StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I'm thinking about buying a Ford Mustang '88 for about $2,500. Does anyone here have experience with those cars? (or a year that's close enough)

What's the difference between the GT and the stock model?

I'm undecided between that one and some Citröen for $2,800.

get a seat. VW technology without the high price brand name.

GT models have a 5.0 liter V-8 engine and the stock model has a V-6 of some sort, IIRC. I personally would recommend against buying a used 5.0 liter for 2,500 unless you have strong mechanical skills.

Iunno...Fords, like most cars, kinda turn into beaters when they get to be 15+ years old. If you have a friend who's a mechanic, have him take a look at it. If not, talk the guy down to ~$1500 (unless the mileage is unusually low).

GT's had the larger 5 litre engine and some suspension and drive train improvements. How many miles ? The 5.0's tend to become very cranky over 80k in mileage, plus its age. Give us a few more details , Milage, previous owner, current condition and we can give you a better idea on whats a fair price.

I laugh in your general direction. My wife had an old mustang, and it was what she called her 'grocery go-getter'. It was crap. It was a special kind of crap. It was crap after crap goes bad.

I currently drive an 87 Mustang Gt and have for the last 3 years, bought it for 4000 bucks with 85k miles on it. Currently have 125k miles logged. I can tell you right now it depends on how well the car was taken care of by the previous owners.

I have had no major problems with my stang and it drives and runs beautifully. But it was also well taken care of before I purchased it. If your into after market upgrades the 5.0 has one of the largest followings for aftermarket parts.

Theyre a lot of fun, I dont think I would buy any 87-93 fox body mustang unless it was the GT. A lot of the LX models had 5.0 engines also.

$2500 is the high end blue book for an 88 GT in good condition IIRC.

Slartibartfast wrote:I'm thinking about buying a Ford Mustang '88 for about $2,500. Does anyone here have experience with those cars? (or a year that's close enough)

What's the difference between the GT and the stock model?

I'm undecided between that one and some Citröen for $2,800.

I laugh in the general direction of newer Ford cars. Though not to loudly, that tends to make 'em explode. I've seen it mentioned that the 5.0 V-8 has a large selection of aftermarket parts. In my experience, there's a very good reason for that.

And $2500 sounds a little high for a 2WD sub-compact that old. (Mustangs of that era were not sports cars, just compacts with godawful big engines.) It might be a good buy for about $1000 less.

salm wrote:get a seat. VW technology without the high price brand name.

I don't want a seat, I want the whole car!

$2500 is high? For any place in the world?

It's the maximum reference price anyway. It's not like they put a reference price so they can sell it to you for more, do they? I'm thinking it could go down as much as $1,500.

Consider this: I buy stuff for about 1.5x to 2x times the value than anywhere in the US. So if you think 2,000 is a fair price that would be about 3,000+ for me.

Aftermarket parts? Are they easy to aquire worldwide? Are they horribly expensive?

On a side note about Fords, it seems like usual consensus that the Mustang is probably the only good thing from a shitty company. I wouldn't know, I only repeat comments I've read.

I've written the guys so they can give me more info like cylinders, gas mileage, etc. The car seems pretty and in good condition, but I won't know until I look under the hood.

Wasn't it just the Pinto the one that exploded if you sneezed too strongly?

seats are good.

http://www.seat.com/welcome.htm

Get an old Volvo 240

The swe tank, nothing can stop it.

Not pretty not cool but it vill take you from a to b no prob

Faram wrote:Get an old Volvo 240

The swe tank, nothing can stop it.

Not pretty not cool but it vill take you from a to b no prob

Of course it's cool, if anything you can claim "retro appeal". And your friends will apreciate you more when you come pick them up after their Mustang takes a shit some rainy night.

I'm not that interested in cars I can't obtain, though.

Cars that I can actually find are much better.

Plus I'm looking for used cars, I'm not willing to dish out 10 grand or more for a new car. That's why I want opinions about this particular car, not a catalog of models to choose from (specially cars that aren't even sold here).

I have never been a Volvo fan either, but thanks for the tip.

Just an update: I just got by some intel that the 2.5k mustang was actually a huge load of crap. The thing had crashed more times than I have fingers, and was basically a mixture of paint and denture filling.

I did a search for the same model, and I found a near mint condition Mustang '88 for about 1200 dollars.

I'm seriously considering buying it (it's just a matter of opinion from my mechanic) and I wanted to thank everyone for their opinions, even though it's a serious matter and I found out that some of you really had issues against that particular model

I'm not sure I'm making much sense, after all today is the anniversary or whatever of the national alcoholic beverage so you'll have to understand I'm redefining today the definition of Drunk as Hell (tm). Wish me luck with the establishment of this new guiness record. Thanks.

My advice is: Dont buy European!! they dont age well and cost a fortune to fix when they go wrong. Be carfull with 80's Fords, the quality controll wasnt hot back then.

Stuart Mackey wrote:My advice is: Dont buy European!! they dont age well

mercedes, bmw, vw age last for ever.

opel are crap. even though since they´ve started to give their carrosseries vollverzinkung they might last longer.

fiat and renault last for 2 months.

seats and skodas age as good as vw´s i guess since they´re vw technology.

dont buy a citroen.

salm wrote:

Stuart Mackey wrote:My advice is: Dont buy European!! they dont age well

mercedes, bmw, vw age last for ever.

opel are crap. even though since they´ve started to give their carrosseries vollverzinkung they might last longer.

fiat and renault last for 2 months.

seats and skodas age as good as vw´s i guess since they´re vw technology.

dont buy a citroen.

*Snort* your average Euro car is desighned to last a certain period of time after that they are crap. they are not desighned so that maintaiance is easy to perforn and after theire alloted life span they become sevear liabilitys in terms of reliability.

Stuart Mackey wrote:

salm wrote:

Stuart Mackey wrote:My advice is: Dont buy European!! they dont age well

mercedes, bmw, vw age last for ever.

opel are crap. even though since they´ve started to give their carrosseries vollverzinkung they might last longer.

fiat and renault last for 2 months.

seats and skodas age as good as vw´s i guess since they´re vw technology.

dont buy a citroen.

*Snort* your average Euro car is desighned to last a certain period of time after that they are crap. they are not desighned so that maintaiance is easy to perforn and after theire alloted life span they become sevear liabilitys in terms of reliability.

got some back up?

salm wrote:

Stuart Mackey wrote:

salm wrote: mercedes, bmw, vw age last for ever.

opel are crap. even though since they´ve started to give their carrosseries vollverzinkung they might last longer.

fiat and renault last for 2 months.

seats and skodas age as good as vw´s i guess since they´re vw technology.

dont buy a citroen.

*Snort* your average Euro car is desighned to last a certain period of time after that they are crap. they are not desighned so that maintaiance is easy to perforn and after theire alloted life span they become sevear liabilitys in terms of reliability.

got some back up?

Naturally. the Dog and Lemon guide .
In short German cars: Over engineered and too complicated and moderatly well designed, and when they brak down the cost a fortune to fix.

Other Eropean cars: in short, mostly crap. Seat, for example, to change the brake cable you must first remove the petrol tank.
Tinny body poorly put together are another problem for Euro cars.
Parts can be difficult to get.

British. I own a old British car, a Hillman Hunter {thats ok one, it just leaks a lot}, trust me, dont ever buy a Brit, they leak, poorly made, they rust and the electrics can be rubbish.

hmm... i´ve got pretty good experiences with german cars.

my golf II from 1987 is still driving. i gave it to friend when i moved to stuttgart where i dont need a car. when i gave it away 2 years ago it had driven 250 000 km. it rarely had to be repaired.

another one is my dad´s polo from ´89. still driving perfectly and a lot.
neither of them has ever seen from the inside of a garage so they were always exposed to rain snow and ice.

i must admit that i am pritty clueless about american cars since nobody drives them here.
too expensive to get spare parts. they swallow gasoline like A10s.

salm wrote:hmm... i´ve got pretty good experiences with german cars.

my golf II from 1987 is still driving. i gave it to friend when i moved to stuttgart where i dont need a car. when i gave it away 2 years ago it had driven 250 000 km. it rarely had to be repaired.

another one is my dad´s polo from ´89. still driving perfectly and a lot.
neither of them has ever seen from the inside of a garage so they were always exposed to rain snow and ice.

i must admit that i am pritty clueless about american cars since nobody drives them here.
too expensive to get spare parts. they swallow gasoline like A10s.

your lucky, Euro cars out here just cant hack it. As to American cars, yeah, similar situation in NZ and the fact is that the Japanese cars are cheaper, drink less gas, and are very reliable.
I do wish that the Brits would learn quality control however, as there is nothing overly wrong with their designs. Sort that out thand the Brit car industry would be a lot better off.

Stuart Mackey wrote:

salm wrote:hmm... i´ve got pretty good experiences with german cars.

my golf II from 1987 is still driving. i gave it to friend when i moved to stuttgart where i dont need a car. when i gave it away 2 years ago it had driven 250 000 km. it rarely had to be repaired.

another one is my dad´s polo from ´89. still driving perfectly and a lot.
neither of them has ever seen from the inside of a garage so they were always exposed to rain snow and ice.

i must admit that i am pritty clueless about american cars since nobody drives them here.
too expensive to get spare parts. they swallow gasoline like A10s.

your lucky, Euro cars out here just cant hack it. As to American cars, yeah, similar situation in NZ and the fact is that the Japanese cars are cheaper, drink less gas, and are very reliable.
I do wish that the Brits would learn quality control however, as there is nothing overly wrong with their designs. Sort that out thand the Brit car industry would be a lot better off.

nah, i dont think so. i know a lot people who drive old as shit vw´s and mercedes and at least one stone aged bmw.

i agree with you on the japanese cars.
i had a mazda which i was entirely satisfied with. only problem is that most of them look like shit but i dont care what my car looks like.

MAHOK!

salm wrote:

Stuart Mackey wrote:

salm wrote:hmm... i´ve got pretty good experiences with german cars.

my golf II from 1987 is still driving. i gave it to friend when i moved to stuttgart where i dont need a car. when i gave it away 2 years ago it had driven 250 000 km. it rarely had to be repaired.

another one is my dad´s polo from ´89. still driving perfectly and a lot.
neither of them has ever seen from the inside of a garage so they were always exposed to rain snow and ice.

i must admit that i am pritty clueless about american cars since nobody drives them here.
too expensive to get spare parts. they swallow gasoline like A10s.

your lucky, Euro cars out here just cant hack it. As to American cars, yeah, similar situation in NZ and the fact is that the Japanese cars are cheaper, drink less gas, and are very reliable.
I do wish that the Brits would learn quality control however, as there is nothing overly wrong with their designs. Sort that out thand the Brit car industry would be a lot better off.

nah, i dont think so. i know a lot people who drive old as shit vw´s and mercedes and at least one stone aged bmw.

i agree with you on the japanese cars.
i had a mazda which i was entirely satisfied with. only problem is that most of them look like shit but i dont care what my car looks like.

MAHOK!

Well if you ralk about the old beetle and Mercs from the 60's yeah they are good, but then they are a lot simpler and easier to maintain. The more complicated you make it the harder it is to fix and its more likly to break down and it cost lots when it does. I dont mind Mazda cars, but prefer Honda.

Buy a Mini! I know people who own both the New and Old Minis and so far no one has Complained. If you go American, get a Firebird or a Camero instead of a Mustang. Hondas are ok but i'm just plain sick of seeing Civics with Fart Cannons and wings attached to them. Keep it Stock, don't make it look like a Toy and sound like a chainsaw. If you get a Mitsubishi, beware of the older 2.0 Liter four cyl! They run good on up to 100k miles and pop without warning one day when you least expect it. Thats whan happened to my beloved 87 Ram 50. Because of that i'm stuck with a Damn 92 Dynasty! ( sure its a well built car with a fine engine but its too weird looking, The front starts off being sleek looking but the rear end is all boxy )