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Classic Cars Project Cars--You Get to Vote on "Hold 'em or Fold 'em"
19403 messages, Last post on Dec 03, 2009 at 6:25 AM
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I'm guessing that your K-car was an early pre-fuel injected one (81-'84?). Those carburated ones were awful, in terms of driveability. Fuel injection fixed the stalling and related problems, but I agree that the GM X-cars drove, rode and steered better than the Chrysler K-Cars. As long as we're talking about Detroit disasters, we shouldn't forget the Ford twins, Tempo and Topaz. These were introduced in the '84 model year, so ford had some time to do a better job than GM and Chrysler, but I'm not sure where these ranked compared with their GM and Chrysler counterparts. Does anyone have an opinion on this?
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Replying to: hpmctorque (Dec 27, 2008 9:05 pm) |
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You're right that the K car was an early one... and yes, I suppose the later ones were better. But oh my goodness.... that was a bad car. When I was a kid the family owned a 68 Plymouth Valiant with the 225 slant six.... It wasn't any paragon of advanced engineering but it was a solid little tugboat that ran forever without a problem. The K car seemed an insult to that memory. An aging accountant I knew owned a Tempo. It wasn't a bad car to drive, although it was truely an accountant's car. Boring and bland and plain to look at. It was a good thing that she bought the extended warranty.... I think that Ford ultimately lost money on that whole deal by the time they finished repairing everything that broke. I don't recall the details of the problems, but there were plenty of them, I believe. By that time I was on my second Acura Integra... which seemed light-years better than any of the American competition. |
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Yeah, the K-cars didn't hold a candle to the earlier Slant Six powered compacts. Although my family owned a Valiant, which exhibited the attributes you mentioned, we missed the bullet on the K-cars. My acquaintance with the K-car is from a family friend, who owned three of them, a carburated '81 or '82, which was really bad, in large part because of the carburater; a '85, which was much better than the first one; an '88 "Spirit-of-America", which was a little better than the '85. Our family friend, whose previous car was - you guessed it - a Slant Six equipped Dart, managed to get 100,000 miles from his first K-car, then the tranny went. The '85 and '88 each went >150,000 miles, so they must have been decent for cheap wheels. Of course, no K-car could even come close to the Integra, in terms of quality, engineering, reliability, durability, ride and handling, and so on. One redeeming attribute of the K-car was price. Our friend paid less than $10,000 for his '88, and less for the earlier ones. |
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Replying to: uplanderguy (Dec 27, 2008 12:01 pm) The '72 Impala is my favorite, of the '71-76 generation. I may just be biased, because my grandparents had a forest green hardtop sedan when I was a kid, that I absolutely loved, but overall I think it's just a clean, smooth, nicely styled car. I like the front-end with the low grille, that gives it a sporty look for such a big car. The '71 was good looking too, but I just like the '72 grille better. IIRC, for 1974, they changed the roofline of the Impala hardtop coupe. It still had a formal C-pillar, but just seemed a bit awkward. Plus, the rear window was no longer concave. The Caprice coupe that year went to stationary rear windows that were a bit narrow, and gave the car a mis-matched beltline. I can't remember if the Impala also got that style in '74, but for '75-76 I think the hardtop coupe was retired entirely from the Impala/Caprice line. As for build quality, the '65-70 models were definitely more substantial than the '71-76! I agree about the interiors, too. I really didn't like it when they went to the door panels where the lower parts were plastic. It wasn't too bad in the more upscale models, where they'd glue carpeting on there (it wouldn't always stay glued on, though)
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my stepdad had a 1984 Tempo 2-door. It always seemed like a cheap piece of crap, but it did manage to make it to around 160,000 miles on the original drivetrain...mostly highway driving. I know it had some problems along the way, but can't remember now what all it needed. I think the two biggest problems with the car were performance and fuel economy. This thing was dog-slow. I drove it once. My 1980 Malibu coupe, not exactly a powerhouse with its 115 hp 229 V-6, felt like a musclecar in comparison! I have a 1985 Consumer Guide that timed a Topaz from 0-60 in 15.9 seconds. For comparison, they had a Plymouth Reliant that managed it in about 13.5, a Toyota Camry that did it in about 13.4, and a Honda Accord that was around 11.6...all of them automatics. They didn't show a 0-60 time for the Cavalier they tested, but rated it a "3", which would have put it similar to the Camry and Reliant, most likely. The Accord had been rated a "4", and the Topaz got a "2" in that category. As for fuel economy, I think my stepdad could get around 20 mpg around town in that Tempo, but on the highway it would only do around 25-27 or so. It would take an act of God to have gotten 30 mpg out of that car! Now part of the problem was that it only had a 3-speed automatic, rather than a 4-speed. And the 4-cyl they used was basically an old Falcon inline-6 with two cylinders removed, so it was probably heavy and inefficient compared to more modern 4-cyls. And I think it had a 2-bbl carb, instead of fuel injection. I'm sure the later Tempos were better once they got fuel injected. And I'd imagine that eventually, a 4-speed automatic found its way onto the option list. I think the Tempo and especially the Topaz sedans looked kind of attractive around 1988, when they got a refreshening. The coupes never looked good, IMO though. |
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Replying to: andre1969 (Dec 28, 2008 8:13 am) In '74, the Sport Coupe got a squared-off quarter window and a flat rear window. We had one. My Dad wanted four windows that rolled down, and the Custom Coupe (and Caprice Coupe) had that roofline with the enormous, thick B pillar and quarter windows that did not roll down. They still had the concave rear window however. The '75 was the last year for the Impala Sport Coupe. I've often thought it would have been nice to have ordered one of these fully-loaded, with the brown herringbone 50/50 seats, power windows and the like. I prefer the '74 and '75 Sport Coupe roofline to the '71-'73. I also did not like at all, the '74-76 LeSabre, Catalina, and Delta 88 two-door rooflines....a door window, a small roll-down quarter window, and a goofy third window near the rear window! Bill |
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"... I'd imagine that eventually, a 4-speed automatic found its way onto the option list." The Tempo/Topaz stayed with the 3-speed automatic as the only automatic until they were retired. Circling back to our family friend's '85 and '88 K-cars, I now recall that one of them blew a head gasket at ~145,000. He repaired it himself, for not much money but a lot of labor, and drove it at least another 10,000 miles. Then he sold it for a few hundred dollars. The A/C went out on the other one at around 150,000, but the drivetrain lasted until ~170,000, at which point he sold the car, for next to nothing. These K-cars delivered low cost-per-mile transportation, but our friend is very handy with a wrench. |
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Replying to: hpmctorque (Dec 27, 2008 9:05 pm)
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| Nice late local fintail...owner has sunk a fortune into it, apparently...and he won't get it back. I can only wish my engine was that clean. Maybe with the dollar losing steam vs the Euro again, it will go back to Germany. | |
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