Wow, that is really too bad. The car looks quite good in the pictures. Amazing that he/she doesn't even mention any issues with the bumpers in the auction! Man....

I took a better look at the pictures and the date stamp is in May. I guess a lot can happen in a month.

It looks like some poor soul is going to grab the above mentioned '96 from Ebay so I've found another prospect:

'93 SSEi with 150k miles and "needs electrical work". The seller described two problems. The first is the dash gauges go out intermittently. Only the speed-o and tach work when this happens. The other is the fuse for the ECM keeps blowing. The seller has already replaced the "computer" as he called it and this has not solved the problem. His father, allegedly a mechanic, thinks it might be the alternator spiking and the ECM is preserving itself and blowing the fuse.

Ever heard of such a thing?

I'm going to take a look at it tomorrow and will probably have more detail.

Ugh....I'd almost take the '96 that needs bodywork over the one that has electrical problems. Electrical glitches can be an absolute nightmare as you know :?

CFoote, are you anywhere near Leominster? Doing anything tonight around 7:30? It would be great to have an extra pair of eyes and ears when I check out this car. I'm by no means an expert at the 92-99 body style.

Well, I am the proud new owner of a '93 SSEi. We drove 165 miles round trip and found what could be one heck of a ride. First, some crappy pics:







It was getting rather dark with the ominous thunder clouds moving in from the west but I think you can get the general idea. Overall the car is good. The body is very straight with only one minor ding, a small hole from a cracked bumper cover and only one small area of rust bubble. The motor simply purrs like a kitten. Suspension is nice and tight. It has all the bells and whistles including moonroof and HUD. Nice!

But, the motor will run for only 2 minutes or so before the ECM "fuse" blows. The seller had wired in a circuit breaker instead of having the fuse so the car can be started repeatedly for the inspection. Also, only the tach (and supossedly the speedometer) is functioning on the cluster. The whole car is rather musty and there are small areas of mold on the carpet. The sound deadening pads were pretty well soaked in both the drivers and passengers foot wells. This might have come from a leaking heater core which has been replaced.

Pick-up is on Sunday and I have the day off on Monday so I should have some good quality time with her. I'm actually looking forward to the challange I have before me.

Stay tuned!

Cool 93 is the best year.

My new (to me) 93 SSEi now sits in my driveway much to the dismay of my wife. Not because she didn't want me to get the car but she thinks the driveway looks like a used car lot. Hmmm...not a bad lookin' lot if I do say so myself.

I had a little time to look at it today and here are some of my findings:

Previously, the car was able to be started and ran for a very short while. I drove it around the block and into the driveway when it was unloaded from the tow truck. The previous owner substituted a cricuit breaker instead of a fuse because it kept blowing. He told me that it was the PCM fuse but it truned out to be fuse #6 in the relay center. Fuel pump. Now the car will not start at all. I believe the pump is totally dead and was blowing the fuses as it clung on to life. That'* tomorrow'* project.

Several gauges and the DIC were not working. Andy'* technique of simply removing the connectors and reinserting a couple of times has corrected this but there is still a "sweet spot" in the trim that covers the upper part of the cluster. I can get the DIC display to turn off & on by pressing upward on the trim.

Further inspection of the appearance of the car turned up more things that I missed. The center console pieces from ashtray to rear cig plug all have broken snap tabs or cracked plastic and are basicly just laying on the console. The dashboard above the front cig plug is cracked (I'm not sure how I missed that!) The right rear door is a different shade of green than the rest of the car. This isn't a big concern for me as I really can't stand green and had planed on a paint job anyhow.

I couldn't take any decent pics today so look for some tomorrow.

Also, I have another electrical question but this will be posted in the "electrical" forum.

Add some Velcro behind the broken clips

Sounding like a badass deal.

I'll give that a try for a temporary remedy. Eventually though I would like to replace the whole console.

Yea, not a bad deal at all for $900!

Actually, I was going to post a question about "where did my SES light go?" cause it wasn't coming on at all. I went back and checked all of the areas I was working in and what do you know... I left one of the three PCM connectors unplugged. No wonder it didn't start. The strange thing is I put a fuse back in instead of the circuit breaker and the thing runs indefinately now. WTF is that all about???

So the good news is, for now, I dont think I need a fuel pump.