I've been lurking a while but my husband was driving through the neighborhood when some crazy person blew a yield sign doing upwards of 60mph in a 25, hit the front end of my sonata glancing left, then over correcting back to the right running up the curb and finally ending the chaos in the living room of a poor old soul who had been painting his house with his son all morning. At this point the neighbors were tripping because the man is in his 70s, lives alone and was no where to be found. Turns out he went to lunch with his son, taking a break from painting. I've never been so happy no one was home in all my life. The other driver tried to blame my husband but even I could see, once I rolled up to the scene blocks away from my own house, who was at fault just by the skid marks and position of my car. She hit it so hard that she bent the frame and I was 3 payments away from paying it off. Totaled. Story of my life. Third car in a row, no fault. Pay the 5 dollars for the gap insurance, people.

Once the adjuster came to the conclusion, I had a miraculous moment and found the 2005 roadster cabriolet manual 6 speed at a small luxury car dealer. There it was in very low mileage, near perfect condition, sitting among cars 4 to 10 times the value. A garage baby. Now mine, and I love it more than all the cars totaled in the past combined. (I do miss my park avenue, though)

But as you all are well aware, just being in existence this long, it is in its nickel and dime stage of life. Rubber and plastic. I took it on a road trip to SoCal, coincidentally the same weekend as the great California hurricane of 2023 (oh brother) and she did well, but shredded a tire on the 405 during rush hour, (https://photos.app.goo.gl/VEuAhp4TJbpzaCgNA) and I learned that it doesn't have a spare. The hard way. LOL My insurance has complimentary roadside assistance, so all good there. Towed it back to the outlaws' house and got new ones. We also narrowly missed being involved in the Cook's Corner mass shooting. We drove past it and used to go there often when we lived nearby, but no more than 20-30 minutes after we opted not to stop in, some whacko showed up shooting at random people, firing off many rounds before going to reload and continuing.... Someone was looking out for our braking foot being firmly pressed to the gas.

On the way home back to Vegas, I was getting a low coolant warning, and I'm no dummy. I packed a couple gallons of water for traveling through the wastelands of the Mohave and Mojave deserts.I was just past Baker, so I was abut 45 minutes away from civilization, and it wasn't piddling any liquids that I could see. Topped her off and made it home, no problem. But Later installed a new overflow tank. The spout was cracked. When I put her through the paces of climbing several mountains twice, heat and pressure didn't play nice with the plastic tank.

I also may have a fuel issue on the horizon, as it doesn't always start right up and I often smell gasoline those times, but it's hit and miss, so I'll wait it out to see if the issue progresses and points more definitively to what the problem is. My money is on fuel pump. Otherwise, it's a fun, reliable (so far) car. I have gathered a wealth of info from this forum in the many months I have lurked.

Currently, I am finally getting around to installing the new stereo, amp and door speakers I got for Christmas. I learned the subs are dual voice coiled and am almost to the point of making connections with the amp. Running the wires and power cable were a bear of a task in between running a food truck business. Seems like as soon as I am fully immersed in the sound system task, something comes up of a more pressing matter. Story of my life. I got hubs some new interior items for his truck and installed all of it for him, including making the aftermarket backup cam look stock by buying and modding a bezel similar to but not for his truck and it turned out pretty rad. My plastic welding skills came in handy. Soon as it's my turn, though, nope. LOL

Hot tip: If you drive two of the wheels up the curb, it will lift the entire side, and you don't need a jack. Round here we call it French parking because my father in law, a Frenchman, does it by accident all the time. Usually one tire, though. I did this to run power from the empty buss socket through the bigass fuse I got, to the undercarriage, tucking the cable into the edge flap of the body to the frame, back to the trunk and popped it through. Now I'm ready to run connections. A bit unsure how I want to do it, yet. Dual mono on the bridged channels, and gonna try paralleling the voice coils to see if the lower impedance actually makes the subs AUDIBLE. Anyone try it? I haven't yet taken the interior panels off except only the floor board. Just wondering if I'm gonna need another larger sub.

Anyhow, I'm Amaris. Long-winded. (sorry) Nice to meet ya. *waves*

 

I just fixed the sig so it's not so gigantic.

 

Hello from NJ!

 

G'day Amaris....from Down Under!

Welcome to the forum and the wonderful experience of Crossfire ownership! These cars are so much fun to own and they never ever are boring!

Make sure you have all your fluids and filters changed and attend to any maintenance and repairs promptly. Read the forum extensively and search here for any information you might need. Always carry a spare Crank Angle Position Sensor, a spare RCM (Relay Control Module), and a set of torx bit sockets. Those two items are the most likely culprits for a No Start situation.

You sound like you are falling in love with the car and you show that you have a "can do"attitude, so I think its gonna be a match made in heaven!

Cheers,

Mark

 

Congrats on your purchase of a 2005 Crossfire Roadster and welcome to our Forum!

 

Awesome. Thanks for the warm welcome and all the replies. Good tips from Aus! So I just yesterday I had that not starting up right away thing again. When it's been parked a while, it's starts right up. It likes the cold. Strange little personality, this one. But once I've been out and about, maybe run into a store for 20 minutes or so and go to fire it up again, it cranks fine, but after a few cranks, starts to shake. I'll stop and reset my key, then turn it over again and fires right up. If the top is down especially, I get a whiff of fuel. I suppose it could just be unfired gas from the fuel injection, but find it strange that I can smell it. Living in the desert does awful things to rubber and plastic, though, so I suppose it's not all that weird. Maybe a timing issue?

I was always underfoot when Pop was wrenching on cars, but outgrew the interest when I got to the age that didn't appreciate grease under my nails, whatever age that is. I still don't care for it, but I like saving money more. And in this godforsaken economy, ya pinch every pinchable penny. I keep 'em short these days, anyway. The nails, I mean. It's hard to fiddle with small doodads like screws and the like when sporting claws. Those fine motor skills don't motor finely with obstacles built in, and I'm always working on something. In fact, I'm about half done building a laser cutter/engraver I sourced parts for 3 months ago that have been staring at me as much as any eyeless things can stare at a person. It's a lot, though. But having a food truck, something ALWAYS goes wrong. And foils plans. Always. All the time. Like, ALWAYS. Hopefully the new genny will give is a break for a minute.

Anyhow, Tested the control board on a single axis last night and it isn't running goofyfoot so my programming seems to be good (we'll use "good" for lack of a better word. My programming skills are not good by any stretch of the imagination. Got a big gig today slinging grub at a Shakespear in the park thingy, but afterward with whatever energy I can muster, I will finish putting it together and see if I am a genius or not. LOL I have been antsy to get it done and see what stuff I can destroy with it. I mean make. MAKE.

I love the 3D printers, and have three of them, but sometimes cutting a thing out if it's a viable alternative to achieve the same ends, would be quicker than squirting dinosaur noodles one painfully slow millimeter at a time, a layer at a time, HOURS at a time, ad nauseam. Even with all of them running at once, which the entire reason I have three is my impatience (and I got 2 large capacity workhorses for a bill a piece last year. Building a laser from scratch, though, has me kind of nervous. Once again, it comes down to saving money. Buying one fully assembled, or at least a diy kit partially assembled with crappy instructions with the power and features I snobbishly require (she says having never even USED one, ever. lmao) would have been about triple (++ )my budget. So this will be a fun adventure hoping I didn't blow 250 on failure. But if I pull this off, the air hockey table wants to be a CNC of some kind. It hasn't specified what kind, though. I'll let it keep its secrets for now. haha I think it would be a sexy plasma cutter, but likely a milling machine it will be.

We'll see how much I like this fricken laser first.





And with that, i will spare you any more words. You're welcome. LOL Gonna go grab a nap before work.

 

Amaris,

Cold starts fine - warm starts becoming problematic.....that points to a crank angle sensor starting to go bad. Will leave you stranded eventually for sure, but is an easy fix

Do some research here and see if you may concur.

All the best with the food truck and the 3D printer!