt' bother me. Didnt' even occur to me until now.
Got stopped several more times for sleeping in my car in shopping centers, and by a fat Mississippi sheriff for talking to two black guys, but no one else ever noticed that the registration looked expired and the drivers license was not validated.
I had an '84 and an '88 Lebaron convertible. (And a '95) Towards the end, the '88 leaked oil, transmission fluid, and power steering fluid, and a lot of the last two, but it still got good mileage!!
LOL. The women I know would say, "It's not safe. Get it fixed here."
I didn't have much trouble with any of the Lebarons (except the doors would fall off. Well only one door fell off (the 88 dirvers door, and I had to have the hinge welded back on, but after that, I woudln't put any weight on any door. There's a special prybar for bending hinges on certain car doors, and I bought one and used it a few times on the passenger door, and on a friend's lebaron clone.
But the powersteering on the 88 leaked so bad it would go from full to empty in 4 days. I ended up driving w/o PS for a year, and it wasn't really a problem. Only below 10mph was steering a problem and that just meant I had to pull a little harder. But then when I filled it up again, the PS worked like it was never broken. (Don't try this at home. AIUI, some PS will be damaged if run w/o fluid.)
Then it was time to go to my aunt's 100th birthday party, in Youngstown Ohio, maybe 600 miles from Baltimore. Everything is normal for the first 150 miles. Then all of a sudden, transmission starts slipping. Low on fluid but I always carry a quart. Put it in, bought 3 more quarts at next gas station. Should have bought 10. Going north in Pa. on an interstate in an area with no gas stations about 10PM, started slipping again. I had to have the hitchhiker get out and push me across the crest of a hill, and then the car ran fine going downhill and level. In 10 miles, we came to another hill and this time we couldn't push far enough. Would have had to stay there till morning, but hunted through junk in the trunk and found another quart. Found a gas station, bought 5 more quarts. (Bought 8 more before starting the trip home.)
Took the hitchhiker as requested to a bar where he illegally bought a biggg bottle fo beer (by law, no take-outs in Pa. ), then took him to the back of a Walmart he seemed to know, even though it was 200 miles from where I picked him up, where he could sleep in the bushes on the far side of the parking lot, after he got drunk enough to fall asleep, he said. He was about 50, a bit overweight but not fat, and decently dressed. He was easy to talk to, and I think he thought the same of me. .
Arrived in my home town at 4AM, too late to get a motel imo, since I wanted to see my family at 9, so I slept in the woods I used to play in, next to the JHS, until the sun woke me up about 8. I really liked doing that. No one noticed.
Wow. I wish I'd know that then. I bought it used, knew little about it.
I junked it. If I'd known, I might have taken off the head just to look inside.
I did buy the shop manual and read much of it, but missed that. I still have the manual. I'll read it now, when I have time.
I didnt' have any troubles with them. I remember I had a digital dashboard with fluorecsent speedo numbers and gas gauge etc. I got the car when it was about 7 years old and I woudl have been just as happy with a normal dash.
It also talked. When started it woudl mention up to 7 things that might be wrong. I didnt' like it because it silenced the radio while it was talking, even those 5 or 10 seconds. I only remember "Windshiled washer fluid is low", because no other problem lasted more than a day. So I filled up the washer fluid, and then it said "All monitored systems are functioning normally". He spoke quite clearly. But I was hoping it would be silent when everything was okay. Eventually I found out about a switch on the box, near the glove box that turned the talking off and the radio back on.
My parents had an Imperial LeBaron. It had a bad bullet connector on the fusible link near the pos side of the battery. It would totally die at random moments. Dad had to coast off the road, and lift the hood and jiggle the connector. And then we could keep driving.
One killer hot day, out of town. The car would not start. Dad pulled a cap off the battery, and the electrolyte was low. For whatever reason, I had my scout canteen full of water in the trunk. That was enough to get us going again. Score one for the scout.
1953 Mercury Monteray yellow with black top
1962 Corvair Monza white
1961 Pontiac Bonneville white
1968 Olds Vista Cruiser blue
1972 Ford LTD wagon yellow
1964 Karmen Ghia convertible, blue
1964 Pontiac LeMans white with red interior
1964 Pontiac LeMans white with blue interior
1970 Karmen Ghia coupe green
1978 Chevy Malibu, green
1980 Chevy Malibu gray
1980 Monte Carlo
1981 Olds Cutlass
1983 Olds Cutlass
1986 Olds Ciera
1983 Mercedes Benz 300D
1983 Buick Regal
1991 Buick Regal
1997 Buick Lesabre
2001 Buick LeSabre
2007 Hyundai Sonata light blue
2010 Hyundai Sonata Candy cherry red
2013 Hyundai Sonata Pacific blue
A good bit of the time I had two cars at a time. My wife drove one, but none with stick shift.
Our '85 had the same system and what drove my wife crazy was "a door is ajar" - she said "no- a door is a door, and a jar is a jar" - made the kids laugh.
When you buy $600 cars it doesn't matter what you buy - you will have trouble There is buying used cars, and there is buying junk. I've bought junk a few times. One time knowing it was junk but figuring it was good junk (it wasn't - the Lebaron- and one buying junk knowing it was junk and it was what I bought - the 1995 TranSport - I knew the engine was totally toast and I paid half for it what I paid for the LeBaron. I've also bought a few that anyone else would have considered junk, that worked out very well for me. But say a certain brand is junk just because you bought what would have been junk no matter what brand it was, is all I'm really trying to say.
Yeah, I remember the door message. It also had an outline of the car on the dash, and two lines representing open doors would light up then. Part of the game was figuring which door it was.
The windshield washeer message came with a light near the washer fluid container.
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