Ottawa Fiero Club Forum

Hey
I was wondering about the reliability of any of the 86 or 87 V6 cars...I am soon selling my Storm (not one week can go buy without stuff breaking). I expect there to be maintenance involved, but I'd LOVE to avoid the weekly $500 repairs that I have right now...

Basically, it's gonna be my daily driver, and will most likely remain stock or mostly stock till I am closer to the city. If you don't think a Fiero would do well for this, what else do you recommend? Gotta be fun, but not too much of a pig on gas...

Thanx!

BTW...If the car is reliable enuff for daily transportation, I'd be interested in any 86 or 87 V6 fastbacks out there, safetied and e-tested, for around $2500 or so ;)

Opinions vary, so here's mine.  Just remember that it's worth only as much as you paid to receive it.  ;)

Fieros are just as reliable as any other 20 year old car.  It's all a matter of how dilligently you maintain them, and how much you (ab)use them.   :P

Seriously.

If you're looking for a trouble-free daily driver that sips from the pumps, don't look at 20 year old cars.

If you don't mind a moderate drinker, that can & will occasionally develop problems when you least desire them, go for it.


I like to think that I stay on top of the maintenance for our two Fieros rather well, and we drive them as often as possible during the summer.  However we also accept the fact that we might get left on the side of the road at a moment's notice, and have three other vehicles to fall back on when needed.

Diddo
If you have to have a reliable car and live out of the city, the only way to go is a new(er) vehicle with low milage. Buy it on time plan (the old $3 a day salesman's line). I am in the city and don't absolutley need to get their (work is via the bus) so I accept the occasional brakedown and have 2 other 20 year old vehicles that I could press into service.  I could have bought a $50,000  new sportscar but for the ocassional brakedown how much is my time worth? And yes, even new cars break down and with maintenance the old cars are reasonably reliable.     

Newer car = usually expensive problems
Older car = problems more often

OK...Taking age into consideration, how does it compare to other cars of its age? I don't mind occasionally fixing stuff...I would just like to get to drive my car for more than a week before it has to sit for another week.

As for abuse, yeah, I'll push the car occasionally, but I am way more conservative compared to alot of people I know. Also, winter has only a few months of life left...As it stands I've biked on and off through the winter, but as the weather improves I depend on the car less and less. Summer it will become something of a play thing, and by the time next winter roles around I'll be in the city and not NEED it to survive...

Dguy: I am pretty anal about maintanence...working in a garage and seing all the problems that occur from not spending a few dollars and some time has made me paranoid :) Seeing as how you more or less stay on top of maintaining them...how often do problems arise, and how serious are they in nature?

Thanx guys!

About the same if you ask me.  People with brand loyalty or a run of bad luck with one model over another may have something different to say.


Sorry, I have no definitive answer for you. The frequency at which problems arise is infinitely variable in my experience.  Sometimes one of our cars will make it through an entire season without any hiccups, other times one or both will have multiple.  It is safe to say however that repair frequency will vary with mileage.  We rarely put more than 10,000km on either car in a year, usually less.

As to the nature of the problems...  they most often involve things which have been overlooked or neglected.  Sometimes this will be a critical function, sometimes not.  Say for example, the condition of the terminals & contact pads inside the ignition switch.  How often does anyone take one of those apart & examine them?  How many times do you have to push-start a car with a burned out "start" terminal on a meandering road trip from here to the Maritimes, given an average fill-up frequency of every 275km?   ;D

Let’s see, in the time I was driving my Fiero before the big swap I had a few problems;
Alternator
Tach filter
One of the terminals on one of the water temp sensors (there’s like 4 or something)
Thermostat
General tune up including plugs wires cap and rotor, air filter, fuel filter
E-Brake cables (causing me to have to rebuild one of my callipers as well)
O2 sensor
Exhaust leak (on the back side, and I didn’t bother to fix it)
Radiator (this was due to a flying rock from a transport)
Head gasket leak (didn’t bother to fix)
Loose terminal on the battery that caused my car to not start one day (took me an hour to find)
One other problem that I never did track down.

All this in one summer.  Then I just transplanted everything, and nothing in the last year.  But to be honest half those listed probrlems where pre-existing problems from the previous owner.


Aaron

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I'll tell ya.... to many.... I got my exercise pushing that darn car during that trip....  :P  then again mine did drop the starter about a month after we got back...

so like the boys said, they do have they're problems like any older car... I really can't say that they have more problems than others... Don and I have an older VW in our driveway that we curse on more than we ever do on our fieros.

From the sounds of it you like to tinker and have no problem doing your own maintenance... as long as you are prepared for the unexpected breakdown that may or may not happen at the most annoying time... then go nuts, and join the rest of us that are addicted to these neat little beasts  ;D :D

well said