Resurrecting my dad's car for my daughter.
Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 4:37 pm
Okay. I wasn't sure where to post this so I thought this might be the best place. I thought I'd include the story about why this particular Beretta is special, so this might be a little long-winded.
My father bought this Beretta new in 95 for my step mother. They had searched around and decided what kind of car they wanted. Then he went to the dealership and ordered it. He wasn't looking for anything special (AM/FM Cassette Player, Tilt Steering, Cruise Control, and V6), but his credit has always been immaculate (high 800's), so he could get what he wanted. The salesman let him know that there was nothing like that on the lot but there was a truck coming in next week with 9 Beretta's on it and there would be 3 for him to choose from. Dad said okay, paid for the car, and the deal was made. The next week when dad arrived at the dealership, they were already unloading the cars. He looked at all of them, walked inside and said "okay, looks like I'm taking the black one." The salesman told him "that one's not for sale, but you get your choice of the blue one or the white one." Dad looked at him and said "I may not know everything about these cars, but I can count. The only one with a V6 is the black one." The salesman got the manager and they checked out all the berettas on the truck. Sure enough, the only one with a V6 was the black one. The salesman explained that the black one was a special order for the dealership (Program Car). They were going to use it in their next commercial. It had a sunroof, a CD player, a rear deck spoiler with an LED brake light in it, and a splash from a Geo Tracker cut down to fit on the sides. Dad explained to the salesman that they had already made a deal and he had already paid. He said "I don't care about that other stuff. Rip that splash off the side, take that spoiler off, replace the radio with a cassette player, but I'm leaving with the car I paid for today. Either I'm leaving with that one, or I'm taking my money somewhere else." The salesman passed this information on to the manager, and they decided to let him take it. They did replace the radio with a factory cassette player out of one of the other berettas.
He's owned it since then and put 240,000 miles on it! He's incredibly anal about maintainence and upkeep, but hasn't had to do hardly any work on it. Except for routine maintainence, (tires, oil changes, engine belts and such) the only thing that's been replaced on it is the altenator. And of course the outside door handle on the driver's side. That thing's been replaced 6 times! Mainly because my step-mom has a bad habit of yanking on door handles. It's still going strong but he decided he was ready to get rid of it. When my daughter found out, she asked if she could buy it for her first car. Yes, I'm making her buy her own car! She's only 12, but has been saving allowance and gift money for a few years so we discussed it with him and he agreed. It's a 1996 Black base Beretta. It has some normal wear and tear issues consistant for an 18-year old car with 240k miles on it. The headlights are fogged and yellowed pretty badly. One of them is broken from a recent impact with a deer. It wasn't serious, but it did dent the hood a little and wrinkle the passenger fender some. There are a few rust spots in places. The spring on the drivers door is busted and makes a loud "popping" sound when opened and closed. The interior is worn pretty badly in places and expectedly dirty. The headliner is about to fall, and the sun visors look like they are about to fall apart. But my daughter had saved a good chunk of money and only had to pay $500 for the car. So she's spending the rest of her car money fixing things, with my help.
She's decided to try to make it a Z26 cause she likes the look of them. We've already replaced the shocks and struts. The replacement headlights are on the way. (I saw a posting somewhere on here about replacing the factory headlights with BMW headlights, so we're gonna try that.) We've ordered 16" Z26 wheels for it, and already bought the tires to go on them. I've found a few salvage yards where we can get the other parts to make it look like a Z26. And I've found a sign company that can recreate the splash on the side. She wants to keep the splash on the side but I explained that we needed to do some body work and then repaint the car. I also have a few other ideas to update the car, but that stuff will have to wait until she saves some more money.
The only issue we've had so far is we replaced the instrument cluster with one from a Z26. Everything works like it's supposed to except for the tach, the oil pressure gauge, and the air bag light. The tach doesn't work at all. The oil pressure gauge goes as far as it can and stays there. And the air bag light stays on all the time. When we put the old cluster back in, everything works correctly. I figured since this was a place for Beretta enthusiasts, someone here had probably tried to do the same thing. And might know how to make it work. Any advice about this problem or any other you think might come up would be greatly appreciated.
I will try to keep this thread updated so everyone can see the progress.
My father bought this Beretta new in 95 for my step mother. They had searched around and decided what kind of car they wanted. Then he went to the dealership and ordered it. He wasn't looking for anything special (AM/FM Cassette Player, Tilt Steering, Cruise Control, and V6), but his credit has always been immaculate (high 800's), so he could get what he wanted. The salesman let him know that there was nothing like that on the lot but there was a truck coming in next week with 9 Beretta's on it and there would be 3 for him to choose from. Dad said okay, paid for the car, and the deal was made. The next week when dad arrived at the dealership, they were already unloading the cars. He looked at all of them, walked inside and said "okay, looks like I'm taking the black one." The salesman told him "that one's not for sale, but you get your choice of the blue one or the white one." Dad looked at him and said "I may not know everything about these cars, but I can count. The only one with a V6 is the black one." The salesman got the manager and they checked out all the berettas on the truck. Sure enough, the only one with a V6 was the black one. The salesman explained that the black one was a special order for the dealership (Program Car). They were going to use it in their next commercial. It had a sunroof, a CD player, a rear deck spoiler with an LED brake light in it, and a splash from a Geo Tracker cut down to fit on the sides. Dad explained to the salesman that they had already made a deal and he had already paid. He said "I don't care about that other stuff. Rip that splash off the side, take that spoiler off, replace the radio with a cassette player, but I'm leaving with the car I paid for today. Either I'm leaving with that one, or I'm taking my money somewhere else." The salesman passed this information on to the manager, and they decided to let him take it. They did replace the radio with a factory cassette player out of one of the other berettas.
He's owned it since then and put 240,000 miles on it! He's incredibly anal about maintainence and upkeep, but hasn't had to do hardly any work on it. Except for routine maintainence, (tires, oil changes, engine belts and such) the only thing that's been replaced on it is the altenator. And of course the outside door handle on the driver's side. That thing's been replaced 6 times! Mainly because my step-mom has a bad habit of yanking on door handles. It's still going strong but he decided he was ready to get rid of it. When my daughter found out, she asked if she could buy it for her first car. Yes, I'm making her buy her own car! She's only 12, but has been saving allowance and gift money for a few years so we discussed it with him and he agreed. It's a 1996 Black base Beretta. It has some normal wear and tear issues consistant for an 18-year old car with 240k miles on it. The headlights are fogged and yellowed pretty badly. One of them is broken from a recent impact with a deer. It wasn't serious, but it did dent the hood a little and wrinkle the passenger fender some. There are a few rust spots in places. The spring on the drivers door is busted and makes a loud "popping" sound when opened and closed. The interior is worn pretty badly in places and expectedly dirty. The headliner is about to fall, and the sun visors look like they are about to fall apart. But my daughter had saved a good chunk of money and only had to pay $500 for the car. So she's spending the rest of her car money fixing things, with my help.
She's decided to try to make it a Z26 cause she likes the look of them. We've already replaced the shocks and struts. The replacement headlights are on the way. (I saw a posting somewhere on here about replacing the factory headlights with BMW headlights, so we're gonna try that.) We've ordered 16" Z26 wheels for it, and already bought the tires to go on them. I've found a few salvage yards where we can get the other parts to make it look like a Z26. And I've found a sign company that can recreate the splash on the side. She wants to keep the splash on the side but I explained that we needed to do some body work and then repaint the car. I also have a few other ideas to update the car, but that stuff will have to wait until she saves some more money.
The only issue we've had so far is we replaced the instrument cluster with one from a Z26. Everything works like it's supposed to except for the tach, the oil pressure gauge, and the air bag light. The tach doesn't work at all. The oil pressure gauge goes as far as it can and stays there. And the air bag light stays on all the time. When we put the old cluster back in, everything works correctly. I figured since this was a place for Beretta enthusiasts, someone here had probably tried to do the same thing. And might know how to make it work. Any advice about this problem or any other you think might come up would be greatly appreciated.
I will try to keep this thread updated so everyone can see the progress.