[geeks] car question

[amy]

Chris Byrne wrote: 
> Well Amy, Scarlett is very pretty, and I'm glad you are happy, though I have
> to say you payed quite a lot for her.

not for the condition the car is in. it books resale at 7500. my dad
sold mopar for 30 years. the only thing the car has ailed from was a
"greasy substance" on the driver's seatbelt. otherwise it's in pristine
condition. i had an offer from a guy locally to buy it from me for 9k
about a month ago.

i've owned many cars (they're a slight passion of mine), i still
do...among them a stealth rt t/t, a kia sephia(98), a 72 mustang ca.
edition convertible. i'd trust the lebaron more than the others to get
me cross-country without a single problem and it has over twice the
mileage and age on its engine than the others.

> You are right to be amazed at her condition. LeBarons had a long history of
> reliability problems, especially the Turbo models, and the convertibles.

heh. i'm aware of the lebaron problems. i worked at my dad's dealership
for years and saw the ones that came through. most of the problems were
the 90/91 model years due to the old engines which were chrysler-built
as opposed to the v6 mitsubishi engines which were an option initially
and later became the standard for the line. generally, any lebaron
pre-1992 is a piece of crap and only good for trim parts. especially the
4-cylinders, they were criminally underpowered. when i first saw her i
was looking for mistakes. the only thing i found was a blinker relay
needing to be replaced. 

my personal favorite was my old '91 lebaron convertible, where the top
motor/computer would try to lower itself on an impromptu basis. it was
traded off quickly back in the early 90's.

> Most were sold to young women (the target market was female 16-28) and while
> it may be stereotypical to say that most women don't know much about cars,
> in the demographics case it's true. 

i love being the exception to that statistic.

*chuckle* my car's original owner was female and took it in once because
the window was rattling (this baffled me..some rattle is normal due to
wind). for the rest of its time with her it was garaged and driven
rarely. the only reason she traded it off was to buy a sebring. if you
ask me she got a rotten deal--i've driven those and i wasnt pleased.

> Generally speaking they are very poorly maintained

understatement of the year. too many kids got ahold of them and burned
out the engines before their time. most of the ones i see locally were
kept out in the weather (crappy top condition, rips, tears, you name it)
and driven hard.
 
> and the fact is that no chrysler built in the 80's or early 90's
> had what I would call good quality. 

this i'd disagree with. they had some bad models, sure, but overall i
see plenty of those cars on the road still (the ubiquitous k-car/600 for
instance..those things can take all sorts of torture). now the chryslers
in the late 90's sucked ass. :)
  
> Of course I have it a little modified. I used to autocross and ice race with
> it.

hrm...can you guys own something and NOT mess with it? ;)

--amy