@Docnick that roach in the restaurant sory reminds me of the character “Angel” in The Rockford Files.
Now there was a flim-flam man.
es, had I had your S I L's Taurus, it would have been given a new home in short order. I would get rid of any make vehicle that consumed my time being repaired.
So would I…and I told SIL and her husband many times. But they really thought all cars were as unreliable as the Fords they bought over the years. They didn’t understand what a reliable vehicle was until their daughter got our 1996 Accord. It had more then double the miles they had ever put on any vehicle they ever owned…yet it was more reliable then all of them.
I’m glad your Taurus’s were reliable. And maybe my SIL were more problem then other Taurus’s of that era. But if your afraid to do the google search to see what others have thought about the Taurus of that era…well nothing I can do about that. Based on everything I’ve read…your Taurus’s were far more reliable then the average. Great…glad you got one of the good ones.
sory reminds me of the character "Angel" in The Rockford Files. Now there was a flim-flam man.
Steward Margolin played the roll real well. It’s why he won two Emmy’s for that roll as Angel. One of my all-time favorite TV shows and Angel always made the episodes very exciting to watch.
I’ve Enjoyed all the comments so far… But Just curious, do you think that car is worth what the seller is asking for it?
In my neck of the woods any running car with a clean title and fresh smog is worth considerably more than $500, for example
All I’m saying is that the owner will probably keep relisting it, versus accepting $500. Maybe he’ll finally let it go for between $1200 - $1500
Yeah he just reposted it for $1800… I was thinking $1500 sounds fair
@John. Andrew McCormick. I looked at the photo of the 1985 Maxima you posted. One thing that strikes me is that the visibility from the driver’s seat looks like it would be a lot better than many cars made today. One of my fellow musicians bought a new Maxima like that in 1985. I bought a new car that year as well, but the best I could afford was a Ford Tempo. I think he swapped his Maxima for some Buick Grand National. I swapped the Tempo for a Taurus about it the same time.
He just reposted it for the same amount . . . ?!
I guess he’s in no hurry to sell . . .
@db4690 sorry the first post he was asking for $2200 and now he’s asking for $1800. @Triedaq that’s interesting I wouldn’t know because I was too young at the time our old one went down… But I’m not sure if anyone else has noticed but a lot of the newer fords I have seen them built into the side mirrors are blind spot mirrors so it’s a two in one so to speak if that makes sense. Not sure if that’s because like you said the visibility is more poor on newer cars or what but I’ve observed that.
Consumer Reports has noted the poor rear visibility in many of the current cars. The Ford Fusion was one CR mentioned. Maybe we are headed back to the 1940s. My 1947 Pontiac Streamliner had a rear window that could more appropriately be called a skylight. In those days, outside rearview mirrors weren’t a requirement. IMHO, I would rather give up a mile or two per gallon and have better visibility than the streamline design for better MPG and poor rear visibility.
Newer cars generally have smaller windows because metal offers more protection in a crash than glass.
Rear visibility problem is now solved. I just received, via email, this week’s special from Rural King. The price of a back-up camera has been cut 50% from 99.95 to 49.95. From the illustration, the image from the camera occupies a small section of the rear view mirror. I am sure the manufacturers could install the backup camera on the assembly line for even less. My Sienna has a backup camera, but the image is in the center of the dashboard. I would prefer it as part of the inside rearview mirror.
Many times, a price drop like that means it’s a piece of junk…
;-]
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All this discussion about the 1985 Nissan Maxima got me to thinking about a friend whose parents had a 1977 Datsun 810. The Datsun 810 had an inline 6 and rear wheel drive. Several years later, Datsun became known as Nissan and the Datsun 810 was replaced by the Nissan Maxima. The Nissan Maxima had a V6 with front wheel drive. My friend had a 1971 Datsun. 1200, which was a subcompact car with rear wheel drive. She traded it in for a new Datsun F-10 in 1977. The F-10 was front wheel drive subcompact. I rode in the Datsun 810 and it seemed quite luxurious to me. I drove the F-10 a couple of times and it was a real blast.
Were Datsons reliable cars back on those days? @Triedaq I’m just curious as I know nothing about them
The F10 was an ugly car IMO,but these things would run 300k if you could keep the timing chain from wearing out ,oil wasnt as good in those days a Datsun 1200 was a leap ahead from a beetle(wouldnt mind having a new 1200 now,if I could avoid crashes in it .
“Were Datsons reliable cars back on those days?”
I can’t speak from personal experience regarding Datsuns from a later era, but I can tell you that the ones that were sold in The US in the late '60s were junk–pure and simple. I have previously told the story of my brother’s SPL-311–which was their most expensive car at the time–and although I don’t have the time to enumerate all of its design defects and manufacturing flaws right now, suffice it to say that he and I actually considered pushing it off a cliff.
Late 60s Datsuns were more reliable than British cars and on par with Volkswagens. However, they had vey poor rust protection bordering on bio-degradable.
The 510 was fun to drive and became a popular rally car when souped up. The called it a poor man’s BMW 1600.
“Late 60s Datsuns were more reliable than British cars and on par with Volkswagens. However, they had vey poor rust protection bordering on bio-degradable.”
Within ~1 year, all of the chrome on my brother’s '67 Datsun (including the bumpers) was pitted with rust. The body lasted a couple of years longer, but clearly the quality of their chrome plating was abominable for it to succumb to rust so quickly. And, the rust problem on that car was like the tip of the proverbial iceberg in terms of the major problems lurking in that car.
As to VWs, perhaps they began to decline in reliability by the late '60s, but my brother’s '64 bug was both reliable and durable. His Datsun SPL-311 was very bad in every respect–with the exception of power output–when compared to his VW bug.
Neither Datsuns nor Toyotas were very common in my part of the midwest in the late 1960s and early,1970s. The university I attended for graduate work from 1969-71 didn’t have a Datsun dealer until late 1970. A small dealer then opened up that handled the Datsun and American Motors products I guess there had been a Rambler dealer earlier, but it didn’t survive. I did test drive a Datsun 510 when I was at the dealer to pick up parts for my Rambler. The 510 was fun to drive, but it was noisy. I also drove a,1968 Toyota Corona that had been taken in on trade. The Corona was much quieter and seemed to me to be of better quality. However, that Corona had a 2 speed automatic transmission and was too sluggish for me. There was no Toyota dealer in town at the time. One student who was in a graduate clazs with me was a supervisor of student teachers had a Datsun 510 that gave him a lot of problems. Since he had to travel to different schools for his job, he traded the 510 for a Ford Maverick because he needed something reliable. My brother bought a used 1972 Datsun pickup around 1978 and it was very reliable. By the late 1970s the Datsun and Toyota did earn a reputation for reliability.