Quote:
Originally Posted by Dottore
A good friend of mine had one of these. The experience provided him with a huge repertoire of party stories about what a complete POS it was.
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Ha! Do we know each other?
Again though, it's a little unfair. It's a limited-production sport(y) car, so sure, you're not going to get the benefits of lessons learned from a long production run or the reliability of an economy car but overall it's pretty solid. The engines are bullet-proof, the brakes (4 piston calipers) are solid, the A/C (suprisingly!) is ice cold and hasn't failed me in either car (of course, it requires you adjust your clutch usage as it takes the idle down about 200rpm.)
They require periodic maintenance -- this isn't a 'fix it when it breaks' deal. The problems with this car are more due to the owners than the car itself. And sitting unused takes its toll on the seals and hoses (and there are a lot of hoses.) To give you an idea of the overall reliability (and the lack of forethought in design) in the 12K and 5 years I've driven mine it's needed:
New clutch (due to previous owner)
Clutch master cylinder
Carburetor float
Steering rack -- apparently the cowl drain is right above the input for the steering shaft (which isn't protected by a rubber boot) and in trying to diagnose what turned out to be a leaky windsheild I eventually filled the rack with water.
Brakes, rotors
Fiddling with the slipping window lifter (it uses a threaded steel cable that wears out every 20K )
That's pretty much it off the top of my head. Not bad for any 25 year old car much less an Italian car from a small, independent company. That said, there's a reason I'm "in the market for a nice SC"