While waiting for various Miata owners to get their heads out of the clouds, I found a used 1995 Nissan Maxima for $600. It needs a head gasket or a new engine and I'll know more by tomorrow afternoon. It had a bad coil and an injector that was dumping fuel into the cylinder and on down into the oil pan. There's no telling how long it ran like this, so there may even be a rounded off cam lobe or two. Anyway, I'll pop the top on it tomorrow and see where I need to go. It's a $2000-2200 car with a stick shift and 176k when I'm done with it. It'll probably go down the road and leave us with some hot water heater/swamp cooler money for the house.
Next up is a '99 Subaru wagon with engine trouble. It shouldn't take me long to fix this one since it's just like the wagon that Auntie M had. The engine came out of that one in a little over an hour and it was an automatic. The engine rebuild price has tripled since then though, so I'll have to get it cheap or rebuild the engine myself. Probably just another head gasket, but an entire rebuild kit, that includes new pistons, sells for $900. It'll be a tough call whether or not to sell this one. Perfect for hauling people and photo gear in snowy weather or back roads or combinations thereof, heated seats, sport package and I can have the engine completely out of the car and replaced in less than a day if needed. Winnerrrrr. The best time to buy a Miata is in the winter it seems anyway.
Having CP in preschool could really pay off this month. I was able to get all of my photos (290/460) processed and up for sale this afternoon, but I got slowed down by a mouse failure. The LW came home from errands this afternoon with a long-lusted-after track ball mouse..YAAAYYYY!
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3 comments:
I say keep the Subaru!!! I'm still sad that I had to let mine go.
It turns out that once the max got some oil, instead of raw fuel, into the cyinders the compression came back up to spec. I've got to replace two more injector seals, get some tires/alignment and it'll be a driver. $800 in the car + $400 for tires/alignment = $2500OBO on CL.
The subaru is a trickier deal. It's got the notorious 2.5 head gasket problems. The one you had was the reliable 2.2 engine that's hard to blow up...unless you take it to WalMart for an oil change, that is. It's a keeper. It's all set up for midwest weather and will be the hell or high water car...heated seats even.
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