K-cars
 

I know that one day another panel welded in is just not going to be enough to keep my Geo Tracker on the road and I am slowly starting to look into other options. I need a good car I can put a phone into that's not a luxury sedan.
I've been looking at K-cars now for a few months to see which models are still relatively available or are the least painful to keep in service. Granted, they are all now at least 30 years old.
What I really need though is some owner feedback. I know some of you farts are old enough to of seen Sputnik make it into space so I am assuming there are a few people who had one. How good were they? What were the known issues? What kind of fuel economy was normal for them? Were there any later models that still featured a manual transmission?

K-cars were cheaply made, bottom of the line cars which were usually bought by either people who were disinterested in cars and bought on price alone, or diehard Chrysler fanatics.

It would be kind of cool to have one now, just because there's so few survivors, and they were once so common.

I've seen some manual transmission models, if you're looking now try and find one which isn't rusty above all else, the mechanical stuff is much easier to fix than the body, and these rusted quite fast

Try to look for a GM "X" car, Chev Citation or the Pontiac, Buick or Olds offerings and see what real junk was all about. How about a Chevy Vega!
The Chevette was almost a good car. Some almost lasted 100K miles.
Buyers of that junk had to be real GM fanatics. Many of those are now driving Japanese or Korean makes.

I'm actually at the point now where I wouldn't mind buying a Yugo if all the ones I see for sale are "collectors" cars with laughable prices. Come one man, driving an east bloc car around Canada for a summer sounds fun.

There's actually an '89 Dodge Aries not too far away from me right now that just its price slashed from $1500 to $950. Miiiighty tempting. :scratch2:
https://vancouver.craigslist.ca/van/...478855677.html

There's a 40,000-mile Chevette Diesel down here on CL from time to time that's going for $5000. Pretty clean, too.

Not sure I understand the attraction of K-cars, X-cars or Vegas. Because I've driven them when new. They cannot have improved.

Another Suzuki/Tracker? They're pretty cheap.

Up there, I'd go for a Volvo Cross-Country wagon if you want comfy, snow-worthy, and no rust. Kinda picky to take care of, but heated seats are worth the effort.
So you have an installed car phone? Does Rogers still have AMPS/NAMPS? If so, have I got a deal for you!

Western Canada is weird. We barely use any salt.
We got a lot of kids here now that spend a few weeks in the fields and come home to all sorts of toys and the trailers to transport said toys behind their massive goddamn trucks. Little 4x4's like the tracker and Samurai are often $4k-$6000 for the 4x4 models and the much cheaper 2WD models are starting to get pretty rare as people strip them for parts.

Also no I don't have an AMPS car phone, I have the next best thing: this.

Not mine, no relation, etc.
'92 4WD 5-speed, surprisingly un-rusty for around here.
If my driveway wasn't full I'd get it for myself.
You'd have to work out delivery, though.

https://columbus.craigslist.org/cto/...510390321.html

You know why Yugos have heated rear windows, don't you?

First of all... I've never owned an original K car, but I will put forth the following: Lee Iacocca saved Chrysler corp. from ruin with the K cars, so if they were so awful, why did people keep buying them? Many of them are still on the road today. And in response to the no doubt numerous nay-sayers (as there WILL BE many), ANY cars that are made cheap and sold cheap get a bad rep, not necessarily because they're poorly made, but because they're bought by poor people, who don't maintain them properly, because they're poor!

I do however own a 93 Chrysler Lebaron convertible. It's what you'd call an EEK (Every Extended K car). I love that little car, it's a lot of fun. Though it's not a good example of reliability, because - who'd've guessed? - it was previously owned by poor people who abused it. But once I got past its initial problems, it never fails to serve me. Hell, I leave it alone outside for the whole winter, and it'll start right up in the spring without a jump. I have done a lot of work to it, and the great thing is that it's easy as pie to work on those cars. Tons of room in the engine bay, above AND below. Tiny little K frame ftw. Also, linkless sway bar, among many other neat little innovations.

That being said, any one of them you buy is going to be 20+ years old, you should set your sights a little newer, methinks. I like old cars as much as the next guy, but unless you're planning on restoring the car you get, newer would be better.


Lastly, on Yugos. I once saw an absolutely MINT Yugo going down the road and I had to pull up and tell the owner how neat that was. He and his passenger said it was a barn find, etc, etc, I told them, "Nice Yugo, and I see you brought a friend to help you push!"

:P

Try getting a GEO Metro. The three-cylinder is torquey and gets phenomenal fuel economy. Fairly roomy too! My brother's was very nice.

No kidding, they would do anything short of deliberately wrecking them. I've gotten flack for my interest in the Mercury Lynx (not to mention the slightly plainer-looking Ford Escort) but our '84 Lynx served us very well in spite of previous owners beating the tar out of it. Aside from the usual rusty exhaust system it came with a lot of Bondo on the driver's side quarter panel, an oil pan leak, a non-functioning parking brake, a busted half-shaft and a 4-speed that was VERY difficult to get into reverse. That was in 1992, and I've seen older ones in far better shape since then.

I used to drive a 1987 Dodge Lancer ES. The only persistent mechanical problems it had was a transmission that often had trouble upshifting and trouble engaging at all in cold weather and a mysterious knock in the front end. Other than that the worst problems were a blown head gasket and a broken timing belt. All problems aside, it held up very well underneath in spite of all the salt used when Fail Town still had a real winter and the coldest weather never prevented it from starting, it just cranked slowly.

It had the optional 2.5 which was rather noisy, one time someone asked me if it was a diesel.

The later ones with fuel injection were really solid cars, that Aries OP linked above is a good example. They were simple, parts are still easy to come by and they are easy to wrench on. The 2.2 is a little underpowered, but the 2.5 will move it along pretty well.

The higher end models with Turbo are going to be more complicated, and try to avoid the earlier carbureted models. In addition to Reliant and Aries, you might want to search for Sundance and Shadow, or even better, a 4 cyl Acclaim or Spirit.

I recall peeling factory paint, creaky doors, misaligned instrument clusters, stuffy and uncomfortable seats.. And by the late 1980s terribly outdated styling. Shift points in the 3 speed auto chosen to make driving as bland as possible.. They did really sell a lot of them so there must be something to it, and I've had at least one friend who absolutely swears by them, he's had three or four. Not my cup of tea, but they do have fans.

I think some of the last run K car descendants just before the Neon were available with a small Mitsubishi 6 cyl, which was a little more fun to drive, and fairly reliable.

Wasn't there a front wheel drive new yorker based on the K car chassis too? Those were a bit nicer than the usual K's.

We had a 1990 Dynasty which was an upscale K-car and it had a Mitsubishi V6 motor and it was an awesome car that got fantastic gas mileage. We bought it used and kept it a few years with very few problems. My one daughter bought an Aries with a 2.2 litre motor and we did have a lot of trouble with that one.

Gregb

K-cars are easy to work on, and easy to get parts for. I just sold my 1985 Plymouth Voyager, which was technically a K-car. It had a 1985 Daytona turbo engine swapped in. It was a fun little ride.

I never had any real trouble with it. We also had a non-turbo 2.2 charger with the 5-speed. Never really had any trouble with it either.

I say, if you find one cheap enough, and it's been decently maintained, go for it.

I can say DON'T get a geo metro though. I had a 4-door one, and I had 4 people in it. I got hit broadside by a chick on a cell phone who ran a red light. All 4 of us ended up in the hospital. That car offered NO protection. Sure, they get phenomenal mileage, because they are a 3-cylinder-powered soda can.

Rust will be the biggest concern. Rocker, floorboards, torsion bar. These cars are really vintage now!

I always look for a K-Car, I like to see the survivors show up on CL. And here in
Rustville, NY CL has about 10 a year that show up. Most are garaged, owned by
some "Little old lady" who recently passed away. They sell from anywhere from $600.
to about $2k. And they look Great! I wanna replace my old '86 Prelude this year, and
I might just get a K! I just had to re-weld my muffler as they don't make them anymore.
Rust is beginning to catch up with what I'm willing to do, and the wife wants a bigger
spare car, which is what we use it for mostly.


I agree with Mad Man, a lot of really great older cars are owned by people who buy
them in reasonable shape and then "run them into the ground" My wife's '91 Accord
has over 450K and runs great, I plan on keeping it forever, It was a very well designed
car, easy to keep up. But most around town look like wrecks because they are bought
now, by poor people who don't intend to do anything to them, but run them till
they explode.

I think a lot of people who bought the cheaper cars don't maintain them properly.
They don't have the money, or pay much attention to it. Add oil when the light
comes on, but don't think it's important to check it often if the light already
came on once.....

I got an 88 Dakota, and it has a computer, and digital radio, and like he said, you can
park it all winter and it'll start up in the summer without a jump. I always look up
my Dakota online to see what shows up on CL, or G to see what's new in the index.
Some stuff written about my D as being designed by an outside company, and with
the most use of galvanized steel because of the Chrysler 7/70 no rust through warranty.
Remember that? Well a lot of the old '88 D's I see for sale are really NOT as rusty as
some 10 year old C's D's and F's that were $50K New. There are a number of K cars
running around here and they are also not rusty, and I talk to the owners, they
love them.

I say more power to ya- Get a K-car ! I want one too......

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I see decent looking examples for sale all the time in the $800-1200 range; there is a later model Aries that I drive by all the time with a sign in the window. If I were in the market for a cheap commuter car it would be tempting.

I have some friends, in their 80's, who've used a Reliant wagon as their daily driver for about 25 years. Most I've known were owned by older folks & garage/carport kept. They were designed from the start to be a small car for people who were used to bigger cars: an engine that concentrated more on torque than hp, conservative styling, nothing flashy.

The other day I spotted a decent Daytona on the road. Now, there was a car that usually got beat to death! Like any used car, take the time to buy the nicest example your budget will allow. I'd try hard to find one that was fuel injected if at all possible. A manual, outside of Daytona's or maybe some of the convertibles, would be a tough find.

My last K-car story for right now: had this customer, a little blue-haired old lady, with a very early Reliant ('81 I think). I remember the radio looked just like the factory Mopar units but was labeled not "Chrysler" but "Motorola". (Maybe Moto built the factory units & offered a version for dealer installation?) Anyway, she brought it in because her back-up lights stopped working. I found a bad switch which, as far as I could tell, also served as the neutral safety switch. I explained how it was a good thing that one half of the unit had failed & not the other, because it could have left her stranded. Instead of making her feel blessed I guess it scared her because the next week I saw her driving in a newer car!

The New Yorker, Imperial, and Dodge Dynasty (my buddy has one that was beat to hell but it still works). His has the 3.3L, like from the vans. Decent motor, very simple. Those cars look miniscule on the outside, but are actually fairly comfortable inside. And the upper end New Yorkers and all the Imperials are nicely appointed.

Also, yes, sadly, clearcoat delamination was a problem for those years. Fortunately, the actual paint under it rarely comes off, so it just makes the cars ugly, not rusty.

I have the same V6 in my 'baron. Mitsubishi used it for a long time, then continued using variations of it for even longer. They licensed it to Chrysler in... I think 89, as Chrysler had no V6 in its arsenal at the time, and the Caravan really needed one. Chrysler used it all the way up till 96 or 98. It's a pretty sound motor, maybe not that powerful, but if you compare it to other cars at the time, 150 hp was not too shabby. And it has the very desirable attribute that its torque curve is as flat as a table. And the intake is as flat as a table too! So you can put your tools there while you work on it! They do have a tendency to burn oil, but replacing valve stem seals on it is actually pretty easy, and it's done.

lol soda can. Hopefully all 4 of you turned out ok. But yeah, it's a tradeoff. You want safety you pay more for gas. Me? I wouldn't drive a 90s Toyota Corolla on the highway if you paid me. I know inside and out how those cars are built, like you say, a soda can.

Chrysler actually has a tighter tolerance on ignition off draw, they spec max 30mA, and every other maker specs max 50 mA, so I imagine that's why.

Agreed. Carbuerators suck. The only argument in favor of them is 'oh but you can make the car run better just by turning a screw!' Or, you know, you could let a computer do that for you, in realtime. As for the stick shifts, they were quite common in the day, I've seen many examples in the junk yards, but that's just it, the manual ones get junked first. Very few are left.

Fortunately both automatic transmissions, the 3 and 4 speeds, are pretty hearty little things (despite what people may say). And very easy to work on. The 3 speeds have a tendency for the governor to stick, giving you only 2nd and 3rd in forward, but you can, you know, fix that. The 4 speed A604 which you find on the later EEKs, people will have you believe are awful. The exact opposite is true. They are a shining example of simplicity AND electronic automation. They have NO bands at all, the solenoids come in a convenient small pack, the computer can actually detect how much of your clutches are left (something I've yet to see even the most expensive and modern cars do), and the only reason people think they're bad is because people used to change the trans fluid out for Dexron II (which was the prevalent fluid at the time), which disagrees with the clutches. Fortunately, you can't even buy Dexron II anymore, so you'd be hard pressed to make that mistake as pretty much any trans fluid you can buy now will agree with it.

I ordered the 83 Reliant SW my folks bought. I was leery of the 2.6 Mitsubishi motor and opted for the 2.2 Chrysler 4-banger. Did not like the mileage penalty and idea of an automatic hooked to a 4 cylinder, so the 4-speed transaxle made it seem almost peppy as it pulled real good from a stop.
The heavy duty radiator, alternator and suspension were ordered though A/C was passed on, again due to doubts the 4-cylinder could handle it. It was traded on an 88 Voyager, so there are no memories of trouble as it may have had only 75K on it.

In my opinion, MoPar punted on most of their cars in the late-1970s and the K-cars renewed demand for this reason. The electrical systems were not as water-tight and the increasing pollution controlled and carbureted 225 slant-six was unreliable as a result. The 2.2 L4 was almost as driveable at that point.

Much as I didn't like them when they were plentiful, this one locally looks pretty nice, that wagon would be great for hauling TVs


Please view this ad:

1986 plymouth Reliant K ,
https://www.kijiji.ca/v-cars-trucks/...nt=app_android

Price: $#2,300

Download the application from the Google Play Store.
http://goo.gl/Hs9Yg

I wouldn't believe their 33 mpg estimate, these were only rated at 21/22 combined mpg.

The ad has also been viewed by more than 650 people. If that many looked at a listing specifically for a Reliant, and all of them decided against buying it, that should tell you something.

.

My '92 Dodge Dynasty with the 3.3 CID V6 got upper 20's on the HY with AT and AC using the cruise control. I was surprised that the 6 was that quick, compared to the other 6's I owned. The car weighed 3008 lbs.

I had a tech who worked with me back in the early 90's who had a nice little Chrysler LeBaron coupe, late 80's model. It was dark blue with tinted windows, and I always thought it was a sharp looking car. It served him well until it got close to 100k miles, and then went south in a hurry. I remember he replaced a bunch of front end parts, followed by a transmission rebuild and a head gasket. He wanted rid of it when it was about 8 or 9 years old, and despite it's looking like new, he liked to never have sold it.....nobody wanted it.

I remember my father trying to talk mom into buying a Dodge Dynasty when he bought a new Dodge Dakota pickup in 1990. She wouldn't hear of it, and readily admitted that while she knew very little about cars, she knew better than to buy a Chrysler product. The little Dakota pickup dad bought went on to serve him well, racking up well over 100k trouble-free miles by the time he passed away in 2001. Mom hung onto her old Monte Carlo for several more years before buying a Lincoln.

It tells me that nobody wants to buy an old ass Reliant. Big surprise.

Alberta country, yo.
Why spend your hard earned rig drilling bucks on some junky 80's K-wagon when the Edmonton dealership can sell you a 2018 Dodge Ram pickup that can seat 12 and is equipped to drive across arctic tundra? :scratch2:

I've had a better offer come up it seems. Why kiss goodbye to the sleek body and tin can interior of a Geo Tracker when you can get another one for only $1000? It will seat four, get 22MPG and fit two laserdisc autochangers with room (for the driver) to spare.

She probably heard some of her so-called friends bad-mouthing Mopars.
The Chev M/C was a larger rear wheel drive car which could've had a V-8. The earlier models were super-fugly. I gave them a different name after many of the people that bought them. There seemed to be five on each block in a particular neighborhood. :D

I think that the seller is confusing rarity with value, if it was half that price I'm sure it would sell. It is kind of neat to see one still on the road.

Yup, one will find fanboys/fangirls of a particular make anywhere who will disparage just about everything else. If I'm looking for pictures of a particular car and stumble on a junkyard find from "The Truth About Cars" I'll usually skip it. I don't know if I've ever seen the writer say anything good about the cars he finds.

I have no idea what a Chev "M/C" is but it sounds like they were almost as popular as Hondas are today.

Monte Carlo....

Her Monte Carlo was a '77 with a V8. It was a big, ugly, and (despite the V8) slow car that got terrible gas mileage. I never liked it, but she drove it until 1991, ran up over 100k miles, and never had any problems other than regular maintenance.

I see. Well, the 1970-72 Monte Carlos are nice but the 1973-75 models are just nasty. Little wonder a brand new one was deliberately wrecked in Street People. The 1976-77 models were a slight improvement and seems GM decided to wash most of the mud off the name for 1978.

The colonnade-body GMs are at best rather "blah" to me. I'm not ragging on GM though, I'll admit that Ford and Chrysler also made plenty of oversized, underpowered and unattractive cars in the 70s. I am rather puzzled though as to why Khan - or Mr. Roarke - or Ricardo Montalban if one wants to be formal, was willing to plug cars for a company that was doing so badly before Lee Iacocca stepped in.

That little red K-Wagon is really nice looking ! That is the same price the good looking
ones sell for here. And it's got the cloth seats ! Very cool !

I would believe that gas mileage. My 88 Dakota 3.9 v6 long bed 2WD can get 26
highway @ 55-60 It has a OD Automatic.

My parents '79 Colony Park (LTD) wagon with 302 and vacuum run VV 2700 Carb
engine and 3 speed also got 26 pretty solid on the highway 55-60.

MPG pretty much depends on how you treat the car. Gunna be the first from
one red light to the next, well then yer gunna get single diget mpg.

That is a nice wagon, same thoughts I had with the wagon, good for tv's
Hope you get it, I would love to see more pictures !


.

Hehehe lol! Mopar or no car.

Eh, the big American cars in the 70s were strangled with emissions junk that they really didn't have the tech to compensate for. Ironically, those emissions standards that were trying to help the air quality basically necessitated burning WAY more gas, which I'd imagine would pollute even more. That's also where the notion that foreign cars are better on gas comes from. Because the only foreign cars you could buy at the time were miniscule Civics and Beetles, when all the Americans were land yachts.

You talk about Chrysler doing badly, look what happened to GM a few years back. Same thing! Government bailout! Lee Iacocca had to pay back the loan way early, as he didn't like owing THEM money.
I bought a 1982 Dodge Ramcharger, even though the company future didn't look that bright. I drove it for 13 years. The only real expense was a timing chain at 91K miles. A 318, the best small-block engine in the business.

Well, my first car was a '73 Mustang, AKA Rustang. And yes it was a kinda not that
great a car compared to later models..... And the thing I hated most was that if you
didn't see it, they didn't paint it. And the frame rails seemed to rust from the inside
out Also galvanized outside, but rusted inside....

I also hated the 9mpg it got, 12hwy. I put a VV carb on it and got mpg up to 17, and
21 hwy. I was impressed, and again 55-60 mph, not racing it. So the engines as built
were capable of some economy. It was really something, the tail pipe ash went
from black, to light grey almost white ash with the VV well tuned. Spark plugs
never got dirty...... really freaky..... 351C engine, FMX Auto Trans.

I really can't complain about the service I got out of it for the 140K miles it lasted,
and I had fun with it too....

I see at car shows that the old cars are capable of running really well, and good fit
and finish when restored. They were what they were.

If I had to pay $20K or more for a car, I have thought about this a lot, I think I would
put it into a '73 mustang, or a 78 TA. I see reasonable looking ones on ebay all the time.
I read about how people hate the functionality of new cars, and I hate the idea of all
those electronic dashes, knobless radios.

It's the overall experience. And the "Start" button really bugs me.....


Lee Iacoca was a good guy, a car guy, and did a lot to get the company back on track.
I remember reading that the K-cars were the lengh they were so one more row would
fit on the train cars that carried them to market. Kinda like the gimmick they had for
the Chevy Vega, they packed them on standing on their nose.

Growing up my parents had a 70 Coronet 225 six station wagon. Dad had a 74 Dart
with a 318 I took my driving test on. They were cool and very tough cars. The Coronet
was our pickup truck. And as kids we rode in the cargo area and lived !


.

I like the start button concept on the new cars. The only thing is, I keep forgetting to take the keys out of my pocket when driving my Dakota pickup or my Jeep Wrangler.
My Prius has the start button and the engine first starts about 10 seconds after it's put in drive or reverse.

I wasn't ragging on Chrysler either. In fact I find it hard to understand why they were doing so badly in the 70s considering their offerings during the smog era were the best of the big three in my opinion. That isn't saying much, but still. Even their least visually appealing models from back then aren't that bad. Putting the Charger name on a full-size seemed kind of weird though.

Too bad Chrysler was unable to make 2-door and wagon versions of the R-platform cars, which might have done better had they been introduced a few years later. The 1979 New Yorker Fifth Avenue at least with a 360 and dual exhaust came without cats up here which must have been some help at least.

I'm aware of GM's problems from a few years back but I don't hear as much about that. Besides, I was speaking of smog-era vehicles, not those whose biggest advantage is that when they're used up their owners can step on them and return them for a refund.

Chryslers problem at the time was poor planning! The wrong product at the wrong time. Lee Iacocca stated that in his book.
When the other US manufactures were started building small cars to compete with the imports, they were still building the old product line.

Many of Chrysler's problems when Iacocca came on the scene were mismanagement and not necessarily the products. Over-dependence on rentals, excessive production capacity, over-dependence on the RV industry, as someone else said "poor planning". I've had 70's Chrysler products that were pretty good compared to some of the garbage coming out of Detroit back then.

That's not to say they didn't have their fair share of lemons (e.g. Volare/Aspen). I know people who bought those and that didn't outrun their payment books before (literally) falling apart.

My Dad was a dedicated Chrysler guy for as long as I can remember and in 1978 he bought a brand new Plymouth Volare wagon. What a huge POS that car was, I have never seen anything that bad. It was the last Chrysler product he ever owned.

Gregb