Satty

Yeah, but Canadians are an odd breed, how else do you explain minivans being so popular or the Wave/G3?

You left out the part about you buying it.

Hold out for an SS. You know you want to. Oh, and I saw a black G8 nearly taken off the road by a Lucerne one minute then by a rogue Wrangler the next minute.

Bet you can find a good fixer-upper for next to nothing. If you've had a Cavvy, I assume you've gotten good at working on them, so maybe you'll get lucky and come across a mechanics special on craigslist.

I got it insured this morning, I still need to get a safety inspection before I can register it. When I was under the car yesterday, it looked like all the dirty bits were solid, so I dont think that will be a problem. Up next repair wise is the back window on the driver's side. Last time I tried taking a GM door panel off (twas the '96 Century) I kinda tore it up, so I'm apprehensive about exploring the inside of the door. I do need to get the transmission fluid changed, doing it myself will be a pain in the ass, but a lot cheaper. I tried taping and gluing the radio power button in the on position, but it wont stick, so I'm thinking that when I hit up the junkyard for a window motor, I'll see if I can find a radio and just do a stock-unit swap for now. It was really sluggish on the highway this morning, even more than I expected a 7-ton behemoth with a carburated 307 to be, so I cant wait to see what kind of getup it has now that its got good spark. And I need cupholder. In 2008 you can get 8 passenger SUVs and vans with 15 cupholders, in 1989, you could get an 8 passenger wagon with none. We certainly have come a long way.

Actually, it was the one in front on the passenger side that was giving me a headache. It took a bit of fighting, but I got it. Surprisingly, the back ones were the easiest. I had to kinda guess on the gapping on the plugs, I've found sources that say .080" and .060" but nothing in the owner's manual. I went with .080" so we'll see what happens. And the distributor cap is a bit of a pain. The retainer screws are spring loaded, they're tricky if you're not paying attention, cause once I started playing with it, I found it its freaking simple. God I'm dumb. Anyways, I just idled it in the driveway for a minute and it sounds and feels a million times better, I'm going to take a short test drive in a bit.

Could someone who insists these are easy to work on please tell me how the bloody hell I am supposed to remove the spark plugs on the passenger side? The AC unit it almost right on top of the, making them pretty hard to remove, reace or see.

It worked during the 80's and 90's. Oh, wait.....

The freaking jack on this car is huge, like 4 feet long, no wonder scissor jacks became the norm, they take up much less space. Now for a small amount of venting. The previous owner used a Fram oil filter with the grippy crap at the bottom. God only knows how many miles were put on that filter, it ended up getting caked with mud, so the grippy $h! on bottom was no longer grippy. And, being a normal person intent on putting a normal oil filter back on, I was using a wrench that attaches to a ratchet. That, obviously, wouldn't work, so I had to go get a freaking strap wrench and wrestle my way under the car and try to find room to get the damned wrench around the filter. Ok, thats my rant, I still haven't dont the plugs and wires. But I did get to fulfill my dream of using the back of a station wagon for what its best for.

The SRT4 doesn't have mufflers, and if you take it to be inspected, a moron mechanic wont realize they come like that and will fail the car. Had that happen to my friend before he unloaded his.

Or if you're living on an income that allowed you to barely scrape by before gas hit $3.50/gallon and the price of milk, eggs, bread and just about everything else vital to sustaining life increased.

Not exactly the same, but I found a totally not overpriced '87 Caprice wagon.

The one-time charges are becoming as ubiquitous as the GM fanboys saying "it will get been when the new product arrives." We heard it before the last gen Malibu, before the last gen full-size trucks, before the current full-size trucks, before the Cobals, before the current CTS. And its just getting worse.

I was surprised, my Autozone only had 1 rotor and 1 distributor cap in stock. I went up to put everything in the back of the car and play around a bit. Alex was with me and he had a blast climbing on the front seat and rolling off into the back seat. The tailgate works pretty well both ways, before today I had only swing it to the side, hadn't put it down tailgate style. I got the radio to stay on by holding the button down for a while, dont know what made it decide to work, or what made me decide to try to replicate it, cause it wouldn't do it again. Damn, so close.

I've got everything except the brake pads, ended up being under $100. I'll wait until later to get to work, its like 100 degrees outside.

I really need to get started, I want to have everything done by the end of the day so I can get it inspected, insured and registered tomorrow.

I'm going to unload the Fusion sometime soon because its getting on my nerves again, so the timing on this couldn't have been better. For $500, it was an incredible deal, for the same money I could have had the Trooper (with electrical issues that I am in no way able to fix myself) or a Dodge conversion van with 300,000 miles and its own electrical gremlins or a '95 Taurus with no radio. Speaking of radios, the Buick has the standard GM AM/FM/cassette, but it wont stay turned on unless I hold in the power button. And the antenna was snapped off so it gets crappy reception. The latter I dont mind because there are no good radio stations around here, but the former is a problem because I could get one of those old school tape adapters for my iPod until I get around to a new head unit. I have some special ideas in mind for the sound system, including possibly an independent marine unit (waterproof) and speakers in the cargo area for any situation that might involve the back of a station wagon being open and some sort of sound being required.

Just for the hell of it, I called Goodyear to see what a tune-up would run me. $350 for a cap/rotor, plugs, wires, and air and fuel filters. I'm on Autozone's website now and for the cap/rotor/ plugs, wires, brake pads, oil, transmission fluid, air, fuel and oil filters its $121. Plus, Autozone has a decent online repair guide, so I'm not going to have to hunt down a Haynes or Chilton manual. Autozone has my new favorite website, because they actually price their parts and even let you send your order to the store. There is no squealing, so I'm not going to do belts right now, and its going to need rear shocks, but that can wait too. I may go ahead and put new rotors on, depending on how the current ones look, for $18/each, its cheap and easy enough. I'm going to do some calling around about a motor for the back window, or I'll be super lazy and get new back doors, hopefully with good window motors and door handles.

Awww...you ruined it. I was going to have a repeat of BV"s "where do you add transmission fluid" thread, only I was going to ask where to add oil. The odometer reads 36k and change, I assume its been rolled, so at 136,000 miles I expect quite a bit of life left in it. On the agenda for today is adding air to the back, driver's side tire, changing the oil and probably a good tune-up. I do have a transmission question, its the THM200-4R, just want to know if the fluid is sealed or if there is an easy access point to drain it so I can add fresh fluid.

So THATs why the 4th gen didn't sell as well as the Mustang. It was imported.

And all the lights work, somehow I didn't check that before I bought. The previous owner left a pack of baby wipes and a butter knife under the front seat. Both were thrown out when I did a quickie vacuum job at the car wash.

I got the car to a safe place (long story, but its not at my house) but I did manage a few pics:

disabled

Oh, and the people who owned it before traded it on a Caravan. I bet they're totally not regretting that. I told a friend that it seats 8, she asked if I even knew 8 people. Harsh.

Just got back from buying it. $650 became $500 really fast. The car needs a tune-up and fluid change, it started up after I fiddled with the carb for a little bit. The back driver's side window motor is dead (the window goes down so I assume its not a track problem) and, as I think I mentioned, the door handle on the back passenger's side door broke off. The handle is in the glove box, not that it helps much. The driver's seat back wont adjust (spider gear or motor) so I have to drive semi-reclined, but its not too bad. The brakes are mushy (wow, like thats not common on 80's GMs) and it has a slight exhaust leak. And what I thought was rust turned out to be broken plastic, guess I should have looked closer. That means there is NO rust on the body, just a dent near the back. Glass is good, bumpers are pretty good, seat belts seem to work. The tailgate window goes up and down. Basically, I'm pumped. I had to park it at the Autozone next to the dealer (they're cool with it) until Jill gets home to run me up there to get it. It even came with the original window sticker, $19k and change when new. It was rated at 24mpg highway, and it will probably get around that once its tuned up.