K-cars

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by davet753

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.

I wonder how many owners of Chev Vegas didn't finish paying for their car before an engine failure.
You could imagine those poor souls were making two payments a month, one for the car loan and one for the engine replacement.
GM really never had a decent warranty on their cars. They were always afraid to guarantee their products for more than 2 yrs, 20k miles. If they included a longer warranty on their products, they would've had money problems a lot earlier.

[dishdude]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

I wonder how many owners of Chev Vegas didn't finish paying for their car before an engine failure.
You could imagine those poor souls were making two payments a month, one for the car loan and one for the engine replacement.
GM really never had a decent warranty on their cars. They were always afraid to guarantee their products for more than 2 yrs, 20k miles. If they included a longer warranty on their products, they would've had money problems a lot earlier.

That's just what the warranty was back then, 1 year/12k miles. I think Chrysler was the first to provide a long powertrain warranty in the 80's, think at first it was 5/50

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by dishdude

That's just what the warranty was back then, 1 year/12k miles. I think Chrysler was the first to provide a long powertrain warranty in the 80's, think at first it was 5/50

My '64 Valiant had a 5/50 warrantee on it. Chrysler first started it for the 1962 model and kept it until the 1971 model year, then going back to 1 year, 12k miles. My '82 Dodge Ramcharger had a 5/50 Warrantee. I don't remember when they resumed the warrantee coverage.