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Quote (Warwick5s @ Sep. 10 2002,11:52)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">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</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
Sounds good. Where in WI are you?
I'll just answer a few of the questions.
First off, the 240 would probably do fine with all season tires, provided they were heavily biased towards bad weather. Since it's a nimble chassis, you're going to want something performance oriented which does not mix well with snow. I ran some snow tires last winter and, though it was mild, they did serve me very well one weekend in Milwuakee when we got 10". For most of the night I think I was the only car on the road (everyone else out in trucks) aside from police cars and must have looked like some circus freak as I drove around with realative ease in a rwd sports car. Snow tires rule. Get some and some summer tires and you'll have little to worry about. On the flip side the one day I did drive with a summer biased all season tire I was literally afriad of my car, even with less than an inch of snow.
As for the hatch rust, if you can see it, it's probably bad. The good news is you can use this as a bargaining point and probably save a few bucks. Once it's your's I'd recomend gong to a junkyard and picking up a "new" one without a spoiler to replace it (~$250). In you prepurchase check, you might also look under the carpet to see if any water has been getting in the trunk.
Preventative maintence (check owner records) is pretty much like any other car.
Fluids
Brake system
Air filter
Distributor cap and rotor
Spark plugs and wires
Belts
Tires (which you are aware of, but check the wear patterns for other suspension problems)
And a general check of all other components for proper working order.
All these compenents should be inspected/replaced.