In summer of 1999 my sister needed a car to work a temp job. My dad dragged me to a junkyard with used car lot attached. How bad could it be? His goal was to spend at least $700 because under Massachusetts law any > $700 car had to take an inspection sticker.
We looked at a mid 80s dodge 600 that was covered in dog hair. What was left of the vacuum/ PCV system had oil shooting out. It had an electronic dash that worked and, in hindsight, most systems were go. But we could have knitted up a small terrier out of the hair. We took this thing to our mechanic for a look over (why???) and he said, nah, I have two cars for you.
-- a taurus that wouldn't start. Mechanic attacked the battery terminals with a vise grips. Some mechanic. And a
-- 1982 cadillac cimarron. We test drove it and thought it was awesome for $900. Dad bought it and was already plotting to give it to "kidney cars" for a tax write off on Labor Day.
My sister drove this all summer. A terrible valve cover gasket made it "load up" with oil on the exhaust manifold at every traffic light. So he told her to turn the ignition off at every red light! This revealed that it had
1) a lousy battery-- replaced with a "good used one" and
2) a lousy carburetor. Made one year only, J-bodies got TBI injection in 1983. It flooded, had a moody choke, etc.
Fall rolled around and something went kaput in the clutch/ transmission of my 89 Mazda 323. I was not the car nerd I am now and the first mechanic to look at it thought it was "bent forks." So I scrapped it. Dad, always on my side, sold me the cadillac. Brought it up to Maine where it was discovered the holy rocker panels wouldn't pass our strict inspection standards.
I whined about this to my girlfriend (now wife) and her dad had the answer. "Aluma-Trim coil". He's a carpenter who trims out windows with the stuff and he went nuts with his metal brake shaping this stuff just so. (I think he just liked showing off!) Some rivets and bondo and you'd never know! I got this thing legal and drove it a winter.
Over this time I discovered what a sticky thermostat did-- it stuck closed! I pulled over in the middle of the night with the gauge pegged and started banging my shoe on the t-stat housing to try to shake it loose. It worked. I knew I only had a couple more openings before it blew my motor, so I hit up Home depot for some offset metric wrenches to get that thermostat out.
Daylight came and the nerd in me didn't want the chlorine in my tap water in my radiator. So I poured some in a vase and let it evaporate in my apartment. Like that would do any good in an hour. I replaced my t-stat and, son of a gun, it worked!
Other hi-jinks of this car include something making it run mega-rich on an interstate on-ramp. The black smoke behind me had cars dodging left. I felt like James Bond. The "check engine" light came on, first time ever for me. I opened the hood in the breakdown lane, saw nothing, started it up, and was good. I went through all the vacuum hoses and it was better after that. This was before computer driven solenoids had the guts to drive anything, so the computer told the solenoid to allow vacuum to run the (whatever).
The starter wouldn't work one night when it was -7'F so I stuck my foot under the engine and kicked it. Worked.
Both low beam headlights conked out at the same time. I replaced them with one new, one used, to get any future failures "out of phase".
There are worse cars out there-- I've brought some home. But it was a fragile time in my life of not knowing much about cars (it tought me), having little money or contacts in the area.
Punchline-- I got a nice cutlass ciera 3300 from a coworker and sold the cimarron to a local kid. He drove it home and never moved it again.