Indeed not! We once owned a 1976 Plymouth Volare wagon with a 318 V8, from new. My father will occasionally remind me that the car would stall during left hand turns, requiring a mid-intersection restart. Fortunately, we lived in a small town with little traffic (and patient drivers).

 

People still buy Chrysler products? Have they not figured it out yet? Or are they giving them away for free these days?

 

Back in those days, before advanced electronic fuel-injection and other engine controls, emission-controlled engines had carbs that ran notoriously lean, especially during warm-up, when richer mixtures are needed. Most of them (not necessarily all), once they came off of full-choke on the fast-idle cycle, simply did to give the engines enough fuel......and stalling, stumbling, surging and hesitation was the inevitable result. Even before the age of emissions controls, in the 1960s, some engines, particularly from Chrysler with single or double-barel carbs, had warmup troubles.....even carburetor icing, in some cases, if the manifold heat-riser systems didn't work well (which it usually didn't). I've said for years......electronic fuel injection was, without question, the best automotive advance of my lifetime, with electronic ignition and car-based AWD probably in a tie for second.

 

Sergio Marchionne loves Chrysler products so much that he bought the company.

 

Yeah, I liked that old Remington shaver ad, too.....though I'm a dedicated Norelco-Phillips man myself.

Back to Marchionne, though....I'm not so sure, right now, that he even likes his own corporation......Fiat, Chrysler, Alfa, Maserati, the whole mess. He keeps trying to sell it off to another automaker, apparently looking to find someone else to pay the bills (and has talked to several other CEOs)....but, so far, no takers.

 

Like an Italian supermodel. Hot mess

 

lol @ all the Chrysler bashing.

so, are we talking about just chrysker or all of fca?

chrysler has 2 active models, the old 300 (near extinction) and the pacifica, which will sell over 100k units this year, quite a success.

meanwhile, fca u.s. will sell 2 MILLION vehicles this year. are they all epic? no although each has its fans. is toyota offering 700+hp daily driveable vehicles? didn't think so. but as enthusiasts on CL we perhaps should appreciate that. do fca vehicles seem to have a larger aversge number of problems than brands like toyota? yes, but the endless bashing on here is pretty silly. yes i have an fca vehicle (jeep) and it's been great. in almost 3 years of ownership and about 33k mi. i've had no issues, although i just noticed a clip holding up a cover panel underneath the passenger side was missing. has it been that way since new? don't know, but dealer said they'd fix it for free but had to order the part. i said i was sure the part was cheap so i'll put it in when it comes in. they were fine with that and said they'd call this coming week to let me know it's in. the part is $4. is this the result of some hung over monday morning chrysler work? maybe. am i upset about this? uh no.

i'm sure chrysler will issue a recall for the pacifica IF they have enough credible reports and can figure out what to fix.

 

Recall or no recall, though, as far as Chrysler-bashing goes, I think we still have to show some respect for the fact that Steve and his wife, after comparing and test-driving all of the minivans still in the American market (Odyssey, Pacifica, Sedona, Sienna), chose a new Pacifica. They certainly had not only themselves, but the safety of their kids in mind as well. Steve, for instance, may have personally disagreed with my choice of a Lacrosse, or how I purchased it (going for a 2018 instead of a discount-2017)...but he at least showed respect for my decision. I think we owe him the same courtesy, even if some of us may have some misgivings about Chrysler reliability.

The 300 has been a smash hit since Day One....even the old 1Gen FWD transverse-V6 version, based on the LH platform, was quite popular with near-luxury buyers. The larger V8 RWD/AWD versions have been even more so. This is one of Chrysler's halo vehicles in the American market...I can't see them letting it go, but, then, again, I'm not one of the auto industry's often-Bozo marketers.

I'll agree with most of what you say here, bit. But I fail to see the sense in 700-800 HP street machines, which, IMO, have little appeal outside of Friday night drag-racing....which doesn't belong on public roads to start with.

 

If you are talking about the 1999 to 2004 Chrysler 300M (and its sisters cars), they were built on the longitudinally-mounted FWD (not transversely-mounted FWD) LH platform. The LH platform was based on the French (Renault)-designed, Canadian-built AMC Eagle Premier (that Chrysler inherited when it bought AMC).

The platform was designed from the start to allow for AWD/RWD. Mix in a few Mercedes-Benz components and it became the LX platform, underpinning the now-ancient Chrysler 300.

 

Yes....good catch. Sorry about that. Yes, I meant the 1999-2004 V6 Chrysler 300M. I knew that they were on the FWD LH platform (I helped a friend of mine, at the time, shop for and lease one)...but I had forgotten that they were north-south (longitudinal), not east-west (transverse), on the engine layout.

Either way, though, both the public and the auto press tended to glamorize that car.....even more so with its larger, RWD successor, though that successor had an interior of questionable materials and solidness. That interior cheapness, of course, was addressed in the next redesign.

 

Okay, so they are now making "powerful" pos cars as opposed to simply unreliable pos cars in the past. I agree.

 

impressive they can sell 2 million 'pos' vehicles a year.

 

I am just feeling better knowing that some of the nice folks here feel the same way as I do about these (ugh) products.

Our 74 Duster was the best of the bunch we had. You just had to keep a spare ceramic ignition module in case the one under the hood failed on a rainy day.

I don't think the slant 6 even needed oil in the pan to keep running.

 

Yes...the 3.7L (225 ci) Slant Six was probably the most durable engine Chrysler ever built. (I actually learned to drive on one, in the late 1960s). Later versions, after emission controls came in, were low on power (roughly 100 HP, as opposed to 145 for the pre-emissions versions), but still kept the durability. Unfortunately, it was not suitable for Chrysler's later conversion to FWD. One reason for its durability was that it was originally designed and built to military standards.
(Oh, and, BTW......earlier versions did not have the ballast-resistor and ignition module problems that the 70s-series engines had).

I owned a new 1975 Duster, one year later than yours (my first new car)...it was the first year with the catalyst.

 

I had a 08 4cyl Sebring, it honestly was the most reliable car I've owned. We put just over 96 thousand miles on it. I never had to sink one dime into a repair. It was only routine maintenance. It never even had warranty work done. I only replaced the tires once, it didn't even need a wheel alignment. That was with it spending it's life on Michigan roads. We sold it because we were getting ready to move to Houston, and we had six other cars at the time. It's a car I wish we would have kept. Was it the most refined car, no. It had lots of hard plastic inside. Its engine was typical Chrysler with its noisy valve train. It wasn't ment to be a luxury cruiser though. I haven't had another car that hasn't needed some kind of repair while I had. Heck and with all of that, on trips we always got 33-35 MPG. Chrysler may not be at the top, but they aren't the ford probe lets get that right.