Sadly, that's a result of all you folks who believe in open markets.
GM needs foreign markets to stay in business. Without them the D3 would really be hurting. Where did most of the current platforms GM and Ford are using come from?
Without the competition here, I shudder to think of the crap Ford and GM would be trying to sell us.
Until the Big Three started emulating the Japanese and German cars, I preferred my domestic car from then 'til anything I have available to me now. I do know that MPG had to improve though in the same time period (sigh).
I miss even the cars from the late '70's. Simple, usually reliable, stylish, and some actual choice in colors and individual options. Not the toasters we drive today.
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I miss even the cars from the late '70's. Simple, usually reliable, stylish, and some actual choice in colors and individual options. Not the toasters we drive today.
Same here. It's a shame that they couldn't have just taken some of those old styles and improved them by fixing what was wrong with them, updating the engines and such, etc.
For instance, if you took something like my '76 LeMans coupe, which has a Pontiac 350-4bbl and is lucky to get 16 mpg on the highway, I wonder how it would do if you dropped one of those new 3.6 V-6es with the 6-speed automatic in it?
Or, in a similar vein, take something like my '79 New Yorker, which has a 360-2bbl, and once in a blue moon actually cracks 20 mpg on the highway. Throw in a modern Hemi or even that new 3.6 V-6 that Mopar recently came out with, which is supposed to be pretty good.
I'm sure in both cases, you'd see a huge improvement in performance and fuel economy. They still might suffer slightly at highway speeds, because of the aerodynamics.
I guess the biggest drawback is that you'd still have a car that takes up a lot of space, relative to its interior dimensions. My LeMans is 208" long, which isn't really HUGE. But for a car that has maybe 95 cubic feet of interior volume and a 14-15 cubic foot trunk, it's a bit excessive. And the New Yorker is 221.3" long, which is probably close to Suburban/extended-wheelbase Expedition territory. And all for something that the EPA rates at ~108 cubic feet of interior, and a ~21 cubic foot trunk.
I'd be really curious to see what something like my old '80 Malibu coupe would do with modern updates. In a car that light, you could probably get away with a 4-cyl nowadays! Mine had a 229 V-6 that would usually get 21-22 mpg on the highway. GM's 3.6 V-6 would probably turn it into a musclecar!
I think that downsized Malibu body was an excellent example of space utilization, even in the coupe. And you could dress it up with options to look pretty nice too.
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I would love to have a car that combines the look and style of my 1989 Cadillac Brougham with the quality and performance of my 2007 Cadillac DTS Performance.
I miss even the cars from the late '70's. Simple, usually reliable, stylish, and some actual choice in colors and individual options. Not the toasters we drive today.
You mean unusual to be reliable. My first car was a '75 Buick Regal. I didn't like it when I was 16 and I know I'd hate it now. It made to 130k miles, but nothing worked. No wipers, no A/C, groaning blower motor, slipping trans, oil leaks, you name it. Only reason it lasted that long was my Grandpa drove to Florida several times a year and it spent the winters down there.
I remember my dad's '73 Ford Torino that was completely rusted out and needed a valve job with less the 40k miles in '78. That led to his '79 Caprice Wagon that left us stranded many times and was complete junk by 80k miles.
Far more cars built today will make it to 200k than those built prior to the 90's. My grandpa always bought big GM cars, he took care of them and drove a lot. None of them made much past 100k miles w/o needing significant repairs and that's when he'd trade for another all through the 70's and 80's. None of his big GM cars made it much past 100k w/o expensive repairs. Some were nice, but I certainly don't want any of them now. Well his 70 or so Bonneville coupe(IIRC) with a 455 would be cool.
My dad also had a '71 Mustang convertible that I drove a lot in HS. Other than looking pretty cool, it was typical detroit junk. Sagging doors, body flex, never ran right, and I think it left me stranded as often as it got me home on Friday nights. Even with a 351C it was slow, though it had enough torque for good smokey burnouts;)
You're off a little...you probably meant to say 135M taxpayers, not 135B! So, that comes out to $444.44 per taxpayer.
Oops. So I was. That's what happens when you don't have your coffee.
Still pales in comparison to the $$$ the U.S. has wasted on banks, other countries, and so called "welfare" programs. I'd rather get a rebate check for that.
I would love to have a car that combines the look and style of my 1989 Cadillac Brougham with the quality and performance of my 2007 Cadillac DTS Performance.
I always liked the looks of those Broughams back then. Not my type of car, but they certainly looked elegant.
But what's always interesting is the constant degrading of GM in a positive GM titled discussion by a few.
a - this isn't the positive "GM Fans" discussion b - I see lots of positive comments about GM in this forum, so it isn't "constant", either.
Actually what's even funnier, to cite Lutz's CarGuys book is how the foreign car owners passed off failures in their own vehicles as a minor or trivial problem. While they and the media roundly criticized each GM item as a problem.
What would expect him to say? He was one of the responsible people at the helm! And the idiot who poo-pooed hybrids, for example --- until GM "got religion" and then suddenly had to have 3 kinds of hybrids on the market!
Or do you think it should just go one way? (GM buys only US, but sells everywhere).
That would be great, but the reality is your not going to sell vehicles at a profit in China or India if you have to build them in the US with US sourced parts.
Not to mention that since nearly 50% of Americans pay zero federal income tax, the bailout didn't cost nearly half of America anything.
So it was really $60B divided by 300M population = $200 per capita. Assume average family of 4 = $800 per family. But since half of households pay no FIT, it's $1600 for the other half, average.
Far more cars built today will make it to 200k than those built prior to the 90's. My grandpa always bought big GM cars, he took care of them and drove a lot. None of them made much past 100k miles w/o needing significant repairs
Probably true. My grandparents used to trade their cars fairly often, but starting in '68, started to keep them longer. They bought a new Impala 4-door hardtop with a 327. In '72 they swapped it for my Mom's '66 Catalina convertible. That way Mom got a newer car in better shape, as my Dad had ragged that Catalina out pretty badly. Plus, Mom had me by then, and didn't really like driving around with a baby in a convertible. My grandparents used her Catalina as a trade on a new Impala 4-door hardtop.
The '68 made it to 1975, when the rear-end started to go. I don't know how many miles it had on it by then...maybe 70K tops? She traded it on a new '75 LeMans. Probably wouldn't have been THAT expensive to just fix the rear-end, but I think Mom wanted something new, and a shiny new Pontiac coupe was probably a lot more appealing than her parents' hand-me down 4-door.
As for my grandparents' '72 Impala? It made it to around 100,000 miles, when they sold it to some family friends. Still on the original transmission and engine, although Granddad did a valve job on it around 70,000 miles. It was still running good at 100K, but the rust was really bad, and the vinyl top was shredding.
That Impala gave way to a 1982 Malibu wagon that they hated (too small, no power, and recurring ECU problems). In late '84 they traded it for an '85 LeSabre 4-door with an Olds 307, which probably ended up being the best car they ever owned. Other than normal maintenance issues, the tape player breaking, and some sensor in the transmission that occasionally kept the torque converter from unlocking when you slowed down, it was pretty reliable up to around 144,000 miles, when Grandmom quit driving and gave the car to me. Now after that it went downhill. Still on the original engine, transmission, and a/c, but it needed suspension work, exhaust work, and at some point had some valve in the exhaust fail so it was shooting fire through the system! It didn't come all the way out to the tailpipe though; I think it stopped at the catalytic converter. I finally got rid of it at 157,000 miles when the brakes failed on it. Probably could have fixed it and gotten a lot more life out of it, but I was just getting kinda tired of it, and had too many other cars at the time.
I had a '68 Dodge Dart V-8 that made it to 338,000 miles. However, it wasn't exactly an ultra-reliable 338K miles. And most of those miles weren't mine; it had 253,000 on it when I bought it, but also had a freshly rebuilt engine, tranny, and rear end. Incidentally, my Mom and stepdad's '99 Altima probably has about that many miles on it now, and it's done it far more reliably than that Dart did!
The old cars I have aren't too bad, but I have a feeling if I had to depend on them every day of the year, regardless of weather, go on long trips, etc, things would start to break more often. Heck, just back in July, when I took my New Yorker to the Mopar show, the power steering pump failed, and the back window quit working! :sick:
I would love to have a car that combines the look and style of my 1989 Cadillac Brougham with the quality and performance of my 2007 Cadillac DTS Performance.
Just think of something like your '89 Brougham, but with the engine, transmission, and suspension components out of a '94-96 Impala SS! Or going one step further, maybe that 6.0 V-8 they use in the current Camaro!
I miss even the cars from the late '70's. Simple, usually reliable, stylish, and some actual choice in colors and individual options. Not the toasters we drive today.
At least the "toasters" have better performance, crash-worthiness, fuel economy, and equipment/options than we could ever dream of in the late '70s.
Look at the Camaro: in '79, the best Z28 got a whopping 175 HP from a 350 V8. Most mid-size 4-cylinders have more HP than that on their base models, not to mention the '11 Camaro SS which gets 426 HP, better fuel economy, and I'd rather get hit head-on in a '11 compared to one built 32 years ago. This doesn't even mention the new top-dog, the upcoming ZL1, which more than TRIPLES the HP found from the best of '79.
Progress is good...
I will admit that a lot of cars sold today look too much alike compared to their late '70s counterparts, but there are still a few gems out there that stand out from the crowd.
Progress is definitely good, but by the same token, I think it's also taken a lot of the adventure out of driving. The brakes that wouldn't always stop you as quickly as you liked, the rear-ends that could spin out with little provocation, just the sheer danger of it all, I think, just made it a little more exciting. Driving has become sort of a sterile experience.
Progress is definitely good, but by the same token, I think it's also taken a lot of the adventure out of driving. The brakes that wouldn't always stop you as quickly as you liked, the rear-ends that could spin out with little provocation, just the sheer danger of it all, I think, just made it a little more exciting. Driving has become sort of a sterile experience.
Maybe, but a better driving experience to me is with a car that DOES stop on a dime, holds the line when clipping an apex, and puts the power to the ground instead of up in tiresmoke.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of "sterile" cars for sale today, but there are others that still can put a smile on your face (or fear, depending on how you drive it! )
59 million tax returns had NO tax liability in 2010. Nearly half. The rest of us who paid taxes only paid for 59% of what the gov spent. They borrowed 41% of every dollar they spent. The unrecovered GM share of the auto bailouts is $14B. 41% of that is borrowed by the gov, leaving $8.4B that was paid for by the 65 million taxfilers with liability. That comes out to be $129 per taxfiler paid to GM in 2009 that has not yet been returned. For me, that means that in Feb 2009, there was a week that the Fed witholding taken from my paycheck that ended up in GM's hands. I haven't slept since then. Nevermind that last month's BP card bill was $598.
Your points about the '79 vs. '11 Camaro are well-taken; however, even being a Chevy guy back then, I was not a fan of the Camaro in '79 nor am I a fan of it today. In '79 I'd have been spec'ing out a Malibu Classic coupe, V8, F41 suspension, full gauges, 50/50 split front seat with dual folding armrests, and be able to actually put two people in the back seat.
The '78 Malibu Classic with 305 engine scooted well enough for me, and the EPA ratings were 17/25. Have we really progressed that far?
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The '78 Malibu Classic with 305 engine scooted well enough for me, and the EPA ratings were 17/25. Have we really progressed that far?
I have a hard time believing 25mpg, I know that's not a big car but no way w/o o/d it'll get 25mpg at much over 55 mph. An '84 Caprice with a 305 is rated at 15/20 under the new ratings. I know my Buick Regal with a 350 was lucky to break 18 ever. It was usually 14-15.
It's really not apples to apples comparison with today and 30 years ago. Increased emission and safety standards have probably kept mileage less than where they'd naturally be. Not to mention the average car today probably has double the HP vs the late 70's to early 80's.
I certainly don't miss having to pump the gas or manually releasing a stuck choke. We've come a long way in many areas.
Your "pump the gas" comment reminded me how I used to enjoy full-service gas stations as the norm. Same with someone checking me in at the airport and at the supermarket. Oh, those are a couple of other lifestyle improvements since then, I guess (sigh).
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Your "pump the gas" comment reminded me how I used to enjoy full-service gas stations as the norm. Same with someone checking me in at the airport and at the supermarket. Oh, those are a couple of other lifestyle improvements since then, I guess (sigh).
What's funny is I was probably 8-10 years old when self-service came around and I was so excited because my grandma used to let me pump the gas and check the oil. I loved it.
The '78 Malibu Classic with 305 engine scooted well enough for me, and the EPA ratings were 17/25. Have we really progressed that far?
I really hope so, since those late '70s Malibu's were deathtraps.
A good friend of mine lost her ex-boyfriend in a '79 Malibu back in '97. The car was rear-ended on a highway on-ramp, and immediately burst into flames. He didn't have a chance. Apparently, rust was a BIG problem with these cars, and steel fuel tanks don't work in the Northeast.
It's also worth mentioning that your 305 had 140 HP. The current 4-cylinder Malibu, with an engine less that half the displacement, has 29 more HP, and gets 22/33 according to the EPA. All this with a plastic gas tank that won't disintegrate after 15+ years.
So yeah, we've progressed nicely, but there's always room for improvement...
The only 305 with 140 horses I remember, is in the '76 Chevelle, Camaro and Monte Carlos, since the 350 2-barrel was optional and it had 145 horses. A '77 full-size Chevy, and a '78 Malibu and Monte Carlo I'm nearly certain, had 145 horses with the 305.
The 350 4-barrel in a '77 big Chevy was rated at 15 city and either 19 or 20 highway. I know this as I was lobbying hard for Dad to buy a firethorn Impala 350 coupe at our dealer's instead of the bright red Impala 305 coupe he did buy. Dad couldn't get past the 350 having a four-barrel and costing $200 more than the same car with a 305.
I'm sorry about your friend. Back in the '70's we didn't have so many drivers yakking on cell phones or (even worse) texting like we've had the past few years.
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I have a hard time believing 25mpg, I know that's not a big car but no way w/o o/d it'll get 25mpg at much over 55 mph. An '84 Caprice with a 305 is rated at 15/20 under the new ratings. I know my Buick Regal with a 350 was lucky to break 18 ever. It was usually 14-15.
That 17/25 for a '78 Malibu with a 305 is the old, raw number, so it's more generous than the 1985-2007 published numbers, and way more generous than the 2008+ numbers.
FWIW, the 2011 Malibu, with a 3.6 V-6/6-speed is rated at 17/26, using the newest numbers. So, at a quick glance it doesn't seem like much progress. But the raw laboratory numbers (you have to download an excel file to see them) for said Malibu are 21.0858 city, and 35.7384 highway.
Pretty big jump, IMO. And then, consider the fact that a current Malibu with the 3.6 does 0-60 in around 6-6.5 seconds, depending on who you want to believe. A '78 Malibu, with a 145 hp 305-2bbl and the common 2.56:1 axle, was probably good for around 11-12 seconds. With the right gears, I think you might have been able to break 10 seconds, but most of them weren't equipped that way. And then your highway mileage would suffer a bit. GM wouldn't have the 4-speed overdrive automatic until 1981, and initially it was only offered in the bigger cars. It wouldn't trickle down to the intermediates until 1984 I believe, a year too late for the Malibu.
Now, that old 305 2-bbl probably has more torque at lower rpms, so it might lunge ahead from a standstill quite nicely, with the slightest touch of the gas pedal. But it's not going to take a modern Malibu, not even the 4-cyl, in any kind of drag race.
In 1979 a 305-4bbl came out, with 160 hp. That might have helped performance a bit. The 2-bbl was cut to 130 hp, but was also removed from the Malibu/Monte Carlo lineup, and replaced with a smaller 267 CID V-8 that put out around 120-125 hp. The 305-2bbl was still offered in the Camaro, Nova, and Caprice/Impala.
>Chrysler Minivan Transmission Problems: 2009 total posts
Does the time period for the Chrysler minivan transmission problems span the same interval as the Odyssey problems? Or is it over a longer time period. Of course we could add on the other Hondas with transmission problems and total up those posts into the Honda group as well.
Do they keep bashing GM in the Dodge discussion? I note that in certain other discussions, their justification for buying X brand is because of the poor reliability of certain GMs of the (we hope) past.
>The 350 4-barrel in a '77 big Chevy was rated at 15 city and either 19 or 20 highway.
Which of the GM 350's was that 4-barrel in the Chev? I still get goose bumps recalling my 77 Cutlass Supreme with the Olds 350 4-barrel and the growl the exhaust and engine had when full-throttled from any speed. Loved it! Never again will that sound be available. Even the Camaros with the modified exhausts don't have that same quiet growl--it's a sharper spitting sound.
1,960 total posts about trans problems, out of 47,976 total posts overall. So Honda owners here spend about 4% of their time whining about trans issues.
A valid concern.
2009 total posts about trans problems for Chrysler, out of 10,472 total posts overall. So Chrysler owners spend about 19% of their time on these boards whining about trans issues.
Which of the GM 350's was that 4-barrel in the Chev? I still get goose bumps recalling my 77 Cutlass Supreme with the Olds 350 4-barrel and the growl the exhaust and engine had when full-throttled from any speed. Loved it! Never again will that sound be available. Even the Camaros with the modified exhausts don't have that same quiet growl--it's a sharper spitting sound.
As far as I know, all Chevies back then came with Chevy V-8's. The whole 350-swapping fiasco was more of an Oldsmobile thing. The '77 Cutlass Supreme, which got first dibs on the Olds 350 for whatever reason, was a lot more popular that year than GM thought it would be, and it caused a shortage of Olds 350's, so they started putting Chevy 350's in some of the Delta 88 and 98 models. I don't think they ever had to resort to sticking in Buick or Pontiac 350's, but I could be wrong.
I know what you mean about the sound. I love the way the 350-4 and 400-4 in my LeMans and Catalina sound. And heck, even a Mopar 360-2bbl sounds pretty awesome when the muffler falls off! :shades:
Comments
That is the best pun and humor I've seen on a window sticker or a bumper sticker.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Ah, the wife probably got that for him! LOL
GM builds and sells cars in many foreign markets, so I'd expect them to source parts from foreign markets as well.
GM needs foreign markets to stay in business. Without them the D3 would really be hurting. Where did most of the current platforms GM and Ford are using come from?
Without the competition here, I shudder to think of the crap Ford and GM would be trying to sell us.
So you want your $$$ back? Okay. There's approximately 135 billion taxpayers in the U.S. (as of 2005), so let's see, 60 into 135...
...So where do we send the check for the 44.4 cents you actually paid to GM?
Wait, never mind. It'll cost that much to send it to you via first-class mail, not to mention the paper it gets printed on, etc. Sorry...
You're off a little...you probably meant to say 135M taxpayers, not 135B! So, that comes out to $444.44 per taxpayer.
I found one quote saying that 115M tax forms were filed in 2009. So, that's a little more still, at $521 per taxpayer.
Maybe the next time I'm in the market for a new car, if it's a GM product I can just demand an extra $521 off the price? :P
I miss even the cars from the late '70's. Simple, usually reliable, stylish, and some actual choice in colors and individual options. Not the toasters we drive today.
Same here. It's a shame that they couldn't have just taken some of those old styles and improved them by fixing what was wrong with them, updating the engines and such, etc.
For instance, if you took something like my '76 LeMans coupe, which has a Pontiac 350-4bbl and is lucky to get 16 mpg on the highway, I wonder how it would do if you dropped one of those new 3.6 V-6es with the 6-speed automatic in it?
Or, in a similar vein, take something like my '79 New Yorker, which has a 360-2bbl, and once in a blue moon actually cracks 20 mpg on the highway. Throw in a modern Hemi or even that new 3.6 V-6 that Mopar recently came out with, which is supposed to be pretty good.
I'm sure in both cases, you'd see a huge improvement in performance and fuel economy. They still might suffer slightly at highway speeds, because of the aerodynamics.
I guess the biggest drawback is that you'd still have a car that takes up a lot of space, relative to its interior dimensions. My LeMans is 208" long, which isn't really HUGE. But for a car that has maybe 95 cubic feet of interior volume and a 14-15 cubic foot trunk, it's a bit excessive. And the New Yorker is 221.3" long, which is probably close to Suburban/extended-wheelbase Expedition territory. And all for something that the EPA rates at ~108 cubic feet of interior, and a ~21 cubic foot trunk.
I'd be really curious to see what something like my old '80 Malibu coupe would do with modern updates. In a car that light, you could probably get away with a 4-cyl nowadays! Mine had a 229 V-6 that would usually get 21-22 mpg on the highway. GM's 3.6 V-6 would probably turn it into a musclecar!
You mean unusual to be reliable. My first car was a '75 Buick Regal. I didn't like it when I was 16 and I know I'd hate it now. It made to 130k miles, but nothing worked. No wipers, no A/C, groaning blower motor, slipping trans, oil leaks, you name it. Only reason it lasted that long was my Grandpa drove to Florida several times a year and it spent the winters down there.
I remember my dad's '73 Ford Torino that was completely rusted out and needed a valve job with less the 40k miles in '78. That led to his '79 Caprice Wagon that left us stranded many times and was complete junk by 80k miles.
Far more cars built today will make it to 200k than those built prior to the 90's. My grandpa always bought big GM cars, he took care of them and drove a lot. None of them made much past 100k miles w/o needing significant repairs and that's when he'd trade for another all through the 70's and 80's. None of his big GM cars made it much past 100k w/o expensive repairs. Some were nice, but I certainly don't want any of them now. Well his 70 or so Bonneville coupe(IIRC) with a 455 would be cool.
My dad also had a '71 Mustang convertible that I drove a lot in HS. Other than looking pretty cool, it was typical detroit junk. Sagging doors, body flex, never ran right, and I think it left me stranded as often as it got me home on Friday nights. Even with a 351C it was slow, though it had enough torque for good smokey burnouts;)
Oops. So I was. That's what happens when you don't have your coffee.
Still pales in comparison to the $$$ the U.S. has wasted on banks, other countries, and so called "welfare" programs. I'd rather get a rebate check for that.
Well there are always exceptions. By and large most of the cars from the 70's are unremarkable.
I always liked the looks of those Broughams back then. Not my type of car, but they certainly looked elegant.
a - this isn't the positive "GM Fans" discussion
b - I see lots of positive comments about GM in this forum, so it isn't "constant", either.
Actually what's even funnier, to cite Lutz's CarGuys book is how the foreign car owners passed off failures in their own vehicles as a minor or trivial problem. While they and the media roundly criticized each GM item as a problem.
What would expect him to say? He was one of the responsible people at the helm! And the idiot who poo-pooed hybrids, for example --- until GM "got religion" and then suddenly had to have 3 kinds of hybrids on the market!
So you don't think GM should be selling their vehicles in China, or Europe, or India?
Or do you think it should just go one way? (GM buys only US, but sells everywhere).
Major math error here!!
That would be great, but the reality is your not going to sell vehicles at a profit in China or India if you have to build them in the US with US sourced parts.
So it was really $60B divided by 300M population = $200 per capita.
Assume average family of 4 = $800 per family.
But since half of households pay no FIT, it's $1600 for the other half, average.
More than chump change.
Probably true. My grandparents used to trade their cars fairly often, but starting in '68, started to keep them longer. They bought a new Impala 4-door hardtop with a 327. In '72 they swapped it for my Mom's '66 Catalina convertible. That way Mom got a newer car in better shape, as my Dad had ragged that Catalina out pretty badly. Plus, Mom had me by then, and didn't really like driving around with a baby in a convertible. My grandparents used her Catalina as a trade on a new Impala 4-door hardtop.
The '68 made it to 1975, when the rear-end started to go. I don't know how many miles it had on it by then...maybe 70K tops? She traded it on a new '75 LeMans. Probably wouldn't have been THAT expensive to just fix the rear-end, but I think Mom wanted something new, and a shiny new Pontiac coupe was probably a lot more appealing than her parents' hand-me down 4-door.
As for my grandparents' '72 Impala? It made it to around 100,000 miles, when they sold it to some family friends. Still on the original transmission and engine, although Granddad did a valve job on it around 70,000 miles. It was still running good at 100K, but the rust was really bad, and the vinyl top was shredding.
That Impala gave way to a 1982 Malibu wagon that they hated (too small, no power, and recurring ECU problems). In late '84 they traded it for an '85 LeSabre 4-door with an Olds 307, which probably ended up being the best car they ever owned. Other than normal maintenance issues, the tape player breaking, and some sensor in the transmission that occasionally kept the torque converter from unlocking when you slowed down, it was pretty reliable up to around 144,000 miles, when Grandmom quit driving and gave the car to me. Now after that it went downhill. Still on the original engine, transmission, and a/c, but it needed suspension work, exhaust work, and at some point had some valve in the exhaust fail so it was shooting fire through the system! It didn't come all the way out to the tailpipe though; I think it stopped at the catalytic converter. I finally got rid of it at 157,000 miles when the brakes failed on it. Probably could have fixed it and gotten a lot more life out of it, but I was just getting kinda tired of it, and had too many other cars at the time.
I had a '68 Dodge Dart V-8 that made it to 338,000 miles. However, it wasn't exactly an ultra-reliable 338K miles. And most of those miles weren't mine; it had 253,000 on it when I bought it, but also had a freshly rebuilt engine, tranny, and rear end. Incidentally, my Mom and stepdad's '99 Altima probably has about that many miles on it now, and it's done it far more reliably than that Dart did!
The old cars I have aren't too bad, but I have a feeling if I had to depend on them every day of the year, regardless of weather, go on long trips, etc, things would start to break more often. Heck, just back in July, when I took my New Yorker to the Mopar show, the power steering pump failed, and the back window quit working! :sick:
Just think of something like your '89 Brougham, but with the engine, transmission, and suspension components out of a '94-96 Impala SS! Or going one step further, maybe that 6.0 V-8 they use in the current Camaro!
At least the "toasters" have better performance, crash-worthiness, fuel economy, and equipment/options than we could ever dream of in the late '70s.
Look at the Camaro: in '79, the best Z28 got a whopping 175 HP from a 350 V8. Most mid-size 4-cylinders have more HP than that on their base models, not to mention the '11 Camaro SS which gets 426 HP, better fuel economy, and I'd rather get hit head-on in a '11 compared to one built 32 years ago. This doesn't even mention the new top-dog, the upcoming ZL1, which more than TRIPLES the HP found from the best of '79.
Progress is good...
I will admit that a lot of cars sold today look too much alike compared to their late '70s counterparts, but there are still a few gems out there that stand out from the crowd.
Maybe, but a better driving experience to me is with a car that DOES stop on a dime, holds the line when clipping an apex, and puts the power to the ground instead of up in tiresmoke.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of "sterile" cars for sale today, but there are others that still can put a smile on your face (or fear, depending on how you drive it!
The '78 Malibu Classic with 305 engine scooted well enough for me, and the EPA ratings were 17/25. Have we really progressed that far?
I have a hard time believing 25mpg, I know that's not a big car but no way w/o o/d it'll get 25mpg at much over 55 mph. An '84 Caprice with a 305 is rated at 15/20 under the new ratings. I know my Buick Regal with a 350 was lucky to break 18 ever. It was usually 14-15.
It's really not apples to apples comparison with today and 30 years ago. Increased emission and safety standards have probably kept mileage less than where they'd naturally be. Not to mention the average car today probably has double the HP vs the late 70's to early 80's.
I certainly don't miss having to pump the gas or manually releasing a stuck choke. We've come a long way in many areas.
The Impala/Caprice with 305 was rated at 16/21.
That was with the old method, today it would be different.
For ex. an '84 Caprice 305 had an original EPA rating of 17/24, under the new system it changed to 15/22.
What's funny is I was probably 8-10 years old when self-service came around and I was so excited because my grandma used to let me pump the gas and check the oil. I loved it.
I really hope so, since those late '70s Malibu's were deathtraps.
A good friend of mine lost her ex-boyfriend in a '79 Malibu back in '97. The car was rear-ended on a highway on-ramp, and immediately burst into flames. He didn't have a chance. Apparently, rust was a BIG problem with these cars, and steel fuel tanks don't work in the Northeast.
It's also worth mentioning that your 305 had 140 HP. The current 4-cylinder Malibu, with an engine less that half the displacement, has 29 more HP, and gets 22/33 according to the EPA. All this with a plastic gas tank that won't disintegrate after 15+ years.
So yeah, we've progressed nicely, but there's always room for improvement...
The 350 4-barrel in a '77 big Chevy was rated at 15 city and either 19 or 20 highway. I know this as I was lobbying hard for Dad to buy a firethorn Impala 350 coupe at our dealer's instead of the bright red Impala 305 coupe he did buy. Dad couldn't get past the 350 having a four-barrel and costing $200 more than the same car with a 305.
I'm sorry about your friend. Back in the '70's we didn't have so many drivers yakking on cell phones or (even worse) texting like we've had the past few years.
That 17/25 for a '78 Malibu with a 305 is the old, raw number, so it's more generous than the 1985-2007 published numbers, and way more generous than the 2008+ numbers.
FWIW, the 2011 Malibu, with a 3.6 V-6/6-speed is rated at 17/26, using the newest numbers. So, at a quick glance it doesn't seem like much progress. But the raw laboratory numbers (you have to download an excel file to see them) for said Malibu are 21.0858 city, and 35.7384 highway.
Pretty big jump, IMO. And then, consider the fact that a current Malibu with the 3.6 does 0-60 in around 6-6.5 seconds, depending on who you want to believe. A '78 Malibu, with a 145 hp 305-2bbl and the common 2.56:1 axle, was probably good for around 11-12 seconds. With the right gears, I think you might have been able to break 10 seconds, but most of them weren't equipped that way. And then your highway mileage would suffer a bit. GM wouldn't have the 4-speed overdrive automatic until 1981, and initially it was only offered in the bigger cars. It wouldn't trickle down to the intermediates until 1984 I believe, a year too late for the Malibu.
Now, that old 305 2-bbl probably has more torque at lower rpms, so it might lunge ahead from a standstill quite nicely, with the slightest touch of the gas pedal. But it's not going to take a modern Malibu, not even the 4-cyl, in any kind of drag race.
In 1979 a 305-4bbl came out, with 160 hp. That might have helped performance a bit. The 2-bbl was cut to 130 hp, but was also removed from the Malibu/Monte Carlo lineup, and replaced with a smaller 267 CID V-8 that put out around 120-125 hp. The 305-2bbl was still offered in the Camaro, Nova, and Caprice/Impala.
You keep bringing that up, but all things relative, Ody seems to have fewer problems than Dodge:
Honda Odyssey Transmission Problems: 1960 total posts
Chrysler Minivan Transmission Problems: 2009 total posts
So Ody's worst problem is still better than the only domestic van still in production.
My Sienna wins, though, with no active transmission problems thread at all. :shades:
Conclusion: don't get a Honda, but don't get a Dodge either. LOL
Just think of how much less it would have been if you had been driving a Pruis! :shades:
Ford was actually up a few points to an all time high, and also beat the industry average. All good news there, basically.
Cadillac and Chevy were actually up from last year, though Buick and GMC were down. Seems balanced, though.
Only Chrysler hit bottom.
That media story really put a negative spin on that story.
Does the time period for the Chrysler minivan transmission problems span the same interval as the Odyssey problems? Or is it over a longer time period. Of course we could add on the other Hondas with transmission problems and total up those posts into the Honda group as well.
Do they keep bashing GM in the Dodge discussion? I note that in certain other discussions, their justification for buying X brand is because of the poor reliability of certain GMs of the (we hope) past.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Which of the GM 350's was that 4-barrel in the Chev? I still get goose bumps recalling my 77 Cutlass Supreme with the Olds 350 4-barrel and the growl the exhaust and engine had when full-throttled from any speed. Loved it! Never again will that sound be available. Even the Camaros with the modified exhausts don't have that same quiet growl--it's a sharper spitting sound.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
A valid concern.
2009 total posts about trans problems for Chrysler, out of 10,472 total posts overall. So Chrysler owners spend about 19% of their time on these boards whining about trans issues.
A plague?
That's nearly 5 times as bad.
You keep bashing Honda in this one, why the bias? Give it up...
Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?
As far as I know, all Chevies back then came with Chevy V-8's. The whole 350-swapping fiasco was more of an Oldsmobile thing. The '77 Cutlass Supreme, which got first dibs on the Olds 350 for whatever reason, was a lot more popular that year than GM thought it would be, and it caused a shortage of Olds 350's, so they started putting Chevy 350's in some of the Delta 88 and 98 models. I don't think they ever had to resort to sticking in Buick or Pontiac 350's, but I could be wrong.
I know what you mean about the sound. I love the way the 350-4 and 400-4 in my LeMans and Catalina sound. And heck, even a Mopar 360-2bbl sounds pretty awesome when the muffler falls off! :shades: