1990 Corolla SR5 --Worth Keeping?...

[csandste]

My son in law laid out $300 on a 1990 Corolla SR5 on a whim. $300 at a Honda dealer who had a special 4 hour-- get rid of the crap sale. Other than a bit of rust on one wheel well it's remarkably clean inside and out.

A post-purchase inspection indicated bad clutch, no air, bad pan gasket, and a weeping around the head gasket. I asked the mechanic if it was blowing coolant and he said "it didn't look that bad". I thought any head gasket problem was terrible. He only drove it about a half mile to the nearest garage so I have no idea if was overheating or not. If the head gasket is cooked I'm sure we won't be able to even license it because of pollution.

Anyway $300 bucks in. Cut losses or try to fix?

1. Does this have FI or an overly complicated carburator. I only looked under the hood for a couple of seconds but it seems like a small version of a FI Camry engine from the early 90's. I did try to look up the engine in carparts.com and apparently there's none left at any wreck yard in the country. I looks nothing like I remember a 92 Prizm that my daughter owned about seven years ago.

2. The garage quoted me $450 for the clutch, plus $130 or so to Autozone for the clutch and rear seal. I went down today and told them to hold off on any repairs until after I rechecked with my son in law. When he bought the car he thought it had a 2 liter engine like the Camry he has (no transmission on that), not the 1.6 that it really has. I think they said about $550 for a head gasket... then what??? They also reported a clicking sound in one cylinder. The oil level was below the dip stick. I'm thinking about taking about 3 quarts of SuperTech 10w30 that I have laying it around and dumping it in. Also paying a few more $$$ to get a compression check. They didn't do that in the $30 pre-inspection.

I could easily see putting about $1200 into this car and having nothing to show for it. And that's without airconditioning repair.

On the other hand it is in very good physical shape and is an attractive little car.

Fix it or cut bait and lose three hundred bucks?

[csandste]

Well if I'd looked down a couple of posts I could have found out that it has EFI. That's good, I guess. On the otherhand the only engines on carparts.com are earlier than that and carburated.

[Williams]

If you have the resources to fix it yourself, I'd go for it. If I had to pay somebody to fix, I'd walk away. It has a carb. Maybe all that is wrong with the clutch is a lack of fluid in the master. There is one thing that repair shops like, and that's my sister who buys an old car then takes it in to get everything replaced or fixed for $50-75 an hour. Dump it if you can't fix it yourself, or take a personal stand that you are going to contribute to keep the economy going and take it in for expensive shop repairs. "Good deals" like this are best left for the do-it-yourselfer.

[Williams]

Unless this car is an extremely late 1990, it has a carb

[toyotaspeed90]

Originally Posted by Williams

Unless this car is an extremely late 1990, it has a carb

ALL 90's are FI....

[wormhole]

sorry to jack the thread but what part of missoui are you from.

[csandste]

St. Charles County. The car is sitting there in all its damaged glory at the Cave Springs exit Conoco. Since my son in law tows for them, they'll probably cut him several days slack before they get after him to get it off their lot.

I gave my daughter my old cherry 01 Elantra which she totaled within a couple of months, he keeps pouring $$$ into an old Chevy pickup, and they have an 89 Camry wagon in the driveway sans transmission. Nothing runs. The subdivision OA gives him grief for parking his wrecker in the driveway. I'm getting tired being chauffer for the family.

[wormhole]

I know where that is I use to live in montgomery co.

I had an 89 sr5 for awhile and I loved it and still miss it. why did i sell it.
If you can get it running right again the car should last for a long and great decent gas mileage.


My first love

[csandste]

Yep. Looks just about that clean. There are very few cars from that era that are that attractive IMHO.

It's my son-in-law's call. If it had everything fixed it would probably be worth $1500. Still a little queasy about starting to drop bucks in it without knowing where it will end.

I assume this is a different engine than the Corolla sedans? I sure don't remember the 01 Prizm looking like that.

[REN69]

Just get a new motor/transmission for it, it would probably end up being cheaper than trying to fix everything on this one.

[csandste]

That's the problem and one of the reasons I posted. Unlike a standard Camry or Corolla it looks to me like there's no engines/transmissions for this in the entire country.

http://www.car-part.com

Am I misreading this. Will any 4-door Corolla's power unit fit?

[01loadedLE]

if he wanted to sell it as is or take it to a parts yard he could get his $300 back I'd think. if you fix it up it'll be a great car because I had an 85 sr5 with 250k miles and the body and interior was in great shape but it was tempermental with leaking power steering, a couple of shot sincros and a cracked block yet it still got us where we needed to be summer or winter. I'd say if you have the $1500 then it'd be worth it to fix but I'd alteast let him spend his money fixing the ac though.

[SpeedballTrix]

Im inclined to agree with Williams. If you can fix it yourself, definately do it.
But if you must pay someone to fix it, don't bother.

For $1000 you could drop a very nice low mileage motor in, but you would have to do it yourself, as that cost could easily double if you had a shop else do it.

[wormhole]

thry this site I know it's based out of cal. but they should have some parts:
http://www.taprecycling.net/modules....view_album.php

Try this site for missouri: http://www.junkyards.com/directory2/missouri.htm

http://replacement.carjunky.com/part...odel=COR-7-005

Do a basic search on the internet and I'm sure you'll find parts.

[csandste]

Still looks like there's a real shortage of available engines. Car-part.com is the only database that finds holdings in each of the wreck yards. The advice that it's doable only if your good with your hands is starting to hit home. My son-in-law is thinking of cutting bait. Anyone in the St. Louis area looking for a clean but flawed SR5 it's down at the Cave Springs Conoco.

Thanks to all for the advice.