Fiancé looking at buying a 94 v6…

[Prime Lord]

So she needs a new (to her) car. I want her to get something with a clutch and while she can drive stick, she prefers the voodoo chicken blood box. I kind of sold her on the Mustang idea because parts are readily available and she would have her own live in Mustang mechanic should something go wrong.

So…I found a 94 v6 with 130k on the clock. The interior is immaculate. Car runs good shifts fine. There is a slight "shimmy" to the idle. Not sure what that's about. Maybe just needs timing tweaked. I know it needs brakes and if I can get it for the price I want I'll replace everything but the hardlines and the booster.

Since I'm a 5.0 guy I do have a few questions. Sluggish steering. Just a bad PS pump? I know it also needs an alignment because it wanders ALL OVER the road and the wheel doesn't return to center for ****. Also, anything tell-tale to look for at around that mileage on the 3.8 w/ an AOD? It doesn't seem to be leaking anything and all the fluids are the right color.

Can the shift linkage be adjusted easily? Right now you have to pull the shifter about 1/4" past Drive to get it to engage.

They're asking $3k. I offered $1500. Should know in the next day or so if that will fly.

 

[MustangLX-5.0]

Sluggish steering? Is there play in it? Steering wanders and doesn't return to center. Was there enough fluid in the pump ? Did it have hard spots? like maybe air was in the lines. SN95's do have a tighter steering versus the Fox Stangs. If there's a lot of slop in it, could be bad inner/outer tie-rods. Shimy to the idle? Not timing. Can't be adjusted on these, not like the 5.0's can. These have coil packs and the computer does all the timing adjustments. The shimy could be any number of things such as a sensor to needing new plugs/wires / injector cleaning. The 94-98 V6s were prone to head gasket failure. The 94-95 model years were especially prone because they were the new un tweaked models right after the Fox ended. If the head gasket hasn't ever been replaced on this car, it will SOON need it. They usually fail around 70k - 100k miles. It's a head defect.

I'm not sure about the shift linkage though. I've owned a 96 5 spd for 11 years. And i'm not replacing my T5. I do know the AODE's were a little better off than the older AOD's. As long as it doesn't slip or shift at unusual speeds/times.

$1500 - $2000 sounds about right for a 17 year old car with 130k miles, and needing work. Your price sounds better . Depends on the interior condition. etc.

 

[Prime Lord]

No, didn't notice any excess play or hard spots. Fluid level looked okay. The pump on the other hand....sounded, well, like a ford power steering pump that was 17 years old. It whined when you turned the wheel, and squeaked a little a full lock. It seemed to turn fine, but like I said, as soon as I got out on to the road, I had to pull the wheel back to center. It didn't want to naturally return like a normal car. Past experience says that is alignment related. Combined w/ the fact that it wandered all over the road, makes me think someone set it to ZERO toe. Which is wrong. You need a little bit of toe for normal every day driving.

It just passed a state inspection for April, so I imagine that the tie rods can't be too bad...then again, I know ways around that pesky inspection thing too.

Interesting on the timing. I didn't realize it was all computer controlled. It idles fine all day, but every once it a while it jitters for 1/2 a second. This is ODBII, correct? So I can't use the same scanner that I have for the 87....

Good info on the head gasket....unfortunately, I have no way of checking that. Its being sold by one of those hole in the wall dealers so there's no maintenance records.