In defense of the Chevrolet Vega

Actually it's the other way around, AMC purchased GM 4-cylinder engines in the early 1980s to install in Spirit and Eagle models. A friend of mine had an Eagle Kammback (basically a 4WD Gremlin) with one of those. AMC finally came out with their own 4-cylinder mill around 1984.

I had one of those rabbits. It was a good car except for that valve stem seals. Very easy to service and it didn't drip oil or grind gears when shifting into second or break timing belts like every single one of my Fiats did.

The recommended repair procedure for fixing a bad catalytic converter was to take the housing off and stick a broom handle onto the honeycomb ceramic element and whacking it with a hammer, then dumping out the shattered fragments and reinstalling the housing. Now that's my kind of car fixin'!

Wasn't "free" for many owners. There was no recall until a big stink was raised. Too late for many. A workmate bought a new '76 and was always bitching about it. Excellent gas mileage though.

--Vic

My roommate had a 76 Capri (import from ???) and it caught fire and burned up while he was driving it. It's risky making too much of single anecdotes.

Chrysler Windsor, 1991

I had an 80 Plymouth Fury and it was one of the best cars I've had except for the carb-ign developed some impossible to fix problem at around 100K.

Probably still passed emissions afterwards, too. Had a Scirocco whose cat self-destructed (on a long road trip, I heard the exhaust get quieter, then all of a sudden glowing chunks flew out the tailpipe and it returned to its normal tone) and it still passed the sniffer test for years afterwards. Those vee-dub I-4s were apparently pretty clean running engines, even without a lot of tacked on crap.

nate

The recall was supposed to be free, and the notice I received, which didn't exactly encourage owners to get the work done, mentioned reimbursement for repairs already done, up to $150.

With recalls on other brands of vehicles I've owned, I learned the dealer that sold the car isn't necessarily the best dealer for handling recalls or even warranty work. That included a Chrysler dealer that made me pay for a safety recall regarding a really bad stalling problem. The next car I bought was the Rabbit, which never stalled on me. I haven't bought a Chrysler since.

The particular car I had problems with was an 84 Fiero, bought new. I had hoped the "Iron Duke" would be a strong and economical engine.. It wasnt. Block cracked early on, and GM denied any responsibility. When I went to the junkyard to find a rebuildable block, took me 4-5 tries.. They were all cracked at the same place.

I think it might have been Aarcuda that mentioned that these blocks were bought from AMC by GM, but I could easily be wrong.

I probably have mentioned the particulars of the iron duke block cracking problem. The foundry that supplied them to GM (and held responsibility for the bad pour) at the time was John Deere.

Actually, I just went back and searched for your old post, and you indeed said John Deere, not AMC.. My bad...

I'd call that an honorary American car anyway, if only because Americans were selling it.

If it makes you feel better, I can say "the mid-seventies really was the darkest era in car design" and be a bit more general about it.

--scott

The Capri was a sexy German import. I had one for a short time and I enjoyed driving it and it never once caught fire on me. The interior was made of some poor quality materials and self-destructed as did other various parts on the car. The drive train was pretty robust though.

The air-cooled VW engines used to catch fire in numbers that a Capri or Omni or Pinto could only hope to attain. As an added bonus, the block would ignite and melt, dripping white-hot metal. That was certainly cool.

za. They were very dependable, trouble was, they used more oil than gas, an= d not enough power to get out of their own way. Then I installed V-8's in t= hem,,,YAHOO

The first generation Scirocco was my favorite car. It had the usual problems but nothing I couldn't fix or tolerate. The 4 speed was pretty much a perfect match for how I drove. It felt as nimble as all those Fiat sports I've owned but without any of the standard little problems. You might say it was a refreshing change of problems. I didn't have the glowing chunk option like you did but my guess is that most of the cars over a few years old had the cats gutted already.

Went on an around the country trip in the mid 80's. We had a Pontiac Grand Prix with the 301 and a family friend who went had a VW Dasher Wagon (80 or 81) with the diesel and stick. The VW was great on fuel but VERY short on power... Both of us were pulling pop-up campers and when we got into the mid-west we swapped them because the VW just couldn't handle the hills. The camper we had was about 500 pounds lighter plus we stuffed everything we could in the GP. Even had two extra kids.

The Poncho was great until we hit the gasohol out west. Then it was, drive 50 miles, change the fuel filter, drive 50 miles, change the fuel filter again... Once all the crud and crap was out of the tank and lines it actually ran better.

I have seen some comments that these blocks were actually cast in Africa. I suppose it is possible that John Deere might have cast them there. Do you know?

Sounds like an ill-fated journey to me but it looks like you made it OK. I don't know too much about all the other water cooled VW cars at the time. My understanding is that they were based on Audi cars and therefore, scary to me.

I did have to drive home from Lake Tahoe to CA one night with a clogged fuel filter. We had just gotten married and I could only go about 35 MPH on the freeway. It's a miracle that my wife and I are still alive. The good part is that the Mazda RX-2 had a nifty little access door in the trunk for the filter replacement.

My foggy memory of the 'where' is Iowa, although I could be mistaken. I remember the TSB well, it specifically mentioned John Deere as the supplier of the blocks, probably didn't mention where the foundry was but it very well could have been mentioned during class at the training center.

Beginning in the early 1960's and continuing past it's collapse in

1979 Chrysler pushed out some real junky iron. Bodies rusted, winshields leaked, etc. No wonder they needed a bailout. Sure their cars had big motors and went fast, but you needed to either live in sunny California or own a body shop to keep them from falling apart.