Odd T-bird coincedence, perhaps?

There is a 95 T-bird (4.6L, 86K miles) that I'm interested in buying. Someone I know was telling me of an odd coincedence they had noticed a couple of times with T-birds around that model year. It seemed that when heater core went bad, not long after the transmissions started acting up. Not shifting to all the gears and such. Now the one I'm thinking of buying has a bad heater core already. Do thunderbird trannies have a documented history of poor reliability?

TIA!!!

^JR^

Reply to
^JR^
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Things break/wear out/rust on 10 year old cars.

Reply to
T.

Bought mine new in 95. Trans was overhauled under extended warranty about

50K but have not had any heater core problems. The biggest problem has been the front brake rotors are not heavy enough for the weight of this car. Takes very little for them to warp requiring them to be turned frequently to keep the shake out. I've had to replace front rotors twice in 100K. Check the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website at
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tosee consumer reported defects / problems on all makes and models. It's agreat resource for finding problems before you buy. Hope this helps.
Reply to
BudRob600

You can avoid a lot of brake rotor problems by taking your own torque wrench with you any time the wheels have to be removed and tightening the lugs to the correct spec before the car hits the ground. Air wrenches do not correctly tighten them even with the torque sticks that the tire jockeys rely on. The quality of the torque wrench in this case is not nearly as important as getting them torqued evenly. You can use a $15 torque wrench from Harbor Freight for this purpose. Your opportunity to do this ends the first stop that heats the rotors to normal temps.

Lugnut

Reply to
lugnut

"BudRob600" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@localhost.talkaboutautos.com:

Make SURE your wheels are mounted in the right rotation.

The earlier wheels that look a little like fan blades are esp contributors to rotor heat accumulation if they are mounted backwards.

Reply to
Backyard Mechanic

Don't know about the trans but can tell you this: I had a 96 that my daughter now has and the intake manifold went on it spewing coolant all over the place. Manifold was made of plastic and it gave out this year. Called Ford and it had been on recall but I was never notified and recall expired after 7 years. I fixed it myself for about $300 part. I bet your's is plastic too.

Reply to
ankhe105

I bet

No , the 95LX 4.6 was last year for the metal intake. The plastic version required a rework of the hood and added 20 foot pounds of torque. Steve

Reply to
Steve Stone

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