Went to look at an 88 TC today.

Topic: Went to look at an 88 TC today. (Read 1247 times) previous topic - next topic

Went to look at an 88 TC today.

April 29, 2005, 06:22:53 PM

Well my buddy who sold his stang has finally wisend up and thinks he might want a TC,in his words "a better quality car".
Anyways,i go to see this TC at this used car lot and the price is 1850cdn ASIS,guy tells me if i offer him 1200.00 he'll take it.
Started looking at the car and here is a list of the problems with the car and why i should be seeing it in a s yard and not at a used car dealer.
Spare tire on LF wheel
Gas tank mounts rotted out and large threaded rods installed through the trunk floor to hold the tank in
L/side torque box rotted and pushed in by hoist or jack
1/4 panels badly rotted
Bottoms of doors rotted and covered in bondo
R/side frame rail rotted and broken
Leather seats torn in rear and drs seat
Dead battery
Ign cyl broken off(little nibs where you put your fingers)
Optional pass power seat controls missing and some strange push button device that does not work installed in it's place
Exaust broken in half at between cat and lers
Drs door lock and lock switch innop
In need of full tune-up&belts(very poor cond)
4 bald tires
L/rear taillight came apart in my hands
Headliner falling down
Quad shocks on rear broken in half due to rott
and the final kicker 200899km on the odometer
Other than that i don't know what suspension,brake and clutch work it needed as i left at that point and never looked back :disappoin
Unfortunate what such a once nice ride has turned into due to someones blatant neglect

O well of to find another one :D

Re: Went to look at an 88 TC today.

Reply #1 – April 29, 2005, 08:16:59 PM

wow...he would be lucky if you took it of of his hands for him..inthat case it wouls at least be worth the rear end...what a shame. it happnes though. i ran into the same thing a few weeks ago. what cought my eye from the road was the body kit but uppon closer inspection the car was just a total rat. interior was tan, now stained and torn. some of the plastic was broke, ignition broke, console broke, switches missing...tha bosy was filled everywhere as well as the body kit being patched with glass in many places. there wasnt anything worth salvaging on the car realy. it only had about 120k in it if that was even the correct mileage. the kicker was the guy was asking $1350 (yep, another dealer at that). he did piont out to me how RARE this 88 TC was...lol

Re: Went to look at an 88 TC today.

Reply #2 – April 29, 2005, 08:41:04 PM

That's as bad as the 20th Coug a local nut is selling. He had it on his lot for $3500 way back when I bought my '87 Sport (a car that I sold three years ago). When he had it on his lot you could tell it had sat for at least two years because the page listing the features was all faded, the page said "NEW SAFETY", and the safety sticker was a year expired (making the sticker two years old). It was in decent shape, but you could tell it had bodywork done in the usual places. I offered him $2500 and he turned it down, so I bought the '87 Sport.

Two years later I sold the Sport due to rust, and I went back to look at this Cougar, which had now been sitting four years. The body is starting to fall apart, the exhaust is sitting on the ground, and the tires are all flat. He remembers me and offered it for the $2500 I offered him two years ago. I said "Not likely, I'll give you $1500". He refused, and I bought the '88 that I have now after searching a year (making it five years that Cougar had sat).

I've now had the '88 for two years and a month, so the Cougar has been sitting for seven years. Outside. In the rain, snow, salt, sun, and whatever else nature could throw at it. And it's sitting almost directly under a power plant smokestack, so the paint is royally boned on all horizontal surfaces (it looked good five years ago). The bodywork he had done previously is all coming apart, the exhaust has vapourized. The interior is screwed (seats cracked, dash cracked, everything faded). The floor is rotten. The brakes would all be no good from sitting. Every single gasket on the car would be dry rotted, as with the tires. In short, virtually every part on this relatively rare, low mileage (117,000 km) anniversary Cat is no good. I would not give him $500 for it now because the thing would have to be rebuilt from the ground up and it has no real useful parts (nothing that would be an upgrade over my current stock '88 hardware, anyway). The idiot has completely destroyed that poor car out of sheer ignorance.

Re: Went to look at an 88 TC today.

Reply #3 – April 29, 2005, 10:36:20 PM

Yea i hear that,my 87 TC would have gone that way in 3or4 years had the guy not decided to sell it when he did,thank god i now own it and have restored it to better than it's former glory.
When i went to look at my TC the guy had let it sit for a year and the paint had faded a bit and the py tint was all bubled (but at least it saved the interior,unfaded,woohoo)After checking the car thoroughly in all the common rust spots,i was happy to say it was mint and low mileage 71km.
This was one guy that actually sold a car for under what it would have normally sold for and did not know what he had,(love those type of people),not like the rest of the idiots that want an arm and a leg for a rotted out car that they think is in good condition for a 16-18 year old car.