Friday, March 30, 2012

Oh yes, what a great couple of days its been. Ive been so swamped working ive hardly had a chance to do much to the new pt besides drive it. Its nice cause I don't have to dry my hair in the morning! I have managed to paint the modesty cover and airbox. But its not done yet so I wont post a picture. Also ordered a k&n air filter and modified the airbox slightly. Maybe sometime next week I can finish it up.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

The Collection Grows

Okay, I think its safe to say I am officially addicted to PT Cruisers!

Today I aquired another PT Cruiser, a 2005 PT Cruiser Convertible.


Yep thats it right there! A beautiful blue. This PT is 100% Stock. It crazy to think its been exactly 1 year since I Purchased my first PT Cruiser "Petey". The decision to purchase this PT came from the fact that my fiancees car, a 1991 eagle summit, crapped out on us. It was easy to agree that our next car would be a PT Cruiser since I know so much about them.

My fiancee was then challenged with the task of finding a PT Cruiser that would fit our budget of $5000. Initially this proved difficult but one day driving down Capital BLVD in Raleigh, NC we spotted the PT that was soon to be ours. Sticker price was a little under 6k, which was ideally a fair price for a PT Base Vert that was in excellent condition.

We took it for a test drive and decided there was just too many questions about the car that were unanswered for the price asked for it. We took it back to the lot and spoke with the sales manager there. I managed to get the price down to $5600 including taxes (so roughly like 5k for the car). This was alright but with a timing belt change in the near future I still wasnt so sure on the car.

This place (L&M Auto on Capital BLVD. Raleigh) was absolutely amazing! When I got back in my car the body shop manager came out and spoke with me. He wanted to know what was the issue with the car. I told him every problem with it expecting him to just tell me that the cars are just "as is" and that it runs and drives, but he actually told me he would fix EVERY issue wrong with the car that I noticed. This floored me.

So after speaking with him over the phone (and while the building may not look like that of a lexus dealer, by talking with them on the phone it seemed more like speaking to a friend more than a Car place) they ended up replacing the timing belt, tensioner, water pump, 4 new tires, all new brakes, two new rotors... I could go on and on! It was apparent that they were set on making me extremely happy with the deal. There was no way I could pass up such an offer. I do not know if they would do this for everybody, but I can imagine not everybody would know whats not acting right about a car to request it to be fixed.

The worst part of all of this is actually buying the car and driving it away! While leaving the lot today in my new PT I felt like I wouldnt have a reason to talk with my new friends at L&M. I'm half tempted just to run into a tree so I can visit them again to repair the damage. Thats another thing, these guys do auto body repair too. I saw some of the things they were working on and these folks are top notch. They have a skilled team of workers (who have natural tans, im jealous!) and they complete work quickly and at a great price. The next time I need a car, or need paint or body work done I am going to visit these folks again!

So alas now I have a new car to work on. You can expect to be seeing plenty of posts about it on here soon. But until that time, I will just enjoy it and think of the great experience I had purchasing it.










Friday, February 17, 2012

Say It Ain't So Pickled Petey! Say It Ain't So!

Peteys age is starting to show! When he was purchased last march he had 92,222 miles on him. Now hes got over 108,000 miles! Since my last post Ive been busy switching jobs and making a major move to North Carolina. Now that all this is done I will be able to focus more on keeping my Petey nice and happy.

However with the age comes repairs and theyre starting to show their ugly expensive heads (fortunatly around tax return season!)

The first noticable issue was the fact that shifting into reverse has become a pain. The amazing folks at PTCL (link to the right) helped me narrow it down to the Bushings. These bushings are basically rubber grommets that keep some rod thingy in place. The bushings eventually wear out and need replaced. This is supposedly going to cause my shifting to improve significantly! So of course I ordered my booger bushings (from Ebay). But ive been too busy to install them, so shifting into reverse is still a PITA until Ive got the time to do it. If it doesnt fix the problem then ill look into more expensive repair options but having performance bushings will be nice either way, and theyll never need replaced!

Also ive ordered a whole lotta Lights to change up the outside of my cruisers look (Brought on by my drivers side low beam light burning out!). So ive ordered all LED lights for the back lights (reverse, brake, turn, and 3rd brake) and new headlights (same as installed before the GP Thunders) as well as chrome turn signal bulbs for the front. The one ive installed more recently is the tail lights. I found that the stock bulbs on my tail lights actually make them look pink instead of red at night time. So I got some red LED lights off ebay for a few bucks a peice. The result, Check it out!



After changing them I noticed that there was what appeared to be water in the lower brake lights, both of them in fact, right and left. Upon attempting to remove the water I realized to my horror that the stock bulbs MELTED the tail light so now theyve got a permanent appearance of rain in light! I have since contacted the person I ordered from and am awaiting a answer, hopefully replacements will be offered and theyll make a note of this defect on the page they sell them from.

Also today I was sitting idling in a parking lot when I heard a weird noise... Bubbling in fact! I looked and noticed Petey was headin in the RED! I quickly turned him off and ran under my hood and noticed that my coolant thermometer was reading into the red, after letting it sit and cool down I drove around and no overheating or bubbling noises (so I think luckily it was only boiling coolant vs exhaust bubbles!) Im assuming im suffering from the ever popular dead fan issue which seems to happen on alot of PTs. This issue will be repaired soon once the income tax check arrives!

Till then, Fingers Crossed!