K-cars

[MadMan]

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

[Jon A.]

Originally Posted by MadMan

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!

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.

Originally Posted by MadMan

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.

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.