Well, I've had the car now for a while, but I figure I'll start the thread and start from the beginning, since I have recently done a bunch of stuff, and am in the process of doing a bunch more stuff.
Bought this Sable in November of 2009 after my 2000 Taurus was totaled. It had just a hair over 75,000 miles on it when I bought it for $4400 from a local used-car lot. Near as I could tell, it was previously owned by an older couple, one of whom was retired Air Force. Seemed to have been taken pretty good care of, but had a few problem spots, including poorly-done tinting (bubbles, and one really BAD line up the back window). At some point, the previous owners had had a towing hitch professionally installed in the back. Since the car had been originally purchased in.. North or South Dakota, I think, don't remember which.. I would imagine they used it to tow a trailer behind them during their move, but who knows.
It came with Leather, power pedals, power driver seats, Climate Control, and Mach (one of the main reasons I bought this car), and for the most part, I just drove it as a regular daily driver for a few years, never really giving much thought to upgrades, modifications, or maintenance, beyond the typical normal stuff like oil, tires, coolant, brakes.. I guess it was enough, because the car, for the most part, has been a steady driver the whole time, nearly 100,000 miles later.
A couple years ago, a car in front of me kicked up a chunk of truck tire which ended up going through my front fascia and did a number on my A/C (destroyed the condensor and quite a few other parts in cascade). I got it fixed, but it never really ran as cold as it had before the mishap.
Pretty much the same day, I noticed that the windows were not working either. Eventually replaced the fuse, and it worked again.. for about a week. For months after that, I chased the issue, replacing at least a dozen fuses. Sometimes, it would work for 2 weeks, sometimes not even a day. Eventually, I got sick of going through fuses and I just lived with it. For 2 years.
Then, about 6 months after the windows stopped working, my CD-changer broke. Would no longer eject the CD cartridge, would only say "No CD" etc.. I could not get it to eject. As things were going, I was beginning to just get tired of chasing gremlins, so I just stuck with radio, and eventually picked up an FM modulator that I hooked up to my phone. This got me by.
Recently, maybe 5 or 6 months ago, I started noticing that if the car sat for a while - maybe a day - without getting used, or if it was colder than about 50 degrees overnight, when I pulled the car out, after shifting in to first gear, the car would go fine for about 5 seconds, then slip out of gear for a second, followed by a hard shift back into first - usually with a bang. It only happened once in a while, and only the one time in the day.. then it drove fine for days. I learned to just mitigate it by being very attentive and starting out very slowly in the morning.
.. but it got old, and I started wondering if it was going to get worse. It also got be back on the notion of chasing gremlins, and since I now have my new Altima, I can afford to leave the car in a partially-disassembled state.
One night I took it upon myself to pull the CD changer and take it apart. Sure enough, it was JAMMED - HARD. I was able to take the CD out, but it was gouged very deep. The mechanism was ruined too.. so I went to the JY the next day and was lucky enough to find an 04 Taurus with the changer. It also gave up its driver door window controls so I could test my power windows.
The 6-CD changer did the trick - awesome! I THOUGHT the window controls fixed my problem, but about a week later, while I was cleaning my interior, I noticed it had gone out again. This lead me to look at the dome light, since it always went out the same time my windows did. A set of LED Festoon lights from Amazon, and I'm back up and running. Wouldn't you know it, the incandescent bulb was pulling too much power and blowing the fuse!
Anyways, I was back on the tranny issue, and that brought me here. Go figure - you guys gave me the bug, big time, and now I'm looking at fixing, cleaning, and upgrading things I would never have looked at before.
.. alright, all that said, here's where I am with my car. It now has just under 174,000 miles on it, I still drive it
Done so far:
Fixed CD changer
Fixed power windows
Replaced dome light with LED
Cleaned up my headlamps - Gotta love emery paper and toothpaste
New windshield
Vacuumed, cleaned, and shined up my interior
Fresh wash and wax
Patched broken windshield washer hose
Replaced cabin air filter - man the old one was SCREWED UP
Fine-tuned my A/C charge - works much better now
Here's what's coming soon:
Oil and filter change
Trans pan drop/filter/flush - Don't think it's been done since I bought it.
Coolant flush
Trans vent fix
Clean the engine bay
Replace more lights with LEDs
Add additional LED lighting to the trunk
Sax mod for my intake
On my list for 2014 (hopefully)
LED footwell lighting
Replace gauge cluster lights with LEDs
Centennial headlight mod
Fix all the body imperfections - scratches, scuffs, scars
Spoiler?
Bought this Sable in November of 2009 after my 2000 Taurus was totaled. It had just a hair over 75,000 miles on it when I bought it for $4400 from a local used-car lot. Near as I could tell, it was previously owned by an older couple, one of whom was retired Air Force. Seemed to have been taken pretty good care of, but had a few problem spots, including poorly-done tinting (bubbles, and one really BAD line up the back window). At some point, the previous owners had had a towing hitch professionally installed in the back. Since the car had been originally purchased in.. North or South Dakota, I think, don't remember which.. I would imagine they used it to tow a trailer behind them during their move, but who knows.
It came with Leather, power pedals, power driver seats, Climate Control, and Mach (one of the main reasons I bought this car), and for the most part, I just drove it as a regular daily driver for a few years, never really giving much thought to upgrades, modifications, or maintenance, beyond the typical normal stuff like oil, tires, coolant, brakes.. I guess it was enough, because the car, for the most part, has been a steady driver the whole time, nearly 100,000 miles later.
A couple years ago, a car in front of me kicked up a chunk of truck tire which ended up going through my front fascia and did a number on my A/C (destroyed the condensor and quite a few other parts in cascade). I got it fixed, but it never really ran as cold as it had before the mishap.
Pretty much the same day, I noticed that the windows were not working either. Eventually replaced the fuse, and it worked again.. for about a week. For months after that, I chased the issue, replacing at least a dozen fuses. Sometimes, it would work for 2 weeks, sometimes not even a day. Eventually, I got sick of going through fuses and I just lived with it. For 2 years.
Then, about 6 months after the windows stopped working, my CD-changer broke. Would no longer eject the CD cartridge, would only say "No CD" etc.. I could not get it to eject. As things were going, I was beginning to just get tired of chasing gremlins, so I just stuck with radio, and eventually picked up an FM modulator that I hooked up to my phone. This got me by.
Recently, maybe 5 or 6 months ago, I started noticing that if the car sat for a while - maybe a day - without getting used, or if it was colder than about 50 degrees overnight, when I pulled the car out, after shifting in to first gear, the car would go fine for about 5 seconds, then slip out of gear for a second, followed by a hard shift back into first - usually with a bang. It only happened once in a while, and only the one time in the day.. then it drove fine for days. I learned to just mitigate it by being very attentive and starting out very slowly in the morning.
.. but it got old, and I started wondering if it was going to get worse. It also got be back on the notion of chasing gremlins, and since I now have my new Altima, I can afford to leave the car in a partially-disassembled state.
One night I took it upon myself to pull the CD changer and take it apart. Sure enough, it was JAMMED - HARD. I was able to take the CD out, but it was gouged very deep. The mechanism was ruined too.. so I went to the JY the next day and was lucky enough to find an 04 Taurus with the changer. It also gave up its driver door window controls so I could test my power windows.
The 6-CD changer did the trick - awesome! I THOUGHT the window controls fixed my problem, but about a week later, while I was cleaning my interior, I noticed it had gone out again. This lead me to look at the dome light, since it always went out the same time my windows did. A set of LED Festoon lights from Amazon, and I'm back up and running. Wouldn't you know it, the incandescent bulb was pulling too much power and blowing the fuse!
Anyways, I was back on the tranny issue, and that brought me here. Go figure - you guys gave me the bug, big time, and now I'm looking at fixing, cleaning, and upgrading things I would never have looked at before.
.. alright, all that said, here's where I am with my car. It now has just under 174,000 miles on it, I still drive it
Done so far:
Fixed CD changer
Fixed power windows
Replaced dome light with LED
Cleaned up my headlamps - Gotta love emery paper and toothpaste
New windshield
Vacuumed, cleaned, and shined up my interior
Fresh wash and wax
Patched broken windshield washer hose
Replaced cabin air filter - man the old one was SCREWED UP
Fine-tuned my A/C charge - works much better now
Here's what's coming soon:
Oil and filter change
Trans pan drop/filter/flush - Don't think it's been done since I bought it.
Coolant flush
Trans vent fix
Clean the engine bay
Replace more lights with LEDs
Add additional LED lighting to the trunk
Sax mod for my intake
On my list for 2014 (hopefully)
LED footwell lighting
Replace gauge cluster lights with LEDs
Centennial headlight mod
Fix all the body imperfections - scratches, scuffs, scars
Spoiler?