1987 Oldsmobile Firenza "Scratch"
Type: Automobiles
Model: 1987 Oldsmobile Firenza
Real Name: Withheld
Location: Louisville, KY US.
Web Site: www.automobileforum.com
Gender: Dude
Age: 30.83 years
Yet another car that was pretty good when it ran, but didn't run very often. The previous owner poured some sort of gunk in the cooling system that eventually necessitated replacement of pretty much everything involved with it...radiator...hoses...head gasket...
As for the nickname...I once used one of those non-abrasive pads to try and get a bunch of tar and bugs off the lower panels of the car. I scrubbed almost everything below the door guards before realizing it WASN'T a non-abrasive pad...
Comments
jaysonaych owns:
When the Stratus was redesigned for the 2001 model year, I was one of the few people outside of rental fleets/government agencies that really wanted one. It's been a great car...rock solid (save for a couple of interior trim bits getting crackly), nearly 82,000 miles on the clock, and still a lot of fun to drive (well, fun for a V-6 grocery getter). I'd been considering trading it in very recently for something fuel efficient, but I think I'll be hanging onto it for a little while longer as I was very disappointed in the recent crop of new econoboxes. Reliable transportation is hard to come by, and I've got a good thing going here.
jaysonaych used to own:
My first car, and also the 2nd largest thing you'd find in the high school parking lot (next to my friend's '65 Chrysler 300). Took a bit of a beating during its time with me and left behind a veritable rainbow of fluids wherever it went, but that's what a first car is supposed to do. Of all the cars I no longer have, I miss this one the most.
The paint was faded pretty bad when I first got it, but this was one of my favorite cars when it ran. Which unfortunately wasn't very often. I spent $1500 to buy it, and maybe $4500 repairing over the next two years. On a cold snowy day winter day, it took me and my buddy Long-Haired Dave to a mall in Indianapolis where it promptly broke and caused us to freeze our tails off while trying to find a place to stay warm, wait for help, and miss most of Super Bowl XXXI. Dave wasn't too happy, seeing as how his Packers were playing, but he said watching me repeatedly kick in the 88's fender until all of the trim broke off made up for things.
While I was still in college, my parents noted all of the bad luck I'd had with my cars, including the current one, and when it came time for them to buy something new, they traded me their venerable Taurus for my Firenza and used the Olds to trade up to something else. The Taurus was a great car, though after I'd had it for two years, everything mechanical pretty much died all at once, and I had to trade it off for something cheap when it imploded.
I'd later seen that someone did buy it (a telltale window sticker I'd installed provided positive ID) and decided to spend the cash to fix it up. They also decided to smash the whole right side of it in an accident.
I made up nearly all of the nicknames for all of the other cars on the spot while creating my Boompa profile, because I didn't really give any of my cars nicknames. The only exceptions are the Strat, and this car. I actually called it the Complete and Total S#!tbox, but there wasn't enough room for that in the profile. I only had this car 11 months, but it was in some sort of repair shop no less than 10 times while I owned it (I wish I were exaggerating). I was trying to finish up school and really couldn't afford to swap cars again so soon after getting this one, but it was doing its best to claim a spot in the Guiness Book of World Records for "Non-British Car With the Most Electrical Problems." Terrible, terrible automobile.
However, I think it just completely hated me. My dad took it when I got rid of it, and it never ever gave him a problem. He gave it to my sister. Never gave her a problem either. There were a couple of times when I drove while it was under their respective ownerships, and it broke each time. The car and I must have both known each other in previous lives, and I must have done something despicable then.
Of all things, the HYUNDAI was the first car I ever had that didn't leave me stranded all the time (or, really, at all). In fact, it was pert near bulletproof. First car I bought brand new, and it served me pretty faithfully for a couple of years. I put about 45,000 miles on it during that stretch of time, including a memorable 2,600 mile road trip to New Mexico. It also accumulated more door dings and scratches than any other car I've ever owned, got a chipped windshield from freeway debris 5 days after signing the loan, and is so far the only car I've owned to have been vandalized (someone keyed the thing all the way down the right side...who keys a Hyundai?).
Loved it quite a bit, but near the end of my time with it, it did develop a nasty electrical glitch (didn't knock the car out of commission, but caused lights to go off and on even with the car turned off, and warning bells to go off for no reason). It was all repaired under warranty, but the dealership was pretty incompetent in getting it fixed. Took two weeks of repair to fix the actual problem--which was reasonable given the circumstances of a complex electrical gremlin--then another FIVE weeks of repeatedly taking it back for them to fix something they didn't hook back up right or outright broke while putting the car back together after the original problem was solved. So I decided that with the B2B warranty creeping close to its 60,000 mile expiration, it might be a good idea to get something else and not have to deal with them anymore. The car was great...the dealer experience was lousy.
I purchased this car for $250 as a cheap beater car to supplement my Dodge, and to run in the BABE Rally. It was a rattletrap that needed a lot of work cosmetically, but seemed to run quite well. After 24 days of ownership, the engine coughed up a piston during a short trip despite no sign of any impending failure and died. It was shuffled around to a couple of garages to see what could be done, but it was going to be way too expensive to repair. Another couple of weeks later, it was scrapped. I hope this personal record of shortest time with a car is not broken.
jaysonaych wants to own:
This will be my next car. GM really needs to hurry the heck up and get this thing in production.
