After 6 years of VW ownership (73 Beetle, 90 Corrado, 87 Scirocco, 83 GTi w/16v, and 88 Scirocco), 4500 posts on vwvortex.com, and after each one of those cars except for the bug turned out to be heaps of crap - i think it's time for a change.
So tomorrow...it looks like i'm gonna pick up my first non-VW. a 1990 240sx hatch, with sport package. it's that dark silver-grey color, leather interior. everything works. 96k, engine compartment so clean you can eat off it, so smooth at idle i couldn't even tell it was running. It drives like a brand new car. new transmission, rear brakes, and exhaust, full records. $3k. needs new tires and has some rust underneath the spoiler. sound ok?
here are my questions -
1) i know about the timing chain rattle, is there anything else that i should check?
2) I live in wisconsin, and managed to survive last winter in my scirocco 16v shod with kumho ecsta supra 712's. would a 240sx with decent all weathers be better or worse? do i NEED to get snows?
3) i'm going to test it tomorrow, but with the seat folded down, does anyone have any guesses as to whether an upright bass would fit in the car?
4) if/when i get it, what is some good preventive maintanance i shoudl look into at almost 100k miles? should i wait to do the timing chain until it starts rattling or is that better done at a certain time?
5) Would it be better/cheaper to try to find a 'new' hatch or repair the rust?
i'm excited to start this new chapter in my automotive history. <img src="http://www.zilvia.net/f/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt='
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-jason