02 Mustang Gt Or 97 Mark Viii? Pics Inside!!

[Three50won]

So I am looking to buy another car to toy around with. I have two choices, a 97 Mark VIII or an 02 Mustang GT. Here are some details.

1997 Mark VIII LSC, 148K miles, white with black interior, body is solid, paint is rough but not too bad. Still has air ride suspension. Needs little stuff like the power seats could use replacing, the driver side door sounds like it is a little loose when the window is lowered, nothing major. It is at a rinky dink dealer and they're asking $1K for it. Now I started it up and it ran fine. I couldn't drive it tho because it needs a shifter cable. Obviously I can just replace that if I buy it and then drive it home. So although I couldn't drive it lets just say the engine and trans are fine and nothing crazy going on with the brakes, suspension, etc...lets say normal stuff for an 18 year old car.

2002 Mustang GT, about 100K mies. Silver with black interior. Auto. Stock with upgraded radio head unit and huge speaker but no antenna. Only thing is the tank has been dropped due to someone putting salt or sugar in it. So it will need the tank cleaned out, a new fuel pump, and a new fuel filter. Guy says car ran fine. So lets assume it has normal wear and tear for a 13 year old car with nothing outlandish. Guy was asking $2K but lowered it to $1650. It will have to be towed. It has a salvage title from a front end collision but the car was repaired.

So which would you buy?

 

[Gearbanger 101]

The mustang, no question. The Mark is a nice car, plush ride and like driving around in a leather sleeping bag, but at 18-years old, is bound to start giving you issues. Most notably a lot of electrical issues that these cats were noted for. Fine if you're familiar with them and have a couple of parts cars to go back and forth to, but otherwise....Ford has probably stopped making 80% of the parts for this car. Finally....I just ain't getting a good vibe from that dealer.

The Mustang on the other hand.... Still half a million or so of them on the road and most engine and drivetrain parts interchange with more than half a dozen other vehicles of the same era. In other words, finding used parts at a reasonable price will never be a problem. More importantly, you can still get NEW parts for the car if you need to. The Mustang doesn't have the fancy, plush interior with all of the electronic gadgets to play with, but that also means it won't have the problems associated with those things when they go bad either.

It really comes down to what you're looking for, what you want to spend on it and how much money you're comfortable spending on it to support the upkeep?

 

[Three50won]

I decided to get both. I got the Mustang last night but I'll have to wait until next Friday to get the Mark VIII if it is still available by then. I just brought the Mustang home last night. It had been the victim of someone pouring salt into the gas tank. So I took the tank and filter off my 03 GT, drove up there, installed my stuff on, drove back home, then got my little brother to drive me back so I could drive it home. Needless to say it was a long day. And I had to do it like that because my brother worked until 9pm but the guy was up there at the house at 6pm...so I had to do all the work while the sun was still out. The car drives good. It started up right away with the new tank but after driving it for a few minutes it started getting a bit rough. Once I got on the highway and opened it up she was fine. The temps stayed good, the oil pressure, everything. And all the electronic stuff was fine. It still tries to run rough but I'm gonna change out the injectors and pop some new plugs in. That should do it. It has a head unit, huge speaker, cai, UDPs, X-Pipe with HF cats, and aftermarket exhaust. It sounds good and shifts good. No complaints with it. I just need to clean it up and get an antenna installed. Soo far soo good!!