Well, I reckon the place to start is to say "hello" to everyone here. I'm the new owner of a 1993 Chevrolet Caprice Classic station wagon. Naturally, I am just tickled pink about this (= very happy, if not ecstatic).
I love station wagons of all kinds.
I've long wanted to find a GM B-body automobile, and I wasn't really all too picky about which one. Anything would be nice. Of course, I never seemed to have the money or the luck to find the right car. A co-worker of mine and her husband had a
1985 Pontiac Parisienne station wagon in "pretty darn good" condition, and I'd been eyeballing it for a while. And then the great misfortune that was Cash for Clunkers came along. Her husband turned their poor old wagon in.
I really did try to intervene, even going so far as to visit the dealership that collected it. They took me seriously enough to put a sticker on the keys, but I just couldn't beat what the evil C4C had to offer.
As stupid as it may sound, I could have cried.
If anything, this increased my resolve to find one, before they were all gone. I'd seen some potentially promising ones, even inquired about a few and still nothing really panned out. Until about two weeks ago, when I saw this sitting on a used car lot. Now I'd really been looking for an older, boxier model. None of those ever showed up at a price I was willing to pay.
From a distance, it looked immaculate. Looking closer revealed some rear quarter panel rot, much worse on the spare tire side than the other. I still took it for a test drive. I heard an exhaust leak, but everything else seemed to be in good working order. To my great surprise, when I popped the hood, I found a 350 (!!!!) V8..
This car was produced at GM's Willow Run assembly plant in early 1993. Later, a Chevrolet dealership did the R134a A/C conversion. Though it works and works well, they really should have changed out that filter/drier. It kind of makes one wonder what else they didn't do.
The A/C compressor idler bearing is making a noise, same as the R4 compressor in a GM pickup truck before it did. I will have to see what can be done to fix that before this compressor does what the one in the truck did.
I couldn't believe how clean the interior was. It looks better than the camera makes it look. As I later found out, this was a "little old lady" car. I'm the third owner. The "little old lady" (or maybe it was a guy...their name was one for any gender...) passed away and from what I could gather, their children sold the car to the dealer where I found it. I don't think anyone even so much as sat in the back seat.
Oh, I wanted to buy it badly...not just to have one at long, long last, but also to keep the heathens away from it who would thoughtlessly destroy yet another one of these wonderful cars.
What the heck. I went and did something rather, ah, "capricious".
Asking price was $3,000 plus tax/title/license. I didn't think it was worth that, so I went home and stewed about it for a day or two before calling the dealership and asking them if they'd take an offer. $1,500 they wouldn't do, but $1,700 they did, with my paying the tax/title/license fees. Call it $2,000. I asked them if they would hold the car, which they did until I could get there with the money. I don't know that I've ever been so anxious in my life, thinking that someone would come along and offer more than I had.
I had asked for the whole deal in writing, but the dealer said he wouldn't do that until there was actually a sale. (Yes, it was "that" kind of dealership. Thankfully they did do exactly what they had agreed to.)
It didn't help matters that I was just
waiting for the whole deal to go pear shaped. Yet it didn't, and on July 31st, 2012, I picked the wagon up from the dealer!
It's loaded with most all of the optional goodies...the only notable omissions being keyless entry, Twilight Sentinel automatic headlights and the fluid monitor. Other than those, we have power locks, power windows, power radio antenna, two power seats in the front, rear windshield wiper, cruise control, interval wipers and the basic AM/FM cassette stereo (of which more later). I later discovered an automatic dimming rearview mirror to be in place.
Changing gears (ha-ha) a little bit, perhaps some of you may know me from Youtube. Yes, I am "that"
uxwbill. So, naturally, I made a
video about test driving the car. (Edit: linked now)
There are definitely some things that need to be done. I should air the car out since it smells a bit stale/musty, look into some shocks, figure out how to repair the rear quarter panel rot, fix the radio, repair the one rear window that goes off of its track and patch up the exhaust system.
There are other things I'm curious about, like this badge near the instrument panel.
Other than that, it's a beast and I just love it. The total mileage is 82,113 and 9/10ths at this very instant. (The length has led to some hilarity. One of my brothers drove it and did not realize just how
long of a car it really is. Fortunately, he only came close to knocking over a plastic trash can.) I hope that I can keep it as nice as the previous owner did, if not better. It's going to be stored indoors during the winter and only come out on nice days.
As found, and without any real work done to it just yet, it floats down the highway very nicely. One can get to running 80-90MPH without a care in the world if not careful!
I did get a bit of a scare taking it home. You see, the stingy dealership did not put any gas in the car, and I knew it was running on fumes. As I drove to the gas station, the engine started to sputter badly and after a little of this, the Service Engine Soon light came on! I got that sinking feeling, like I was soon going to be pushing this thing down the highway. Instead, I looked at the instrument panel and said "don't you even think about it". On we went to the gas station. Filling it with gas solved all of that problem (and the SES light turned off).
I have more, and larger pictures if anyone wants to see them. I was going to post a link, but I see now that I have to wait.
I think I did alright. One thing is for sure...
nobody is going to take this car away from me! Thanks for reading all of this.
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Wed Aug 01, 2012 8:26 pm
After passing a whole line of trucks, I was coming up behind this little Prius that was just tooling along and I decided it was time to pass that as well. There's that Prius trying hard to save energy, and I'm piloting a road sofa alongside it, not really caring about fuel economy all that much. It's my belief that these two opposing types of vehicles probably cancelled one another out and nothing happened.
