I love being the 5th Owner of My Car

[zghorner]

Dropped the column today to trouble shoot a possible bad ignition switch and ended up like this when I quit. Its an '87 buick grand national and I am the 4th, 5th, maybe even 6th owner. Never seen more half a$$ed garbage in my life.

anyone else buy their "dream car" or similar and it end up being a nightmare?

 

[dennishoddy]

The important thing is, did you find the problem? That is certainly a mess.

 

[DeerAssassin]

Wasn't exactly my dream car but I owned a 1986 Camaro Berlinetta. Everything, including the instrument cluster was electronic. In 1986. Nothing worked, except the tachometer. Had to reach under the dash and put a fuse in to turn the windshield wipers on. Had no way to turn them off or adjust the speed. Combine all that with the lethargic 2.8L V6 and you have probably my worst car ever. At least it looked cool.

 

[zghorner]

I replaced the ign switch and its functioning as it should but I have a bad feeling that isnt the cause of my problem. We'll see tomorrow after I get it buttoned up and can drive it. Either way I am correcting a bunch of wire clutter thats been needing to be done.

 

[zghorner]

Wow DA you just made me feel better about this car.

 

[DeerAssassin]

Wow DA you just made me feel better about this car.

Glad I could help. That car was a wiring mess too, and a previous owner had tried fixing it at some point. I even had to run new speaker wires just to get the speakers to work with an aftermarket radio.

 

[djcorrell]

Grand Nationals are great cars. But most I have ever came across were similar. For some reason, most of the owners of these drove them to death and never knew how to repair anything properly. A real shame. Great Cars!

 

[zghorner]

I paid 10,000 for this car 4 years ago and have put an additional $12,000 (and counting) in it since...correcting the errors of previous owners. Problem was I didnt know then what I do now.

 

[Okey-Dokey]

Ummm, it is a Buick. Probably looked like that straight from the factory.

 

[zghorner]

Whatever man buick kicks a$$ with class