As I have had a slow afternoon at work, I decided to pull out the Fiero Store catalog and put together a parts list of what I need to get my car back on the street......can we say STICKER SHOCK!! To fix every item starting with buying a transmission to replaceing the tie rods and bushings will cost around $3300! And thats to have a driveable car without a body on it! Now I am sure that I can save about 20% by going to Auto Zone, but you have to figure about that for margin of error. Afterall, there is allways something that will be overlooked, or will brake later. And the only thing that I am doing "trick" is replacing the springs and shocks/struts, I still will have to spend money on the engine! The body is off of the car, so I still can't drive it....that'll be another $2500 in paint! Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I'll need that nice stereo system for long trips, plus MR Mikes leather seats and console, so that'll be another $3000!

Now lets see, I paid $7200 for the car in 1989, and drove it for 7 years or 90,000 mi. Now I am going to spend $10,000 over the next 2 years to fix it up? Hmm....Come to think of it, thats still a much better deal than a new Miata/MR2/S2000 or anything else! What am I complaining of? This car has been with me longer than anything or anyone except my parents.........

Too bad you don't live in RI. There is a body shop here that paints Fieros for $1k(provided not much body work). I had an 88 GT changed from a combination of red,white, prime and no finish at all to met.blue and you would be hard pressed to tell that it's not the original color. He does the jambs under the hood and trunk everything and it looks great. Later on this winter I'm changing my red Formula to Pearl white and have no reservations about the quality, the only downside is that it takes about 4-5 weeks.

You are right to have sticker shock. Just think how my customers feel when I tell them teh cost of some of the work that is needed and also the time it takes to do. Granted I've had to hire two guys to work with me so that I can get the jobs out quicker, but even then sometimes we get swamped.

Whenever I get depressed about the high cost of parts and repairs (I just spent over $500 on front end parts for the Batmobile), I think about how much a new Fiero would cost. Oh, that's right! You can't buy a new Fiero anymore!

Well, just check the prices of any other new car...talk about sticker shock. I'd rather spend some money on parts than have that big ol' monthly car payment. At least my Fieros are paid for. I refuse to pay more for a new car than I did my house.

Heres how I handled that situation. My 87 needed a brake job over the summer, so I took it to Sears and had them do one of their free brake inspections. The estimate came up to around $800. Then I went to my local Discount Auto Parts and picked up all new parts for $250. I felt like I got a deal and a half.

If you have a hobby car and the time and skill to repair it, best of luck. I seem to shell out $$ to get my 88GT back to a reliable and fun car. It was a used and must have been driven hard. <55K miles on it when I got it. It now has a new nose, quarter windows, new struts, rebuilt steering rack, new wheels, tires, rebuilt stock radio, fuel pump, emission sensors, fuel rail, distributor, ignition coil, wires, exhaust manifold, a Pisa 3.1 engine, new leather wrapped steering wheel, head liner. Borla exhaust, with new catalytic converter etc. I'm slowly having everything replaced. It is a fun car to drive. I've put in twice what I over paid for the car initially. But they don't make Fieros any more. I keep the national Fiero parts suppliers in business.

Well, I see I stirred some well intent interest with my topic. Good! After I wrote this Friday, I thought to myself; "myself, I could buy a nice '88 GT with all that money... a rare one too!"

[This message has been edited by bHooper (edited 11-12-1999).]

maintaining 4 Fieros plus other vehicles is a pocket drain. But, 88 brake rotors are half what they used to be, now 50 bucks ea. Rare Parts has come out with suspension bushings for Fieros now, things might be getting better for parts supply.