This combination has hauled 16-foot lengths of lumber and even 700 pounds of steel for various projects.
I purchased this car used in 2004 with around 25,000 miles showing on the odometer. It has been driven just about every day since then.
EXHAUST UPGRADE
The single exhaust seemed to be in conflict with the hot rod styling. Typical of many automobile designs, the exhaust often seems to have been an afterthought or even added later with no thought to the original designer's intent.
My "dual exhaust" was a second tailpipe that I simply tacked on ahead of the original muffler that wrapped around the spare tire. I put matching stainless tips on the tailpipes. Needless to say this was a VERY LOUD system, even with a resonator added to the right side.
My second exhaust system was a complete new cat back system with one long muffler down the tunnel and two resonator mufflers just in front of the stainless steel tips. The pipes are very nice looking large, free-flowing 2-1/2" id. This system was advertised as being "just right" and it was supposed to cure the 3000 RPM resonance of teh 4 cylinder engine. NOT! It was also TOO LOUD.
Finally I found the ideal solution for my PT with the Pacesetter cat-back dual exhaust system. This new system is very similar to the previous system. It also uses a single long muffler in the tunnel under the floorboards, two small resonator mufflers, and stainless steel tips.
The new exhaust system is only slightly louder than the stock system and made a noticable difference in power, especially towing my utility trailer. With the original exhaust the car would not maintain 65 MPH going uphill when towing my trailer. After installing the new exhaust, the car easily maintained 65 MPH on cruise control in 5th gear. The new exhaust system was also good for about 2 MPG improvement.
The pipes are aluminized steel. That kept the price under $300 and should last in Virginia. If we were in one of the more northern areas, stainless steel pipes might be worth the extra cost.
HUBCAPS
This was another area that I thought missed the bus on styling. The original painted hubcaps were replaced with chrome-plated spoke hubcaps. Alloy rims would have been more appropriate, but the hubcaps cost $50 for a set of four. Alloy rims would have cost nearly $1000. In my book, that qualifies as a no-brainer.
RECENT REPAIRS
In June 2007 the odometer was showing over 85,000 miles and EVERYTHING not mentioned above was still original equipment except the fluids, wiper blades and filters. Yes, even things like tires, brakes, battery, hoses, spark plugs, Plug wires and O2 sensors!
At that point I decided it MUST be time for a set of plugs so I went ahead and replaced the spark plugs and wires with original equipment Champion plugs and a premium set of wires. The old plugs looked fine and there was no change in performance or gas mileage, but I felt better having new plugs and wires on it.
A few months later, with the odometer showing 95,000 miles, the front tires were getting close and I decided to go ahead and have the timing belt changed.
TIRES
As mentioned above, with 95,000 miles showing on the odometer, the original Michelin tires on the front were getting close to the treadware indicators. Sadly, all the tires on my wife's car were no better. I do not rotate my tires because I do not get more life and it has always seemed foolish to try and make all four tires wear out at the same time.
Contrary to what all the tire experts will tell you, here is an example of my real world tire wear: We have a 2002 Toyota Camry and my 2002 PT Cruiser. Both had the same Michelin MXV4 Tires but the set on my PT was one size smaller. My wife had the Michelin tires on her Camry rotated. All four tires were worn down to the treadware indicators at 65,000 miles. At 95,000 miles the front tires on my PT were close to the treadware indicators, but my rear tires still had 1/8 inch of tread life. She needs to buy four tires. I only need two.
Buying 6 new Michelin tires is very expensive. I started checking around and found some used tires on ebay. I ended up buying one complete set of four Michelin Tires for my wife's car and a pair of Bridgestone Potenza tires, all in size 205-65-15. This size is correct for my wife's car and one size larger than original equipment on my PT Cruiser. I put the four Michelin tires on my wife's car. The two Bridgestone Tires went on the back of my PT, and I moved the original Michelin rear tires to the front. For less than $200 we have premium grade tires on both cars that have plenty of wear left in them.
Rotating tires does even out treadware, but on my cars it always seems to INCREASE treadware. My conclusion is that like a lot of other things, the recommendations for rotating tires are coming from the same people who make lots of money selling more tires.
Why do we need to even out our treadware? Why not simply fix the problem? Treadware is a great indication of adjustments or repairs that need to be made.
Most alignment shops only adjust to within factory specs. They try to hit somewhere in the acceptable range without regard to your driving style or the type of roads you most frequently use. Most people only get an alignment when they get new tires and in many shops the guy doing the alignment does not even see the old tires that came off your car! The best information he could have to maximize the life of your new tires is simply being thrown away!
BAD NEWS
The repair shop that has been doing all of our car repairs for the last 10 years is no longer doing high quality work. Some of our recent problems with this shop can be blamed on inferior parts, but it took them four days to replace the timing belt on my PT! They had to do the job twice when the mechanic failed to correctly align the timing marks. That is not even a rookie mistake. There is simply no excuse. Then, when I picked it up, they told me they could not get the bolts loose on the water pump, so the water pump was not changed.
Added to that, the car was not put back together properly. Inner fender panels were incorrectly installed and rubbing on the brand new serpentine belt. One radiator hose was incorrectly installed and rubbing on the fan shroud. One Hose clamp was loose and leaking. The PCV fitting was loose and leaking oil all over the back of the engine. Oil was also leaking from around the oil pan at the other end of the engine. The top engine cover was only snapped into one of three mounting points. Grease and finger prints were all over everything under the hood. This is not the way the car was when I dropped it off.
I found and corrected a couple of these problems within a couple of days, but most of them did not show up until the clutch broke. Less than two weeks after the timing belt job, the clutch simply broke. That may be a coincidence, but I have never had a clutch suddenly break like that. I stepped on the clutch pedal while coming to a stop when something snapped and killed the engine. When I tried to restart the car, the clutch was makng grinding noises and would not disengage. I cannot prove it, but believe they incorrectly supported the engine and did something that caused the clutch to suddenly fail.
Without a reliable repair shop, I decided to tackle replacing the clutch myself. The unforseen benefit of doing the work myself was finding all the other problems the repair shop created. It has now been three months since the timing belt/clutch repairs and I am beginning to regain some of the confidence in my vehicle. Sadly, the original water pump is still lurking in there.
This is the pile of parts that had to be removed to replace the clutch.
This is the loose PCV fitting I discovered.
The holes ground in the wheelwell are not supposed to be there. This is what happens when the wheel well parts are incorrectly assembled. the air conditioner pulley ground the holes in the plastic.
This is a good example of how NOT to install a hose clamp. Can you believe a professional shop charged me for this kind of work? Notice everything in the vicinity has been nicely steam-cleaned by the escaping coolant. This was the only clean part of the engine compartment. I had to buy a special cable-operated hose clamp tool to remove and then correctly install this clamp. Newer cars are a complete pain to work on, even with special tools.
This is inside my tractor shed, the only covered place I had to work. The tractor in the background is my 1952 Ford 8N. If you are interested, you can find out more about the tractor by following this link. FORD TRACTOR SITE
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Updated AUG 2008 by KL