Beretta.net

A few weeks ago I was on autotrader. I browse it pretty much everyday, I normally don't look if theres no pictures, but I said, eh, it's a 94 Z26, lets just take a peek. I found, 4cyl, and manual, and imedietly started to drool. I gave the dealer a call to confirm it, and it indeed IS a black rose metallic 94' Quad 4 Z26! I had him put some photos up on the website. They had to wait on the title, about 2 weeks, I was the first person on the sales guys list, all though he says many people had expressed intrest. I wonder if anyone on here has. Probably, but thats besides the point. My dad and I took a trip from Scranton PA to Chambersburg PA. (about 160 mi.) starting on wednesday. My uncle lives 5 mi. away from the dealer, so we spent the night. On wednesday, we seen it in person for the 1st time. I completly picked it apart in front of one of the sales guys. We test drove it, spent the night, and they brought it to the garage they service all of their inventory at Thursday morning, just happend to be directly across the street from my uncles house. Conveinent HUH! Got it up on the lift, and all together we found...

BODY
One of the cleanest northeast underbodys I've ever seen. Solid rockers, pretty much rust free!
Cracked upper filler, a bit of fading paint on front bumper and hood.
The rubber whether strip inside the drivers door IS COMPLETLY GONE.
All ground effects are intact, and very nice.
Drivers side door handle does not fit flush to the door.
Has 1 fog light out. ALL SIDE MARKERS WORK!
There is a pool of water in the trunk, where the donut is. ? I completly forgot to suck it out, the day was a bit hectic to say the least.
Thats pretty much it for the body. Overall it's SUPER CLEAN!
Read on...

Interior
All the seats are good, one small rip in the drivers seat, barley any crushing.
Dash is a lil' bit bubbly, it's sort of even though, weird. The metal peice by the windsheild is loose. It's also crazy dusty, probably bout' an 8th inch of dust. LOL
The rubber around the E brake is gone.
Visors are bent, and the strap things are pinned to it.
The wiring for the map lights is gone, and the pass. side one is missing the plastic cover.
Has pioneer speakers up front, and sonys in back. I have no idea if they work, cause there is no damn deck in it!
Also has aftermarket pedals/covers, whatever.
But once again, quite clean.

fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!!!!!! DUDE major find right there!! Do it!!

Now for the oily... I mean juicy part.
Engine/trans/suspension
On the test drive we noticed a loud ass rattle coming from the front passenger side at low revs/speeds. It goes away at higher speeds. But is really bad on downshifts. Belived to be a bad motor mount. Any feedback, please feel free.
It runs and shifts extremly strong, but then again this is our first ever experience with a Quad 4.
The clutch seems to be good.
When we got it up in the air, we noticed, pretty much evrything on the bottom of the engine is coated in a thick coat of oil. I'm not a mechanic. Also the oil does not appear to have been changed in years. NASTY!
The mechanic says, he think its the valve cover gasket.
Under further examination under the hood, ALL of the A/C parts have been removed, bypassed some how, looked kinda ghetto to all of us.
The mechanic says the head looks good, so thats not the source of the leak/leaks.
The rear shocks are rusted really bad, the shocks themselves are not rusted, nor the mount/mountng area. The drivers side was leaking a bit. The front end seems really good.
The exaust DOES NOT FIT PROPERLY. It looks like the intermedite pipe is too short, therefore causing the muffler to sit too far under, and does not match the hanger. Also no tailpipe, just muffler. The mechanic says these exausts have to float? Just looks like any other sagging Beretta exaust to me.

Overall, this vehicle needs inspection at the end of april, so there is no deal yet. It is sitting at the shop, waiting on an estimate for exaust and rear shocks. We need it to be able to handle the 160+/- mi. trip home.
We will be getting a call sometime next week when this work is done.
Any feedback/advice is STRONGLY ENCOURAGED!
Thanks all.

Also If anyone knows whos car this was, or maybe your just here browsing, please let me know. I know the person traded it on a Sentra SER spec V. I need to know what is done to this car, the mechanic admits he does not know much about Quad 4's, and I don't either. I'm going to call around locally to see if any one has experience with these around here. And incase anyone is wondering it has just under 143k on it.

Thanks for messin' up my groove there man.LOL. I had it all in order!

Wanako wrote:fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!!!!!! DUDE major find right there!! Do it!!

There is not a "valve cover" on a Quad. Anywhere.

There ARE cam towers and cam tower covers. These have a tendency to leak on Quads due to the bolts being over tightened and stripping out allowing the covers to come loose or the housing to come loose and leak oil. The other common place to look is the timing cover. My Quasar had a pretty decent oil leak when I got it. I hunted it down to the timing cover and a poorly installed outer timing cover. Was easy to fix once pinpointed. My car leaks not a drop now.

The rattle coming from the right side is likely a timing shoe or "guide". Or a loose/stretched timing chain. It's self oiling in Quads, and if your oil leak is coming from the TC cover area as I suspect , then this would also be why you hear the rattle at low speed. Not getting enough oil at low speed, and under heavy throttle (obviously) alot more oil is spewing through the TC area.

A bad motor mount generally won't "rattle". It will "clunk" and only on shifts or kicking the motor in the ass. In other words on a down shift, you'd get a single loud clunk, not a consistent rattle.

How many miles? IF it's around 100k, it's definitely time for a timing chain, and I'd HIGHLY recommend a head gasket job. Felpro.

How much they asking?

Nice car. I hope you get it.

Thanks SGR. Has fairly high mileage, 143k on it. The body don't really show it, but this damn quad 4 looks like it's been beat pretty hard. It's kind of a grinding sound yeah, not the trans tho. $2495 AS-IS! Not gonna happen, going to be working something out, not sure yet. Certainly not payin' $2495 for it. Maybe if all the issues were corrected. This is an on going prosess, and we are in negotiation mode, will be updating regularly.

Passenger side and a grinding noise combined with a massive oil leak. Yup, I'd say TC cover is leaking and it's in need of a TC chain job. '90-'92's have an "oil slinger" inside the timing cover. I don't think the '94's have this. But still.

At 145k, it's WAY overdue for a chain, guides, and a headgasket job.

As to the price. No way in hell. From your description, imho, clean body or not, $1500 would be pushing it.

Rattle can also mean there is not enough oil pressure on the timing chain tensioner that is operated by.. oil pressure. No wonder if the oil & filters are years old?

Anyhow with some mechanical knowledge, spend a weekend swapping in new chain and gasket kit, maybe headgasket too and add studs there. Then also replace the oil pump just in case. You should be good to go after that if there is no damage.

if you dont buy it, let me know where its at, i will!

If you have a "grinding" noise while its running, that could be the AC compressor bearing being bad making that noise. Car looks good! Mine does too, I hope you have better luck getting it running straight than i do.

you sure its the engine? you sound uncertain about this, does it do it when its just sitting there idling? could be a number of things, why do people jump right to the worst of idea's, as far as the headgasket, unless you know exactly what your doing, your looking at spending minimal of $500 to get that done, probably upwards of $1,000, so if it was me, i would just run it untill it goes, whats to say the engine wasnt rebuilt 20,000 miles ago?