Sanity check

[FrozenSection]

if you can afford to keep all of them and have the room for them, keep them all!!!

Hmm... I'll have to crunch some numbers later this week. I'm debating renting a parking space at a mini-storage facility, as well as inactivating insurance for the T-bird during the winter and for the Jag in the summer -- carburetor icing + huge cold iron block that takes a long time to warm up = piss-poor mileage for the T-bird in the winter, and summer heat + Jag aluminum V-12 crammed into a tight space = possibility of ruining the engine. Maybe that will offset some of the ownership costs for a growing fleet.

heh ... my parents' neighbors laugh too. Two Foresters and a Miata stuffed in the 2-car garage.

Ah, yes... If you ever want to work on a car, then you have the clear out the other car in the garage and move the 'patient' car into the middle of the garage... which involves moving the third car onto the street to clear the driveway to move the other two. Then you feel guilty about clogging the streets with your cars and move the other two back onto the driveway... and when you're all done working on the patient car, you have to move all three cars and clear the driveway again, just to put the two back into the garage. :help:

 

[FrozenSection]

Well, I'd pick the Thunderbird over the 2002, though I can see the 2002 being fun to zip around in. The Bimmer loses the reliability contest by a mile, however. Every time I think of one, I picture Jack Lemmon in 1979's The China Syndrome, as he drove one.

Hey Jared - please elaborate on the reliability issue. Given how simple the design is, I was under the impression that not much could go wrong...? but I may very well be mistaken.

Wasn't too long ago that I found this gorgeous low mileage '79 Cougar -- black with mag wheels and white letter tires. Man, it was something. Those downsized, Torino based 'Birds and Cougars sold tremendously well. Ford banged out something like 358,000 'Birds that year -- a sales record that still stands for Thunderbird.

"Downsized" is so relative... especially when I'm struggling to keep between 15-18 mpg. The problem with the Thunderbird population (unlike the Contique and Jaguar communities) is that there are so many different factions. There are the strict concourse types all the way to those who try to shove a blown EFI 460 into their 'bird. Then the Turbo T-bird and SuperCoupe folks are in their own community, and the 2002-2007 Retro Bird owners just talk about how they wash their car (okay, slight exaggeration). I'm a resto-mod type, and it's been difficult trying to find people of the same ilk.

On the subject of sales numbers, though, the Fairmont was the big winner, with 461,000 sold in 1978, the most ever at the time (and, I think, still) for a Ford in it's debut year.

Total Fox-body sleeper! I didn't realize Ford sold that many the first year... I'll have to check out eBay Motors to see how many are still circulating on the market.

 

[LauraSVT]

Hey Jared - please elaborate on the reliability issue. Given how simple the design is, I was under the impression that not much could go wrong...? but I may very well be mistaken...

Po -- I'm not a BMW specialist, so it's not a matter of me agglutinating my personal list of the foibles I've come across, but really more of a commentary about reliability in aggregate. Being a Ford guy, I bristle a bit when presented with BMW parts costs. My good friend's 1986 528e has been alright, but is not without it share of issues -- often annoying stuff, like instruments and lights. Granted, the 2002 is a pretty simple car overall, but the car will likely be less reliable when compared to the more robust T-Bird. I tripped across this rather elementary list of items to look for in a used 2002. I'll post it here for what it's worth.

http://laudeman.com/bmw_checklist.html