My new landyacht...'86 LTD

[kennypinkerton]

My wife has decided to buy her grandmother's car... a 1986 Ford LTD. With a v-6. Anyone have anything good or bad to say about this car?

It has only 63000 miles on it... only driven to church on sunday. One owner. She's 88 years old now, and she bought the car brand new. $600.

All but one power window donesn't work. Paint and interior are like new. No engine problems. A/C doesn't work. Sky blue color.

I welcome any and all comments. Including gas mileage estimates.

 

[tony barnhill]

"Little old lady from Pasadena..."

At $600 you can't go wrong!

 

[kennypinkerton]

Well... I've had problems with all my cars that I don't have money to fix (julie is gonna pay her grandmother in installments for the car). My biggest concern is the mileage.

Right now... My MGB gets 12-14MPG and has no brakes (the brakes I can fix in an afternoon - the mileage might take more)....

The Alfa has a weird problem of not being able to run at more than 4 HP under load (or whatever minimum HP can barely carry itself up a 20 degree hill at speeds that will make you wish you'd walked). It did, however achieve near 30 mpg on the way home from tony's and stayed that way until it decided to give me headaches..

My Toyota - though I fixed the major problem of a blown head gasket, I didn't replace the fuel injector seals - It leaks down fuel pressure (to the atmosphere while it's sitting) and as a consequence it only gets about 14mpg, and is a fire hazzard concern.

My wife's Talon gets 30mpg, and I'd like any car we get to have at least 20mpg, just to help alieviate some of the financial burden my current running gas guzzlers have been giving me.

 

[mailbox]

Sounds like you should worry about it RUNNING first. Worry about gas mileage later. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[kennypinkerton]

Trust me... I've thought of that, but apparently it (the LTD) runs great. Maybe my luck with cars has changed if only I let my wife do the picking.... But an LTD? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif There is nothing good that can describe the styling. I'd almost rather have a yard full of good looking non-running cars than 2 ugly ones that run and drive nice. Anyone found me a '82 GTV6 yet? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jester.gif

 

[Bret]

Almost commented on that when you mentioned it in my 928 thread.

Anyway don’t feel too bad I’ve owned many a land barge in my day – a 67 Impala, a Delta 88 & a 72 Caprice Classic to name a few. Never an LTD however. But in another life I used to pine over my ex-brother in laws’ 77 Thunderbird that had to be one of the longest 2 doors to ever see production in recent years.

 

[R6MGS]

Geez, and I thought I had car problems!

Well, a running car is a good car....Don't expect better mileage due to the fact that it's a V6...my old 85 Jeep with a V6 was a terrible gas guzzler.....

 

[AngliaGT]

The V6's have (had) a head gasket problem.
Go to some of the LTD Websites to confirm this.
I had an '85 LTD LX (3260 made),mid sized LTD (civilian
version of the police cars).5.0 H/O,Posi,& the all-
-important 20 gallon fuel tank!
That was one cool sleeper!

- Doug

 

[kennypinkerton]

Yep, and they only made 3250 of the LX's (too bad this one isn't one). I've already been trolling the LTD sites.

I'm hoping the gasket problem is either fixed already, or won't happen - I really don't want to go through that again - but at least it's not a OHC multiport injection engine like my toyota. With the car at 20 years old, and with only 63000 miles on it from an 88 year old lady, who knows? My wife is buying it in a couple weeks, and I have to be the guinea pig driver for the first weeks or two to see what, if anything else is wrong with it.

 

[tony barnhill]

Well, lets see a photo!

 

[GB1]

and don't park the toy by the others /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jester.gif

 

[kennypinkerton]

We won't have it here for a few weeks... Julie has some kind of payment thing going with her grandmother. Should be here by the end of the month... then I'll put up a picture or 2.

As for parking... I'm trying to come up with some creastive way of parking all the cars as 5 in a row looks like a used car lot... A couple more, and I may open a used car lot /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

 

[AngliaGT]

One other thing...... changing the heater core is an
8 hour flat rate job (w/air).
Same floorpan as a Mustang.

- Doug

 

[kennypinkerton]

I've never been too concerned with heat in any of my cars... I live so close to work, that they usually don't start blowing warm air until I'm pulling into the parkinglot... And I've been known to wear shorts all year long (last 2 years anyway). It just doesn't get that cold here anymore.