[panzer dragoon]

this thread has gotten off of the main subject.

The question I will bring up is: If the original alternator design would have been recalled earlier how many of the problems on this forum would have been minimized by not having the voltage fluctuate so badly? This one item really minimized this car's chance for success.

All damaged by voltage fluctuation?

1. Headlight replacement, blinkers, tail-lights damaged.
2. Flasher circuit.
3. Crank and Cam sensors?
4. Fan motor and resistor controller.
5. Little switches like door ones
6. Transmission Circuit/Valve/control
etc
etc

I really had high hopes for this car being all my cars were from the 70's or earlier. My first V6, otherwise I always had V8s. The 3.5L was on the Wards 10 Best Engine list (1999?). Had power similar to my 1975 350 Olds Rocket Engine. Super smooth idle in the 3.5L. The baby Rocket.

I can be a little more upbeat about my car since I haven't had my tranny replaced yet (3 times?) But I can see little problems starting to surface.

Fixed so far:
Flasher circuit $30

Will need to be fixed:
Wiper circuit (a short somewhere-wipers go vertical when turned off-must keep them on)
Crank Position Sensor (2 sensors on same part 1 doesn't work causing a 1/4 sec stall at around 170 deg F engine temp when the sensor tries to switch over to the other.)
Alternator swap with new design.

Swapping the alternator for the new design will hopefully limit the many future little problems that could surface. In the mean time I like my car and have another 12 months to pay it off. For me the car is fixible and this forum helps me out alot. But if a fix is going to cost $2500+ it may soon be parted out. With 80K miles it's been a good car without any major work needed. Being a 2000 it's only worth about $5k. If I wasn't good at fixing stuff and had to bring the car in for service I would be having problems with it.