The low temps had caused my drivers door to become a jar. I sprayed it with WD-40, my silicone spray won't spray, so that is another day. It (cold weather) also caused me to need to pull down a little grey arm and zip tie it to a wire bundle. Figured I should also pull the radio and see if I could fix the weak output on the passenger side 75% of the time. No go, still happening, swapped in a second amp, wiggled wires and bypassed the added harness for the dealer installed cd changer, and no go. I did swap in an on/off/volume switch that will turn off, thinking maybe the sweeper or contacts in it might be causing issues. Guess I will look for a teal no clock cassette deck with the p100 connector in the junk yard. There are some NOS and reman'ed ones but at the price point might as well go aftermarket.
Also kept miles off of it by driving my Grand Marquis. Was within 400 miles of an oil change, but decided to let it ride and watch consumption. A little more than I had hoped, but for a 261,000 mile car, not totally unexpected.
259,400 miles on car, 4,700 miles since last oil change. 1 pint down, still can see through the oil:
260,062 miles, 300 miles past normal oil change interval, not as clear, and close to 1 1/2 pints from "full":
261,172 miles, 1300(ish) over 5k oil change. Not clear at all, at add dot. Guess I will change the oil. This covers Christmas eve up to yesterday. Usually car gets ~500 city miles a week. This was 1700 interstate miles, pretty hard miles with me driving. Most people it would be easy miles, but elevation changes (60 feet BELOW sea level to 3200 and back twice) 30-40 mph head and side winds, passing people and an average speed of over 80 mph.
[/QUOTE]