2002 Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS at 240K (Take Two) - How Did it Make it This Far?

The other morning, I got to thinking about how I've been able to put almost two-hundred forty-thousand miles on my 2002 Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS. Obviously, I have to be doing something right. Right? 

There's the cliche about "changing the oil regularly" which of course I do. And I do myself. I don't do it to save money - that's all but a wash these days. I do it to make sure it's done correctly and thoroughly. Seriously, you think those five-minute oil change places are really letting all the old oil drain out before they put the new stuff in? You sure they changed the filter too? I've always felt they spend more time up-selling you on stuff than actually doing anything. Speaking of which, are you sure they actually did any of the work they claim to have done? 

There's bunk too about changing your oil every three-thousand miles too. I think that's excessive and expensive. Unless you're an Uber driver or whatever and most of your traipses are local or are "city-driving". Most of my driving is interstate and I rarely if ever change my oil with anything less than six-thousand and most often seven-thousand miles between changes. Hey, just saying. Remember, I'm the guy with (almost) 240K on his twenty-year old car and it runs as smooth as the day I first got it back in 2010. 

I've stayed on top of things that needed repairing as well. And the one or two times that major repairs needed to be done that I opted not to do myself, looking at you upper and lower intake manifold gaskets, my wife and I weighed the pros and cons of footing the bill for the repair or fixing a one-thousand-dollar problem with a twenty-five-thousand-dollar or more solution. 

I also, despite its age and mileage, still love this car. And, no, it's not because it's a "Dale Earnhardt" either. I could care less about NASCAR and have very little knowledge of the man my car is decorated after; may he rest in peace. I love my car, in lieu of all that. I do, honestly, still get a kick out of all the attention it continues to get. 

All that said, and this has not been a Japanese built bastion of automobile reliability, the single most important thing about vehicle longevity is...(dramatic pause), the way you drive it.  

Again, most of the miles on my car have been highway miles and not the grinding, stop-and-go of city driving. At seventy, seventy-five miles per hour, my engine, GM's wonderful 3800 Series II V-6 (not supercharged), is loafing along around twenty-one or twenty-two hundred rpm's. Shoot, darn thing is hardly breaking a sweat. Stress kills but it's not going to kill "The Dale". Rust might, but stress? No way. 

Around town I never jack-rabbit away from stops either; I've never "floored it" (the gas) as well. What's the point of that anyway? Sure, "The Dale" may look fast but trust me, while the power is adequate, it's far from generous. 

Furthermore, I never slam the doors or trunk lid although I can't say my family does the same. A gentle, fatherly admonishment follows anytime one of them slams a door, the trunk lid or even the hood. What did my car ever do to them anyway that would make them slam it as hard as they sometimes do? Slam a door on my hand but don't slam a door, hood or trunk on my car. 

Luck also plays a role in this too. Knocking on injection molded plastic, I've never had an accident that took the good old boy out of commission permanently. An occasional minor fender bender every now and then but nothing serious. That and catastrophic, random mechanical failure as well for certain I'm not the only person who changes their own oil and drives like a ninety-nine-year-old. Shit, as they say, happens.

Who knows how far "The Dale" will go. I have no intention of getting rid of it in the near future and would even consider an engine rebuild or swap if need be. The check engine light is on and it's due, last I deduced, to a faulty catalytic converter I can have swapped that out at a muffler shop in Cleveland for around $250. If it's more than that I can always drive through the ridiculous Ohio loophole that allows us owners of older, high-mileage cars to get a waiver if we've spent $300 or more trying to fix our emissions systems so our cars pass the bi-annual echeck. 

Seems like a pretty good investment to me, don't you? 

1983 Mercedes Benz 300 CD - You Got What You Paid For

As we say in the deep throes of the never-ending Pandemic, another day and another Facebook Marketplace find. Today I came across this 1983 Mercedes Benz 300CD for sale not far from our  triple-wide here on Cleveland, Ohio's far west side. Asking price is $8,000. As they say up here on the shores of erielhonan, "geezle peet". 

Here's the thing - based on its overall condition, you have to look past these amusingly bad pictures, and looking at NADA pricing guidelines, the asking price is on point. Would someone actually pay that much for a wheezy old oil burner that's mind-numbing slow, is incredibly expensive to fix and gets only so-so mileage? I. Guess. So? But that person sure as heck is not going to be me. Holy (literal) smokes. 

These days it seems that being wealthy is a commodity, well, let's be clear, appearing to be wealthy is as it's always been but whomever drove this when it was new had to "have it" since at more than $35,000 out-the-door, if they didn't "have it", their kids would go hungry. They'd go hungry too. And for what? To impress whomever? 

Today's soliloquy, however, isn't about being fiscally responsible or not but about this car that despite it being diesel powered, is still quite beguiling if not intriguing. I don't think there's an actual dollar amount that would have me go look at it in person although I'm curious as to the back story about it. Cars that sit in garages for a while do, unfortunately, tend to turn into make shift shelving. Happens to the best of us. Oh, and what's with the baby?  

Our '83 here was built on the now legendary Mercedes-Benz W123 platform. The W123, pronounced double-you, one, two, three, was not revolutionary, but “rather a thoroughly mature mid-range car combining the latest engineering with tried and tested design features”. That sober summary by M-B reflects the lasting legacy of the W123 – a solidly built automobile with timeless poise and class. You didn't get a better built car in 1983; you got what you paid for. 

Introduced in 1976, the W123 platform included a four-door sedan and our sleek coupe; C in the 300CD denoting "coupe", the "D" of course denoting "Diesel". The W123 offered a longer wheelbase than the platform it replaced, the W114 and W115 also known as the "Stroke Eight's", a wider track, and a larger body. The coupes lacked a "B-pillar" or center-post thus giving the cars their decidedly sporting Aire. Apparently the term "Stroke Eight" harkens back to 1968, the year they were introduced. Still working on what "stroke" refers to. Anyone? 

Dr. Diesel's lump first appeared when the wagon version of the W123 was introduced for model-year 1978. Displacing a healthy 3.0-liter's, the five-cylinder engine developed seventy-nine brake-horsepower and one-hundred twenty-five foot-pounds of torque. It was made available on the 300C the following year and through the end of the model's run in 1985. 

With the four-speed automatic transmission, when new, our CD here did zero-to-sixty in twenty-one seconds. That's not just slow, freundinnen, that's slower than most documented SAE minimums of acceleration speed I've ever seen. Oh, but it gets twenty-three miles per gallon and can run forever. LS swap anyone? 

In theory, at least, you could fathom that this car would pay for itself or amortize equally given that it got that much better mileage than other expensive cars in its day. Well, that may have been true to some degree back in 1978 but even by 1983, General Motors and Ford, for example, were able to give their buyers similar mileage in their luxury wares. And at quite the cost savings up front too. Then again, you got what you paid for. 

 

2002 Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet Monte Carlo at 240K - Better The Devil You Know

The dashboard on my 2002 Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet Monte Carlo glowed like a Christmas Tree last Wednesday when along with the omni-present CHECK ENGINE LIGHT, the "ABS" and "SERVICE TRACTION NOW" dingers came on. Merry Christmas to you too, Dale.

To make matters worse, my gas gauge was stuck on full despite more than two-hundred fifty-miles driven since last I filled up. It's since "fixed" itself but we know these things only get worse. Along with my soggy rear struts, creeping rust issues and staring down the barrel of two-hundred and forty-thousand miles on the digital ticker, it got me thinking about how long I can keep this twenty-year old good old boy rolling. 

Like someone who won't change their fashion sense or hairstyle, I did a quick search on Facebook Marketplace for, you guessed it, Chevrolet Monte Carlo's. I found several in varying degrees of distress within 500 miles of my home on Cleveland, Ohio's west side but this one outside Dayton was the most compelling. General Motors hasn't built my vintage of Monte Carlo since 2005 and none since 2007 so ones in decent shape or are fixable at least are getting harder and harder to find. Us beggars or those looking for a solid bargain can't be too choosy. 

It was far from perfect but with just  under  one-hundred and twenty-eight thousand miles on it I could do worse. Especially for $3,100. The seller said the only major issue it had was that it needed an oil pan gasket. No big deal given that I'd done the one of my car myself at the start of The Pandemic thus side-stepping an absurd repair tab; it was at least $800. It's not a complicated job but because the passenger side engine mount is in the way of getting the pan out, it's a fairly labor-intensive one. Messy too. 

 

I don't mind so much that it wasn't a "Dale" but I chaffed somewhat at no sunroof, no heated seats, the lack of a cassette deck and no power passenger seat. I could swap everything over from my car, save for the sunroof of course. Still, it was an SS with the F41 suspension and 3800 Series II V-6; despite the oil pan issues, I believe it to be one of the best engines GM has ever built. Right up there the lordly Chevrolet small-block.

The very responsive owner of the car and I messaged back and forth several times late last week and we left it that I'd be in contact with them after Christmas. If it wasn't so far away I probably would have made the trip but a four-hour if not four and half hour drive to kick the tires of a car I was luke warm about from the start didn't seem to me to be the best way to spend my time. 

My wife also had a pearls of wisdom. Yes, my "Dale" has a significant amount of mileage on it but I've put all but fourteen-thousand of the near two-hundred forty-thousand miles on it over the last eleven going on twelve years. Who knows how the one-hundred twenty-eight thousand miles or so were put on this car. On older cars, seriously, it's not so much how many miles are on them, it's more like, "how were the miles put on?"

"Better the devil you know", she said. And I couldn't agree more. I'll swap the wheel bearings if and when the ABS system becomes a recurring issue on the Dale. Same with the gas gauge relay. Rear struts too. 

Better the devil or Intimidator you know. 

 

1982 Toyota Celica Supra - Sideways

You may have heard of Toyota Supra's since Toyota's been selling (a bizarre looking) one built in partnership with BMW since 2019. However, seeing Toyota hasn't made a Celica since 2006, stumbling across a Celica Supra is even more of a what-is-that? I can't tell you the last time I saw one of these in the wild. This is a 1982 Toyota Celica Supra I found in the parking garage of the increasingly snooty and lock-jawed open-air mall near our home here on Cleveland, Ohio's westside. I wish I had taken more pictures of it. 

Yes, Celica Supra. From 1978 through 1986, the Supra was to the Celica, technically Toyota's "pony-car", what the Z28 and Trans Am were to the Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird. Well, that's a bit of a stretch seeing how different a Celica Supra was from a garden-variety Celica but I hope you get the point. A Z28 and Trans Am were "all" Camaro and Firebird whereas Toyota grafted on as much as eight-inches onto the front of a Celica so they could put their six-cylinder engine in. There were other changes as well but the bigger schnozz was the largest and most obvious alteration. 

Hard to fathom it took Toyota almost an entire decade to come up with an answer to Datsun's seminal if not world-changing Z-car. But it did. Datsun, now known as Nissan, introduced the 240Z in 1969, Toyota didn't roll out the first Celica Supra until 1978 and they started importing them to the U.S. in 1979. Although it was more of a luxury grand-tourer than sports car, taste-makers and fashionistas couldn't get enough of them despite their huge front ends (that somehow looked good) no to mention their lordly $10,000+ sticker prices. The Datsun Z-car's performance by the end of the '70's had been softened as well and luxury accouterments and gizmos turned it into sort of a Japanese Chevrolet Monte Carlo. But two-magnificently crafted, sporty Japanese cars to choose from? Yes, please. 

Toyota got serious about making the Supra a real sports car, or more of a one, come 1982. Aggressive styling, a larger, now double-overhead-cam inline-six cylinder engine, independent rear suspension, four-wheel disc brakes, magnificent seats and a five-speed manual in an age of four-speeds made for an out-of-this-world, "affordable" grand-touring car that was more bargain basement Porsche than Camaro or Firebird.  

It was so good it was named Motor Trend's Import Car of the Year for 1982 and made Car and Driver's Best10 list. Heady stuff. 

If there was any issue it was they were expensive; a performance-spec Supra for '82 went out the door for nearly $16,000 when tax and other ancillary charges were tacked on. You could get a loaded Camaro Z28, which was all new for '82 as well, for around $11,000 out the door. But you got what you paid for. 

Frankly, our '82 Supra here was vastly superior to the half-baked '82 Camaro Z28 and Trans Am; a last year for the third-generation or "C3" 1982 Corvette that stickered for around $23,000 at the time as well. So, to the enlightened, well-heeled buyer, the Supra was a terrific if not brilliant buy. It was a much better daily driver than a fourth-generation or C4 Corvette too. 

Toyota ended production for these second-generation Supra's, officially, for 1985, but a surplus of models and a delay in production of the third generation of "Supra's" meant there were two Supra's for 1986. The "old" Supra, still marketed as the Celica Supra and a new model known simply as Supra that shared little if anything with an also new-for-1986, front wheel drive Celica. If that sounds confusing, you're right. Then again, Toyota did so much right back in the 1980's that they could get away with making a marketing faux pas or two. 

Owners of Jaguars, Aston Martin's and BMW's have a nasty habit of parking their toys diagonally taking up two or more spaces at a time in this garage and it irritates me. Especially this time of the year. However, if any car in this garage deserves to be parked sideways at any time without getting a stink eye from yours truly it's this old beauty. 

. 

1972 Chevrolet Chevelle - Imagine

 

Only in hindsight do we realize the futility of a situation. I probably had a better shot at dating a member of my high school cheerleader squad than I had with a 1972 Chevelle I found for sale one fall day back in 1982 on my way home from Nassau Community College. This one's quite similar to it except for the aftermarket rims (I don't care for), a chromed-out engine and who knows what else it wasn't born with. 

She sat at that corner of the parking lot at what is now a real estate office at the intersection of Long Beach Road and Seaman Avenue in Rockville Centre back on Long Island with "FOR SALE 1200" painted on her windshield. I was fish hooked and had to have a closer look. Forty-years ago, $1,200 was not an insignificant amount of money but for a car even back then that had the rock star allure of Mick Jagger, it was the deal of a lifetime. Can you even imagine finding a rust-free, all-original '72 Chevelle these days for what amounts to $1,200 today? That would be approximately, give or take, $3,500. Non-running junkers are going for north of ten-grand. Way north. 

I turned my squeaky, rusty Comet right around and was amazed, stunned actually, when the guy behind the counter didn't flinch when I asked for the keys. He either didn't care or he bought into the notion that someone with the map of Ireland on his face and the outward disposition of an altar boy meant that no bad could happen. Seeing how hard I got on the thing something bad certainly could have happened, but nothing did. Unless you count my not ending up with the car as a bad thing as I most certainly do.

 

The problem was that at even less than fifty-bucks a credit at NCC back then, working up to three minimum wage jobs meant I had little money for anything let alone another car. About the only capital I had was wrapped up in my wretched, 1974 Mercury Comet. To get cash I'd have to sell the Comet. Then how would I get to school? 

The only option was to ask my mother for a loan. I still see the smoke from her Raleigh cigarette, plain, no filter, puffing out of her nose and mouth in a syncopated rhythm as she slam-dunked me; "You already have a car. Why do you need another one?"

On the face of it I couldn't argue with her less than sanguine logic. She wasn't a car person although I know she was aware of my displeasure with the Comet. Didn't matter.  "No" meant "no" no matter how much I pleaded my case that I would sell the Comet, give her the money I got for it and pay the balance back in installments. No. The Comet wasn't worth anywhere near the lordly amount of $1,200. 

Perhaps it's just as well I didn't get that Chevelle; I'd probably just have driven it into the ground like I do all of my "drivers". It's sweet to think about how much I would have loved that car to say nothing of how much it would have improved my "cool" quotient. Although it was just a base model, "307" car. That warm, pride of ownership feeling coming with the purchase of my beloved 1975 Chrysler Cordoba the following summer; just goes to show you how desperate I was. However, that Cordoba was more symbolic than actually a good car as it introduced me to a world I wasn't aware could exist before it. A world were anything was possible if you worked hard enough. I don't wax nostalgically if poetically for my long lost Cordoba per se, I remember fondly the feelings I had before it when nothing seemed possible. Imagine if I had a Chevelle. 

1985 Dodge Daytona - Roadkill

Please don't ask, but feel free to wonder, why this Dodge Daytona, that based on the five-lug "snow-flake rims" and lack of a CHMSL I believe is a 1985, is sitting semi-enclosed on the property where I currently work. I could find out but that would involve talking with the owner; if I struck up that conversation, I know I'd get a rambling, wholly uninteresting earful. However, that's not to say this isn't an interesting car. And interesting in ways that went completely unappreciated by yours truly back-in-the-day when it was shiny and new. Or at least at some shine to it.

How we forget. The notion of a high-performance, front-wheel-drive anything let alone something styled in the vein of a sporty-car was unheard of in the mid-1980's. Hence, the Dodge Daytona TurboZ, with 142-horsepower on tap from a 2.2-liter, port-fuel injection, inline-four-cylinder engine with a turbocharger ramming 7-psi of boost down its tiny throttle body was known as the world's first front-wheel-drive "muscle car". I laughed at anything "turbo" back then but zipping from zero-to-sixty in 8-seconds or so was nothing to sneeze. GM and Ford weren't doing much better with their big, V-8 powered Camaro and Mustang. Corvette too while I'm at it. That quickly changed but for a minute or two, the Daytona TurboZ was gagging GM and Ford with a spoon.  

Granted, a lot of the performance spec-worthy power-to-weight ratio was due to the car weighing at most, 2,500 pounds, but that's like not giving a motorcycle snaps for being fast because it's so light. The lack of badging on this thign here leads me to believe it's the less powerful, non-turbo base model Daytona but who knows for sure. All I do know is it's been branded as, "Roadkill". Well, if the brake-shoe fits.  

At the time I was oblivious to these cars; they were a punch line to a cliched, late-night joke. He-man over here believed all muscle cars should be rear-wheel-drive and powered by large, heavy and carburated V-8 engines. With dual exhausts too. With numb-handling and molar cracking rides. Meanwhile, over at Lee Iacocca's house, these things could keep up with anything "muscle" from GM and got twenty-five miles-per-gallon (or so). They had front-wheel-drive so you could drive them all year round if you lived in a snow-city too. Sigh. I wince at all the fun I could have had. The hell was the matter with me. 

Well, before I completely eviscerate myself, I have to remind myself that these are still K-cars at the end of the day. Yeah, yeah. They labeled them "G-body", but they weren't kidding nobody. Take off the comely sheet metal, cladding and enclosed headlights and you got a Reliant K here. Who's up for a viewing of "Planes, Trains and Automobiles"? 

Right, wrong, or indifferent, the aura if not ethos of the K-car meant it was cheap and "krappy". As if any Camaro or Mustang was really that much different or better.  

1994 Pontiac Trans Sport - Wanderlust

I found this old "Dustbuster" on Facebook Marketplace recently with an asking price of $14,500. That's a lot of money for a vehicle that got its nickname from the seminal, wall-mounted Black and Decker appliance to say nothing of its shoddy build quality, wonky ergonomics, being grossly underpowered (especially at first) and having abysmal NHTSA crash-test ratings. Chevrolet and Oldsmobile had similar looking vans of their own, but the Pontiac Trans Sport was always my favorite; although I liked the longer shnozzed 1990-1993's better than these 1994-1996 models with their truncated front ends. This got me thinking, what with but a smattering of minivans only available today, what happened to a vehicle segment that was once so dominant? 

Is the minivan as we once knew it actually dead (or dying) or has it just evolved into today's amorphous, wholly less practical four-wheeled-blobs known as crossovers? There's but a smattering of minivans left on the market these days, neighbors with a gaggle of young boys just bought a Chrysler Pacifica and they love it, but really, save for the lack of sliding doors on either side, is there much of a difference between a Chevrolet Traverse and the neighbor's new Pacifica? While we're at it, is there much of a difference between a Traverse and our inexplicably free of spilled juice-box stains Trans Sport here? 

All but from the get-go, minivans were tagged with the dreaded "mom-mobile" adage that also dogged station wagons, the vehicle segment that minivans did in. Just like station wagons, though, that adage didn't stop families from buying them. However, minivans evoked deep-seated wanderlust. A feeling youth had past buyers by, and life was no longer an adventure but a series of chores, tasks and responsibilities.  Smile for that family Christmas card everybody even though you're miserable and bored to death inside. Therefore, you can't blame Pontiac for at least trying to put a little zing in the Monday night meatloaf recipe.

The notion at first was, having been there and done that, absurd, especially considering all the other issues the Trans Sport had. However, it didn't take a rocket scientist, automobile engineer, marketing wonk or product planner to realize that merging the decidedly non "mom-mobile" ethos of trucks with the practicality of mini-vans with some degree of sporting elan might be a marketable vehicle. Problem was, in the mid-1990's, making such a vehicle was all but. abstract. 

That same notion in the 1990's gave rise to the popularity of SUV's as non-mom-mobiles. Especially as The Big figured out how to smooth out enough of their truck's quirks to make them suitable for family-duty. Also, there was something alluring about a vehicle segment whose acronym started with the word, "sport". Granted, there wasn't much of anything "sporty" about an SUV, but they seemed imminently "sportier" than a minivan. Even one with the word "sport" in it like our Trans Sport here. 

Still, it took General Motors forever to figure out the whole CUV thing. While their truck-based SUV's kept getting better and better and they did make marked improvements to their "U-body" vans starting in 1997 (sliding doors on both sides!), they really didn't sort out the cross-over thing until the debut of GMC Acadia in 2007 and Chevrolet Traverse and Buick Enclave in 2008. All of which were, c'mon now, nothing more than a minivan with no sliders. Saturn even got one they called, "Outlook". Pop-quiz, did Saturn ever get a minivan?  Ding-ding-ding! Yes, they did, Sparky. Something they called "Relay" from 2005-2007. 

Subsequently, the last U-body GM minivan rolled out of production in 2009. Ford, incidentally, who came with their world beating Mazda-developed "Escape" in 2001, threw in their minivan towel in 2007. Chrysler, seeing a hole in the market, has continued to push minivans out. God bless 'em too. You have to see the rolling man-cave on wheels that is the neighbor's Chrysler Pacifica. I wouldn't be caught dead with it in my driveway, but I wouldn't mind watching the Godfather trilogy on its massive rear infotainment screen on a road trip from Cleveland to D.C. Are we there yet? 

As far as the trend-setting Pontiac Trans Sport goes, when GM rebooted the U-bodies for 1997, they introduced an even more cladded up, outdoorsy thing they dubbed Trans Sport "Montana" that emulated SUV's. Well, to a point. Apparently, it was so popular that Pontiac rebranded all Pontiac minivans "Montana" starting in 1998. Mini-vans styled as pseudo sports-cars may have failed but as rugged "Jeep meets an SUV" type of thing? Bring it on. 

Trying to take the minivan combined with an SUV ethos one step further, in 2000, Pontiac introduced the legendary Aztec which, thank you "Breaking Bad", has aged somewhat better than anyone would have imagined. A good idea on paper, actually a great one when you think about it, its design was so unusual, though, it was dubbed, "The Angry Dumpster". Again, it took GM several years and tries to figure the whole "CUV" thing out. Buick even got a version of the minivan-based Pontiac Angry Dumpster they called the "Rendezvous".  These days, Buick doesn't even sell what was once considered a "car" as their entire lineup subsists of crossovers. 

The future. How did we get here from the 1990's? You can start with the ant-mom-mobile Pontiac Trans Sport. Oh, and, whatever you do, if you have a crossover, please never refer to it as a truck. If you do that, we can't be friends.