I thought I saw one of those Mitsubishis this morning off in the distance but as I got closer, it just disappeared!
I actually did see one and it looks like a decent little car for the money!
There may be better buys out there than the 1995 Plymouth Acclaim, but there are probably worse buys out there. I would have to examine the Acclaim before I could make a statement. I donāt know what the market is in the area where the OP is located. In my area, transportation specials run about $2000. The one concern about the Plymouth Acclaim may be the availability of parts.
Iād take an Acclaim over any GM front drive car of that year.
I did own a 1993 Oldsmobile 88 that had no problems. My son had a 1994 Oldsmobile Cutlass that was o.k., although it got to using oil. I didnāt know any owners of Acclaims or Dodge Spirits back then.
Why no mid-1990ās GMs? If you got one with a pretty tried and true engine like the 3800, they seemed like tanks. Sure, they may not have been the most exciting in their day but look at the Acclaim! It wasnāt that exciting either. I would expect to find parts for a GM car of that year forever while the Acclaim is a different story. You just donāt see many of them around.
Also, that Mitsubishi 3.0 used in cars of that vintage seemed to be a real oil burner/smoker. I guess the valve stem seals were the culprit and I knew a couple people who replaced them and never had issues again. If this Acclaim has that engine, I would assume these seals would by dry from sitting and that the engine would be a nice mosquito fogger in short order.
We could all speculate on what might be wrong with this 1995 Plymouth Acclaim. One could, I suppose, make a trip to a library and go look up old Consumer Reports from 1996 to about 2001 and look at the April automotive issue for those years. That might give some indication of trouble spot with the Acclaim. To me, it would make more sense to take the car to a good mechanic for an inspection. Pulling out a couple of spark plugs might be a way to check for bad valve stem seals. In my opinion, the biggest issue on a 21year old car is rust out. If it isnāt rusted, then other things can be checked. In a used vehicle, the make isnāt important after a certain age. For instance, my son wanted a,small pickup truck. He was advised to go for a Ford Ranger or Toyota Tacoma. He found a couple of Ford Rangers, but when he took them to his mechanic, he was advised to run away from them. He finally found a Chevrolet S-10 in good condition. It doesnāt win any drag races with its 4 cylinder engine and auto transmission, but it provides good transportation. Years ago, Consumer Reports grades used cars into categories A, B, and C with A being the highest and C being the lowest. However, CR did say that a well maintained grade C used car might be worth considering and an abused grade A used car should be avoided. I think CR quit the grading system for used cars sometime in the mid 1950s, but the advice about the condition of the car is still relevant.
@Honda Blackbird I liked the picture of your 2003 Jaguar. For you, it was a steal at $900. I really like the looks of the Jaguar, but with my lack of mechanical ability, even at $900 it would probably be an expensive lawn ornament. For me, $2500 for the 1995 Plymouth Acclaim would have greater utility value than a $900 2003 Jaguar. I would probably be afraid to drive the Jaguar. I did look at a used Jaguar that had a good price ā itās been so long ago that I have forgotten the details. However, there isnāt a shop in my area that would want to work on the Jaguar. To have to take the car to a big city 50 miles away would be terribly inconvenient for me. On the other hand, I think most shops could handle the Plymouth Acclaim. When I was in graduate school, another graduate assistant who had a room in the same house where I had a room, bought a 1962 MG Midget. This was in 1964 when I was driving a 1954 Buick with 130,000 miles on the odometer. I really liked riding in the MG Midget, but on a GA salary, my old Buick had more utility value as it was easier and cheaper to maintain.
Whatās āGAā . . . ?
In my neck of the woods GA means āgarage attendantā
And I kind of doubt thatās what you meant
GA = graduate assistant.
@db4690 GA stands for graduate assistant. I was assigned two math courses to teach each term. For that, I received $2000 for the school year and tuition for the graduate courses I took for my masterās degree. For the 10 months, my check each . month was $200. I rented a room in a private home for $8 a week. A meal ticket at the student center was $14 a weekāthree meals a day Monday through Saturday and breakfast and a smorgasbord on Sunday. This was back in 1962-64. It wasnāt luxury living, but it was still a good deal. I could make ends meet.
I have been honing my āPeople Skillsā my entire life. Im definitely the guy who buys things all the time that have no āSaleā sign on them. In fact I prefer it thata way. All you have to do is askā¦ You would be surprised at how receptive people are when you offer them cash for something that has become a ādriveway ornamentāā¦In fact you get the best deals on these machines by far.
This has just become second nature to meā¦ I can spot several vehicles everyday that I think to myselfā¦āIts time for a knock on that doorā ā¦ Usually you see a vehicle on the side of a homeā¦covered in dustā¦or some other obvious signs of Non Useā¦ You just ask them what they are doing with that vehicle and if they want to sell it.
It has gotten to the point that people call me all the time with items they want to get rid ofā¦and they usually all need some sort of workā¦or even betterā¦they got a huge repair estimate for all the things it āneedsāā¦and they sell it for pennies. Its almost out of hand actuallyā¦I dont have the room for all of them. But I made room for that Jaguar and the Exploder.
In fact I need to head to the local U Pull itā¦to get some suspension components for the new Fordā¦ That will be my new Utility Vehicle for some time to come nowā¦ Its almost too nice to put it to work actually.
Blackbird
Yeah, when youāre mechanically handy like that and you have the āgift of gabā, well, you can make a nice sideline for yourself buying cars and machinery, fixing them, and selling them.
Iāve had it happen to me before where someone left a note under the windshield wiper asking me if Iām interested in selling, with a phone number, happened with the Jeep and the Chevy Pickup, but always at times when I wasnāt remotely interested in selling. Of course it wonāt happen NOW. But as Iāve said, I currently have bigger fish to fry in my life, getting a few hundred bucks for that Jeep isnāt on my priority list right now. . .
A friend of a relative once bought a Ford Tempo (at the time a late model car) from a neighbor for $200 because it supposedly had a bad transmission. Turned out it was just low on transmission fluid, the shop had told the lady she needed a new transmission because they thought sheād spend the $2,500. instead she bought a new car.
I once went on one of those unsolicited buying expeditions with an acquaintance. He had spied 2 late 60ās or early 70ās vintage GMC pickup trucks sitting in someoneās backyard. He was very mechanically inclined and short on funds, and I was long on funds and short on mechanical skills. So the deal was, if he could get the trucks for cheap, I would pay for them and he would fix them both up and give me one of them - - i.e MY money and HIS labor.
It did not go well. This lady (I think it was a lady anyway) answered the door and immediately began yelling at us, āNO! NO! NO FOR SALE! YOU GO! YOU GO AWAY NOW! NO FOR SALE! YOU LEAVE! GO AWAY!ā And heās still trying to talk to her. . . ā. . . maāam, you donāt understand, we have cash, we want to buy. . . " . . . .ā NO FOR SALE! GO AWAY! " . . . . and Iām tugging on his sleeve, āCome on man, letās get out of here before we get shot!ā
I just checked http://www.carcomplaints.com/Plymouth/Acclaim/. It doesnāt look like the WORST car by any stretch but the sample number is quite low so take that into account. Again, the sitting is probably the worst concern here.
As for buying/trading, people are strange animals. Some are perfectly reasonable while others are best avoided. I have certainly run into all kinds. There is the kind that wants you to buy their old junk that is worthless except for maybe scrap of sometimes has NEGATIVE value for top dollar. Then there are people who have something decent but just want it gone. Then I get people calling me wanting stuff at yard sale prices. No thanks!
I get people wanting to sell me the CRT type TVs and computer monitors all the time. These cost money for me to dispose of and you canāt give them away. I have a few that I give out with computers but that has become so far and few that I am whittling my remaining ones down to one or two. People only want flat panels these days. Then there was a guy who got all pissed at me because I wouldnāt buy his 20 year old lightning struck computer for $1200. He had paid $2000 so to him this was a great deal. I told him the best I could offer was free recycling, but only if he brought it to me, otherwise there would be a small pickup charge of $35.
I would really love to have the mechanical skills of the great mechanics that post on this board. I have two problems tackling auto repairs: 1) I donāt have the dexterity with my hands and 2) I donāt have the patience with mechanical things when something doesnāt go right. I envy Honda Blackbird for negotiation a $900 price on a 2003 Jaguar and turning it into a $4000 car. Even as a teenager, I looked for simplicity in cars so that I would have half a chance in keeping it running. I was probably the only teenager on the planet that thought the 1957-58 Studebaker Scotsman were great cars. It had no automatic choke to go out of order. The heater was a box with a heater core and small fan under the dashboard. Think how easy it would be to replace a heater core. Speaking of my lack of patience, I have fought a 2 stroke rototiller almost from the time I bought it new. It took me half an hour to get it started the last time I used it. I finally had enough after I used it the last timeāhad to spray carburetor cleaner into the air intake to finally get it to fire. After I finished using it, I took it over to my local Rural King store that has a repair facility. The tiller was diagnosed with a bad carburetor, but since Rural King didnāt sell that brand, I would have to obtain the carburetor. I did find the carburetor and took it to them. While I was writing this post, I got a call that my tiller is ready. In addition to installing the carburetor, they replaced the fuel lines and the spark plug. The charge for all the work is $28. I would have spent all afternoon chasing down new fuel lines, swearing at the tiller and would have downed $30 of booze. The carburetor cost me $30, but I couldnāt buy a new tiller for $58.
Then there was a guy who got all pissed at me because I wouldn't buy his 20 year old lightning struck computer for $1200. He had paid $2000 so to him this was a great deal.
Man, I love reading your stories!
Probably not so entertaining for you at the time when they are actually serious and upset.
I recall a friend of mine telling us about the guy that insisted my friend was going to buy this beat up hunk of junk from him. For the life of me I couldnāt understand how this guy felt my friend was obligated to buy it, let alone pay almost the cost of new.
Yes, I certainly do have some interesting stories! I had to run out of some ladyās house because she just flipped and started getting threatening. She had just badmouthed all the other shops in town. One of these is understandable as I hear lots of bad things and see plenty of āexamplesā of this with their work but I never hear complaints about some of the others she mentioned. When someone bashes all the competition, watch out!
I am transitioning more and more to commercial customers with time and eventually will only service individual consumers that I have worked with in the past without issues. I recently joined the local chamber of commerce in my town and the neighboring county. That county has a military base and finding anyone to perform reliable service of ANYTHING is almost impossible. Go to a chain restaurant you normally like in this town and odds are you will not want to return to this location. With all the trainees at the base, businesses in the area donāt care about repeat business AT ALL.
When you deal with individuals, there is a whole subclass of people who expect things be given to them for basically nothing. A large percentage of my calls are like this. Also, the cheaper you sell something for, the more these types seem to expect. Items I used to refurb and resell for cheap now end up in the scrap pile without much thought. Sure, I could make a few bucks if everything went OK but often the people who buy something like this end up being royal pains. Yes, you tell them the unit is cheap for a reason but they will come back and try to pull stuff with you when it doesnāt do what you tell them it wonāt do.
Then there was the old car I sold to a guy impersonating a police officer who became threatening. I called the chief of police for the jurisdiction in question at his home about this situation and told him this fellow either wasnāt a police officer or if he was, he needs to be fired RIGHT NOW! It ended up he was a fake and I filed a police report about what happened. The police went out to his residence that night and found he had been offroading the car purchased from me in his front yard and busted the suspension.
I once talked to the owner of a towing company. He towed many cars for the city that people would leave alongside the road broken down or in parking lots. After a certain time you can claim these as your own if the owner doesnāt arrive to pay the towing and storage fee. These are usually clunkers so the fees can exceed the value of the car rather quickly. He always told me that when he fixes them to resell, he always put a quality synthetic oil in them as he says that will likely be the last oil change they ever see. He wants them to run at least a year before the engine dies from lack of maintenance so they donāt come back and blame him. These types of people are unbelievable.
Oh MYā¦The stories I could tell. Sometimes I dont play fair at allā¦ I must admitā¦ One of the ways I do this is to intentionally ask to buy a vehicle when I know the Wife will be homeā¦and I ask the guy if he wants to sell it within earshot of the lady of the houseā¦ LOLā¦ I knowā¦Im evil. Works like a charm every time. I have so so many funny vehicle buying stories to tellā¦way too many as I have owned, repaired, enjoyed and sold over 150 vehicles before I stopped counting. Its a life long affliction Iām afraidā¦ Oh wellā¦
As for that Jaguar ? The original owner told ME the priceā¦and I just handed it over. It cost me $15.98 to replace the āToner Ringā on the rear drivers side axle. The ABS was pitching a fit because the ring the sensor reads had rusted and fallen off. The Jag dealer told the owner he needed a new ABS unit and gave him an Astronomical repair estimateā¦and also offered him 900 for his vehicleā¦ The owner left and as a matter of principleā¦offered it to anyone but the dealer. So whats a guy to do ? Well you know what I didā¦
The Exploder was in a light curb incidentā¦ So far I spent 20 for an upper control arm/ball joint, an outer tie rod as well as outer tie rod end. Today I need to grab a strut, Bearing carrier assy and lower control Armā¦all to the tune of 50 bucks. I should be driving it later today. It runs perfect and looks like its never been sat in. Has a Class IV receiver installed as well as trailer light hookup as well. Its nice actuallyā¦ I was looking for a Pickup Truckā¦but how often do I really need a pickup? Not very often indeedā¦and my last Exploder was extremely usefulā¦albeit it had a 5sp manual ā¦which I loved. This new one has Full Time AWDā¦which I am not too keen onā¦but heyā¦beggars cant be choosers right ?
Off to the Junkyard againā¦ Why do I love going to the junkyard so much I ask you ? Its probably got to do with that saying of a āKid in a Candy Storeā or somethingā¦because that is how I feel each time I enter the yardā¦ Especially with the U Pull It prices we haveā¦ Complete Engines are 150 with a 45 core chargeā¦ Alternators are 10 bucksā¦ Doors 25ā¦ and so onā¦ Its GREAT
Blackbird
Here is what the Exploder looked like yesterdayā¦ Im on the way to the yard to procure the remaining suspension componentsā¦so that I can drive it home. Wish me luckā¦
Wow, grass and trees ! . . whatās that ?