Quote:
The picture looks bad....but not that bad. What hope?


None that is fiscally realistic.

Estimated repair costs are $6000--$7000, which just isn't feasible for a 15 year old car with 200,000 miles on it. The chassis is tweaked, and damage to that rear quarter panel is severe -- some of the crush structure underneath the bodywork is... well, crushed.

As I said above, if the car only had 100,000 miles instead of 200,000 miles I'd be tempted. But with all the mechanical bits that have pretty much reached their service lifetime at 200K, the car would be a money pit beyond any realistic hopes of supporting it.

Tony is correct -- he has experienced it too, but only in a pale imitation of what it eventually became. When he rode in it, the stereo consisted of an empeg duct-taped on top of the dashboard feeding into an FM modulator thingie stuck in the tape deck playing through the stock Ford radio and the four OEM 4" speakers. The car itself was in sad shape mechanically, running on only five cylinders (fuel injector failure) with the power steering pump sounding like a clothes dryer full of golf balls and the five-sixths engine practically shaking the car to pieces every time I tried to accelerate.

Ah, Tony, if only you could have experienced that car in its prime!

tanstaafl.
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