Sorry, I have not been active on this site in quite some time, had health issues most of 2015, took care of that and picked up a full time job for the first time in awhile, so I haven't had much internet time. Not really a whole lot has changed, except for the ever increasing rot on my '97. Last fall it started clunking, turned out the rear sway bar mount had rotted off the frame which was the wake-up call I needed to start seriously looking for its replacement. Once I was out of the hospital, I started scoping every place I could think of to find a new Panther. My criteria was: low mileage, Aero, HPP or Signature Touring, possibly another Cartier, and most importantly, NO RUST!!!.
Aeros are getting scarce around here, and rust free ones are always overpriced especially Town Cars. I was not opposed to a CV/GMQ, but if I got one I wanted an early one before the decontenting got serious, again, preferably an Aero. Well, I looked at a lot of cars over probably 6 months, nothing worth shelling out cash for, or at least not as much cash as the sellers wanted. My favorite was a '99 Signature that I walked away from when they wouldn't even come down $500 only to have them call me a week later and offer it too me for $1500 less than their original price.
Then one day while on a delivery for work, I see something intriguing at a small used car lot that I HAD to stop and look at, even in the company car. It was a Green '98 GMQ on HPP wheels with no visible rust. That's many many checkboxes on my list, it being green makes up for it not being an Aero cuz I have a soft spot for green cars.. After work I went and looked at it more closely, only 87k miles, and they wanted $3200. Next day I had off, I went up and talked to them, the salesman was quite nice and didn't try and push me at all, and explained that they specialize in selling rust free cars and bring many from out-of-state. Off the top of his head he said this GMQ was from Kentucky. Cool. Take it for a test drive and boy was it a disappointment. It drove horribly. But there were no funny noises and nothing that screamed RUN AWAY!!. I stopped in a parking lot about a mile from the dealer to do the usual look over of fluids and whatnot, and suddenly there's a little mexican guy beside me, he offered to let me pull the car into his oil change shop next door and pull it over the pit to look under it. HELL YEAH!! I'll certainly take him up on that offer. There was barely a spec of rust anywhere on the frame tho oddly both front control arms were covered in surface rust, but most importantly it had new tie rods and other new parts including a new intake manifold, so why did it drive so badly? All 4 shocks were hopelessly blown and covered in oil, and the front sway bar links were gone. I don't mean broken, I mean someone had removed them from the car so the sway bar was just hanging there. Verified the 3.27 axle and factory dual exhaust and Black/Black rear air springs (HPP bags have black top and bottom cone, regular GMQ bags have a black top and white bottom cone), its a true HPP. Unfortunately, it was owned by a heavy smoker, so the interior isn't in great shape though the dealer did a great job of cleaning it. The seats are also very worn leading me to think the owner(s) were ahem..heavier. It had signs of life in the sun, the chrome side molding is delaminating badly and the headlights were foggy.
Go back to the dealer, do the dance, ended up taking it home for $2400 out the door, tax, title, everything. So the car its self was only about $2100. Best part is, I had sway bar links in the garage so I had it handling 10x better within an hour of getting it home. New shocks, KYB Gas-A-Justs of course, and its like a totally different car all for less than $150 in parts. It did have a slight misfire on the test drive that went away only to reappear a month later, and it threw codes for 4 different cylinders at 4 different times without changing anything, so I splurged and bought 8 fresh COPs for it and it runs fantastic. It actually feels like it has the extra power Ford says it should over my Aeros. I purchased a pair of nearly NOS headlights from a member on CVN for a good price, and he threw in a factory service manual as well, WIN. Headlights got a projector retrofit like my Town Car because even with clean housings Whale headlights suck.
Upon research, it turns out the car lived in AZ from new until 2010, and it was sold and moved to southern IL from then until my dealer brought it to MI. I signed a IL title when I bought it. Unfortunately, it went from 70* and sunny to suddenly winter a few weeks ago, so work has been halted and the '97 pressed back into service as my DD so my new southern car can escape the salt. I only have one set of photos of it, taken a few days after I got it and before I had a chance to really clean it up, but, it looks pretty much the same.
Enough of my rambling, on to the pics:
1998 Mercury Grand Marquis LS HPP
87,700 miles as-purchased. Dark Green Satin Metallic, Parchment interior.
Aeros are getting scarce around here, and rust free ones are always overpriced especially Town Cars. I was not opposed to a CV/GMQ, but if I got one I wanted an early one before the decontenting got serious, again, preferably an Aero. Well, I looked at a lot of cars over probably 6 months, nothing worth shelling out cash for, or at least not as much cash as the sellers wanted. My favorite was a '99 Signature that I walked away from when they wouldn't even come down $500 only to have them call me a week later and offer it too me for $1500 less than their original price.
Then one day while on a delivery for work, I see something intriguing at a small used car lot that I HAD to stop and look at, even in the company car. It was a Green '98 GMQ on HPP wheels with no visible rust. That's many many checkboxes on my list, it being green makes up for it not being an Aero cuz I have a soft spot for green cars.. After work I went and looked at it more closely, only 87k miles, and they wanted $3200. Next day I had off, I went up and talked to them, the salesman was quite nice and didn't try and push me at all, and explained that they specialize in selling rust free cars and bring many from out-of-state. Off the top of his head he said this GMQ was from Kentucky. Cool. Take it for a test drive and boy was it a disappointment. It drove horribly. But there were no funny noises and nothing that screamed RUN AWAY!!. I stopped in a parking lot about a mile from the dealer to do the usual look over of fluids and whatnot, and suddenly there's a little mexican guy beside me, he offered to let me pull the car into his oil change shop next door and pull it over the pit to look under it. HELL YEAH!! I'll certainly take him up on that offer. There was barely a spec of rust anywhere on the frame tho oddly both front control arms were covered in surface rust, but most importantly it had new tie rods and other new parts including a new intake manifold, so why did it drive so badly? All 4 shocks were hopelessly blown and covered in oil, and the front sway bar links were gone. I don't mean broken, I mean someone had removed them from the car so the sway bar was just hanging there. Verified the 3.27 axle and factory dual exhaust and Black/Black rear air springs (HPP bags have black top and bottom cone, regular GMQ bags have a black top and white bottom cone), its a true HPP. Unfortunately, it was owned by a heavy smoker, so the interior isn't in great shape though the dealer did a great job of cleaning it. The seats are also very worn leading me to think the owner(s) were ahem..heavier. It had signs of life in the sun, the chrome side molding is delaminating badly and the headlights were foggy.
Go back to the dealer, do the dance, ended up taking it home for $2400 out the door, tax, title, everything. So the car its self was only about $2100. Best part is, I had sway bar links in the garage so I had it handling 10x better within an hour of getting it home. New shocks, KYB Gas-A-Justs of course, and its like a totally different car all for less than $150 in parts. It did have a slight misfire on the test drive that went away only to reappear a month later, and it threw codes for 4 different cylinders at 4 different times without changing anything, so I splurged and bought 8 fresh COPs for it and it runs fantastic. It actually feels like it has the extra power Ford says it should over my Aeros. I purchased a pair of nearly NOS headlights from a member on CVN for a good price, and he threw in a factory service manual as well, WIN. Headlights got a projector retrofit like my Town Car because even with clean housings Whale headlights suck.
Upon research, it turns out the car lived in AZ from new until 2010, and it was sold and moved to southern IL from then until my dealer brought it to MI. I signed a IL title when I bought it. Unfortunately, it went from 70* and sunny to suddenly winter a few weeks ago, so work has been halted and the '97 pressed back into service as my DD so my new southern car can escape the salt. I only have one set of photos of it, taken a few days after I got it and before I had a chance to really clean it up, but, it looks pretty much the same.
Enough of my rambling, on to the pics:
1998 Mercury Grand Marquis LS HPP
87,700 miles as-purchased. Dark Green Satin Metallic, Parchment interior.
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