Beauty is the name of my POS 1992 LeBarron convertable that I just 3 weeks ago.
There’s all kinds of things that don’t work right: I was amazed that the gas gauge hadn’t left the Full mark after a week, unil I tapped it and it dropped to 3/4. It randomly makes that “door open” dinging noise every once in awhile while I’m driving around. The floor has so many stains that, when I spilled my coffee on it last week, I couldn’t see a difference (plus, most of it probably drained out of the wholes in the floor). The radio knobs are missing, forcing me to grab the little mettal posts and twist it to a new station. The list goes on. But the top still goes up and down (we won’t talk about the leaks) and I got it for $500, so what the hell.
My basic problem is that I know it’s leaking oil into the cylinders - it’s smokes a bit when it first starts, and when I check the oil it’s dirty black, not the clear brown that it should be. So, automotive Dopers, what basic stuff can I do to keep this heap going? What should I absoulutely have checked for safety reasons, and what can I let slide? I don’t rely on this car for work or anything else, and if it dies on the side of the road I’ll have a guy named Bob come out and tow it away for scrap, no biggie. I don’t want to spend a lot of money on it, but if there are cheap things I can do to make it last as long a bit longer, I’m all ears.
Did I mention the stuffing coming out of the seats? And the fact that when I left the top down in the rain one time it came out cleaner? I love this peice of crap, I really do.
Mods: If this turns into an opinion piece, feel free to move to IMHO. Thanks!
The oil problem is probably just worn rings. The rings seal the space between the cylinders and the cylinder walls and once they wear out then oil leaks down into the cylinders and comes out the back as smoke. Fixing them means ripping the engine apart and replacing them. As you’d expect, the “ripping the engine apart” part of that tends to be a little expensive.
The fuel guage, fortunately, is just the guage itself, otherwise it wouldn’t have gone to the correct level when you tapped it. This can be replaced fairly easily.
The random dinging part bothers me. It could be as simple as a bad relay or a worn wire shorting out, but it might be the first warning that your electrical system is going to hell in a handbasket. If you start developing bad grounds, all sorts of stuff (including things much more important than your door dinger) may stop working or worse, randomly turn on like your dinger does.
If you were mechanically inclined and the engine was good, I might suggest keeping the car, but since you apparently would need a mechanic to do the work for you, and the engine is pretty well worn, I’d say the cost of repairs would far exceed the value of the car once you fixed it. Make sure that the brakes are good, all of the lights work, and the tires are good, and run the thing into the ground. And make sure that you keep putting oil in it. If the oil level gets too low then the engine will self destruct in a very short amount of time.
If it’s emissions inspections, I hear ya. Wisconsin, USA does not seem to require that. They also don’t seem to require the rigorous sort of inspections that I was used to in Virginia - a previous car of mine failed because of poor treads, and another year I had to replace the brakes.
Speaking of which, those are probably the first two things I need to replace if I intend to drive it much.
Yeah, I’d figured that. I’m also concerned about things like the fuel and oil pumps, the timing belt, the alternator, etc. But like you say, it’s not worth it at this point to replace them.
I was afraid of that. It could be as simple as the door sensor shorting out, or it could be trying to warn me about something, or all the wiring could be shot. I forgot to mention that the spedometer occasionally doesn’t work, which tends to support the bad wiring theory.
Even as old as it is, though, it’s still too “modern” for me to troubleshoot myself, I think. Wouldn’t I need diagnostic tools and such?
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Dammit, I’d forgotten about worn rings - that’s good news in a way. It only smoked a little when I first looked at it (it had been sitting for awhile in this guy’s garage) and doesn’t seem to be doing it much now, if at all. I was thinking leaking head gasket/cracked head stuff like that. Worn rings I can handle.
I’m somewhat mechanically inclined - I’ve already replaced wipers and headlights and the radio antenna, and I’d like to replace the canvas top sometime. But I don’t have the space, tools or skills to do anything crazy like rebuild the engine. Even if I did, I don’t think the body of the car is in good enough shape to warrant that kind of investment.
Question - do I benefit using a heavier grade of oil to prevent leaking around the rings, or is that a myth? Should I just use the factory-recommended grade?
Lights all work now, I’ll get the oil changed soon, and I definately need to have the brakes looked at - great advice. Thanks!
More than likely its the valve seals, especially if it smokes like crazy at red lights.
The cheap fix is to just keep a close watch on your oil level and always have a spare quart or two in the trunk, and don’t use a thicker oil, it will just make a thicker smoke. And since you mention that your oil is pretty dirty, you should change it, soon.
You don’t live in East Tennesee do you? Sounds like my old car and does exactly some of the same things my did. It was a 1992 also. I bought it in Feb of '93 with 22,000 miles on it and sold it in 2001 at which time it had a 179,000 miles on it. I got my moneys worth out of the car for sure, but it cost me some too.
My car would randomly ding also. I would be driving down the road and that dinging noise would come on for no reason. I thought the car was possessed. I never fixed it though seems like I just disconnected the dinger. Can’t remember if it is run off of a fuse or not. If it is, it’s a quick fix to hearing no more of that. Pull the fuse and it can’t ding! Fuse box should be located under the steering wheel and to your left.
I don’t recall my gas guage ever doing what yours is doing. Easy fix for that is keep the car full and you never have to worry about the guage. So the stuffing is coming out of your seats and it’s begining to look like a 100 acre cotton farm in your car? Buy some inexpensive seat covers. Put them bad boys on and voila you have almost next to new seats. No knobs to tune your radio to your favorite radio station? Small pair of needle nose pliers should do just fine + cheap is the key word here. Keep them right below the radio in that cubby hole. They work great too if you get a tape stuck in the deck.
Smoke? Let me tell you about smoke. I started receiving phone calls from the county to see if I was interested in fogging for mosquitos one summer. That car smoked more than I did. I didn’t want to replace no gaskets or seals either, I was too broke and just wanted to get by. How did I do it? I bought that stuff called no smoke. You put it where your oil goes. Is it cheap. Absolutely not. I was buying that stuff at a rate of 4 times a week. Was it a quick fix. Yes.
Car sprung more leaks than the Titanic? Sorry don’t have a quick, cheap or easy fix for that (I do but only if the top on the car is black, then black duck tape works nicely). If you get it done cheaply it’ll still cost you around $500 to fix the top and thats if you recycle the back glass.
Here’s the real clincher. The only really bad thing that I can say about the car was that my transmission went out at 75,000 miles and was a hefty sum to fix. I knew I was keeping the car and I went the expensive route on that. Did I love that car? You bet. I wouldn’t have kept it as long as I did have. There is nothing like driving down the road with the top down and the wind in your hair. I miss my convertible.
