about to buy a 1990 cougar supercoupe

Supercat90

Registered User
hi. everyone this is my first post but alwasy visit this site. i have an 89 mustang that is going away for the rest of the winter i have a chance to pick up a 90 supercoupe cougar for 700 bucks. inside and out of the car is great conditon i mean glossy black paint no ripps in the interior. They guy said all it needed was a rack and pinion. I can get that easily cause i work at a parts store im just curious about how much it would cost to install i would take it too one of my customers garage to do so im sure i will get a good deal but just trying to get an idea. the odometer also has 140000 on it. i think im most interested in it just because its a cougar supercoupe. anyway enough of me rambling. any info would be appreciated thanks.
P.S also would these cars make good daily drivers?
 
That would be a XR7, not a Supercoupe.

They are not bad as daily drivers, though they can be hard on the wallet considering that you can only run 93 octane in them. Other then that, they are a blast to drive.
 
If you have a garage and maybe a car you can borrow while you work on the XR7, then it's a great car. If this is your only way to get from A to B and you need it to work every day, then you might want to wait. Or buy the XR7 and an 80's Japanese econobox as a backup.

I must admit, I violate my own advice, since the SC is my daily driver. But these cars are not very easy to work on.
 
I have a 90 SC, I got in 2000, let it sit for two years before I really started driving it; and it has left me stranded only once with a waterpump.

Now I have caught several things before they got bad, for instance, I lost overdrive, and rebuilt my own transmission, but that will equate to a week or so of having one rebuilt at a shop (800-1500 depending on where you go). I did recently break the transmission input shaft, but that was my fault for having mods, and not going with a hardened shaft with a modified car.

You will find the common problems with these cars being poor head gasket design, which can be a costly repair when they go, probably a couple weeks to fix for a few hundred $$$s. Also common are bad motor mounts (125ish for the good solid replacement versions), which can be replaced in a weekend. The ABS system often goes out as well, and is also expensive $500ish (or less used, but I wouldn't get a used one) to replace, but prolly a days job if you haven't done it before.. The balancer falling off seems to be a problem for quite a few folks also, about $350 which is prolly a days work for the inexperienced.
There are other things of course, but this is a short list of the major, more common things.

As with any older car, if it is a daily driver, its a good idea to have a spare car, or at least one you can borrow for a few days.

Now as long as a few hundred here or there aint too much for your budget, it can be a great car as a daily driver, and certainly cheaper than a car payment!

The key is maintenance, in stead of having your oil changed, do it yourself, so you can get in there and inspect things. Keep an eye on everything and check out the color of the fluids, etc.

If I were still considering it, I would check out the placement of the oil filter, if it is hitting the subframe, that means it needs motormounts, and motormounts left unrepaired, can crack an oilpan. I would also see if the ABS light comes on when you hit the pedal a few times. I would definitely see what color the tranny fluid is, if it is brown and smells burnt, you will likely need a tranny rebuild in the not-to-distant future; but that is no guarantee. I would also feel for the balancer bolt, to be sure it is still there, and watch the crank pulley as it spins to see if it is spinning nice and true. I would also inspect the coolant, and the overflow tank. If there is junk (or oil)in it, HGs (headgaskets) might be questionable. The HGs are the biggest and most $$$ problems with these cars...

I never had HG or balancer issues with mine, but I recently took the motor out for pre-emptive repairs, and other mods, to find that one of the HG fire rings was oval shaped; looked like it was being pushed out on one side, so the HGs were probably just about to go. I also found that the balancer hub had let loose of the outer weight ring, and it was just free-spinning, so the balancer was also about to go...

This may give you a better idea, but my opinion, is that if you take care of it, its no different than any other 15+ year old car.

But the SCs CERTAINLY DO require some maintenance to be kept up! You will be pretty much an ASE certified mechanic after you own one for a few years, unless you have al kinds of money to take it to the shop:cool:

So for $700, if the car doesn't show many of these problems right now, I'd say its a pretty darn good deal! Even if you have to spend $2000+ over the next couple of years, it still aint a bad deal!
 
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