Dodge Aries ad

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LOL, classic. We had one growing up. Tough car. It sure took a beating from me and kept on ticking.
 
Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
This is one of my favourites (VIDEO)


OMG, I [censored] myself laughing. 22 HP Standard. Beats Hyundai Pony 3 out of 4 times...
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I remember when going to Canada as a kid in the 80's, it seemed K cars and Dodge/Plymouth/Chrysler minivans were especially popular up there.
 
Aries wasn't that bad when compared to my sister's ride back in the day: 1973 AMC Gremlin 3-speed stick shift in a hue of blue that looked remarkably like the color of our grandma's hair. matching cheapo vinyl interior in the same color !!
 
Slow and boring but ran forever. I think someone on here still drives one.
 
call them whatever you want, they were actually great cheap cars that ran well and lasted a long time IME. Had one turbo and one NA and they were cheap and easy to fix
 
They had their issues... The 2.2L had fussy Holley carbs before being converted to Bosch throttl-body injection. The 2.2/2.5L suffered from wet weather misfire in early models. The 2.5/2.2L Turbos had head gasket problems in some years, also premature waterpump failures. Leaking rocker covers / camshaft end-cap seals. Computer failure despite being cooled by the air intake of the engine. Breather hose cracking and leaking oil. Door latches used to freeze in the winter and you had to tie the door closed with a seatbelt. They also were not the smoothest running engine in terms of idle vibration. Most don't know that this was a VW design that Chrysler modified.

My dad was working for Chrysler at the time (for steady pay and benefits) and running a shop on the side (having sold his automotive shop when us kids came along), we did countless heads/head gaskets and engine rebuilds on these engines. He made more money in the driveway than at Chrysler but the benefits were great for a family.
 
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This is actually the car that saved Chrysler. Well, this and the minivans. American cars were so bad at one time that this was an improvement! My folks had a Reliant; it was great until the trans blew up at 150K.
 
They weren't so bad. they sold well to those who didn't care much about cars. Like the Fox body Mustang, Cutlass Ciera, or other much maligned modes of transport.
Nothing exciting about them, but they worked quite well and didn't cost too much to keep going. Have they become icons of automotive history?, no. Did the motoring press rave about them?, no.
Did they sell in good numbers?, yes. Did they make a profit for the manufacturers?. yes.

If you are in a manufacturing business do you want rave reviews for your products or a long production run of something making a profit?.
Both, obviously, but what matters more?.

Claud.
 
Originally Posted By: StevieC
Door latches used to freeze in the winter and you had to tie the door closed with a seatbelt.


I think that was pretty much universal. We had that problem on Oldsmobile's, Chevies, Ford's...etc. Our '86 Olds wagon was probably the worst for it.
 
Originally Posted By: StevieC
Oh maybe so but I only remember it on the K-Frame cars.


Yeah, but from your family history with owning Dodge products, I'd expect that
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We generally experience these things on what we have, right? We had almost entirely GM products up until my dad bought his Lincoln, which is why most of my horror stories are with GM products, LOL!
 
I had one of these once. Mine was in the form of a 1986 Chrysler Town & Country wagon.
Picked it up from an estate sale for a song. Used it as a commuter for 100K.
Only problem I had with it (that I could fault the car for) was the distributor went in it.
However that was $67.00 (even with parts markup) plus labor.
Was it a marvel of automotive engineering? No.
Was it anything worse than Detroit was cranking out at the time? No, and it was actually better than some.
It was the nicest $260.00 car that I ever owned, and after I put 100K on it, sold it out of my front yard for $1300.00, 5 hours after putting a sign on it.
There are days I wish that I had that car back.
 
My dad had a K-Kar Wagaon with the Mitsu 2.6L in it.

After that he had a 2.2L Turbo K-Car that was stick. I learned to drive manual on that car. Then when the body was tired it became a beater and unbeknown to him my race car. Those 2.2L Turbo once you got over the lag would go like stink. I enjoyed spinning tires and burning the clutch on it. Never did have to replace the clutch.

Edit: Oh and he had a Chrysler New Yorker with a talking computer. "Your Headlights are ON" and "You paid way too much for this car"
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Had pillow type seats. So comfortable.
 
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Originally Posted By: StevieC
My dad had a K-Kar Wagaon with the Mitsu 2.6L in it.

After that he had a 2.2L Turbo K-Car that was stick. I learned to drive manual on that car. Then when the body was tired it became a beater and unbeknown to him my race car. Those 2.2L Turbo once you got over the lag would go like stink. I enjoyed spinning tires and burning the clutch on it. Never did have to replace the clutch.
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Edit: Oh and he had a Chrysler New Yorker with a talking computer. "Your Headlights are ON" and "You paid way too much for this car"


My cousin (who is a fair bit older than me) had a boyfriend that had a Daytona that talked! It was bright red with black interior. He wrote it off IIRC taking a corner way, WAY too fast up in Muskoka.
 
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