The decision to sell the ’90 Jetta was easy, troublemaker that it was. Now then: what would replace it? We talked about it round the supper table on the back porch one evening in the summer of 1995. Dad had worked his renowned magic on some good salmon. My Big Wheel in the background dates this pic to the early 1980s, but I won’t tell if you won’t:
So what would it be? It sure as hell wasn’t going to be a VW or any other German car; the Jetta had seen to that. It probably spoiled things for any other European car, too, so we wouldn’t be going back and having a try with a Volvo 240 that might’ve been a better choice than the Jetta in the first place. Dad held Consumer Reports in high regard, and they held Japanese cars in high regard, but to mom and dad they still weren’t on the radar or in the running, which is a little strange. Then again, Consumer Reports had gushed about the Jetta; they’d said it “exuded quality”—our experience had been that in fact it excluded quality, and maybe that dimmed dad’s view of CR’s veracity.
It occurred to me between mouthfuls of utterly perfect barbecued salmon that dad’s father seemed to be having good luck with the ’91 Plymouth Acclaim he’d bought when Budget Rent-a-Car had finished with it. How about an Acclaim or a Spirit? That idea gained traction pretty quickly—even Consumer Reports managed to hold their nose and bring themselves to say something nice (“among the most reliable domestic cars”)—and we set about seeing what was around. I was advocating for a car with the turbocharged 2.5-litre 4-cylinder engine, for a couple of reasons: that engine would perform well at Denver’s high altitude without bringing the valve troubles of the 3-litre Mitsubishi V6 or the dreaded A604 ProbleMatic transaxle. Also, the turbo cars got higher-spec brakes and suspension components.
But even in 1995, turbo AA-bodies were just about nonexistent; none was to be found. We wound up at Colorado Chrysler-Plymouth, which I think might’ve been one of Doug Moreland’s stores (“Nobody beats a dealin’ Doug deal…nobody!!!! “). Plenty of AA-cars on the lot. The salesman, after saying he had no turbo cars, tried to steer us toward a V6 model. “We don’t want a V6 car; they have valve and transmission problems”, I said. The salesman chuckled patronisingly: “Well, actually, those transmission problems you must’ve read about were solved about two months into that transmission’s first year. And so was the valve issue. It’s an easy fix on the early cars, too, it just takes a snap ring in the valve guide.” I wasn’t paying attention to him; instead I was making a show of unboxing my “Engine Ear” electronic stethoscope.
This I proceeded to apply to various underhood parts of various cars on the lot. I don’t think I was really listening for anything in particular, but it quieted the salesman in a hurry. A bit like a hard hat, reflective vest, clipboard, and deliberate stride is fairly effective against “Stop! You can’t go in there!”. Eventually I gave a thumbs up to a silver 1992 LeBaron sedan with the 2.5-litre nonturbo engine. Neat trick shutting up the salesman with my whizbang engine stethoscope, but he got the last laff after all; my folks paid something like $10k for it. Robbery! The car’s MSRP had been $13,998 (~$26,200 in 2020 Dollars) and it was three-plus years old with about 70,000 miles showing. At some later point when I had a brief Carfax subscription, I ran its VIN and found it had been first bought by a rentcar company, who sold it to someone who advertised their name—Sultz—to the world by dint of a custom licence plate (I will never understand this). The Sultzes traded it in, and then my folks bought it. With ~70K miles. For ten kilodollars. Oy vey.
It had a column shifter for the 3-speed automatic. It didn’t have that lame padded vinyl “Landau” Iacocca roof that disfigured so many of these. It did have the upgraded gauge package—not the digital one, but it had a tachometer (please cut me a break), oil pressure gauge, and voltmeter not present on the basic cluster. Above the HVAC control it had an “Information Center”, too: a pictogram of a generic car viewed from above, with little red lights to indicate if any of the four doors or the trunk were open, and separate warning lights for “Headlight Out”, “Taillight Out”, and low windshield washer fluid. It didn’t have the Traveller trip computer, but it did have a cassette player built into the FM/AM radio. Oh, and heated chromed power sideview mirrors and a backglass defogger. 14-inch steel wheels with snap-on plastic covers and 185 or 195/70R14 tires. Front disc and rear drum brakes, no ABS. Silver outside, grey-grey-grey (scuze me, “Medium Quartz”) everywhere inside.
It was about as low-spec a car as Chrysler were willing to slap a (Japanese-made!) “LeBaron” name badge on. It had air conditioning, power windows and locks with a clever hookup: can’t power-lock the doors from the driver’s door switch if that door’s open and the headlamps are on; cruise control, intermittent wipers, and tilt steering column as almost the only upgrades from the bare-bones basic bottom-of-the-line Spirit-Acclaim equipment. Oh, wait, that’s not quite true, the dashboard had phony stitching moulded into the edges of the –grey– quartz dashboard cover; Spirits and Acclaims didn’t get that, and they had plain black plastic trim around the controls rather than this LeBaron’s printwood. No de luxe chrome buttons on the HVAC control, but the car had a split bench seat covered in fuzzy, grippy, rather sturdy mouse fur—no tufted pillowtops—with manual 2-way adjustment (forward and backward!).
Oh, and it had a stand-up plastic crystal Pentastar hood ornament. If you can bring yourself to watch this far-fetched video, replete with music-on-hold on infinite repeat, you’ll learn that was a deliberate touch of luxury (was too, shaddup!):
I replaced a bunch of consumable parts the day it came home: spark plugs, plug wires, cap and rotor, PCV valve, crankcase breather filter, and the (undersized) air filter. The ones that came out weren’t long past due, but they weren’t new, either. Nevertheless, the car was underpowered, sluggish and slow with the wheezy 2.5-litre engine and its throttle body “fuel injection”, which I’d rather call a pressurised-fuel electronic carburetor. It didn’t have to be this way, as Chrysler de México demonstrated that same year on that same car, but I guess real fuel injection was considered unAmerican and the piss-‘n’-dribble setup was considered good enough.
I put in synthetic oil—regular-brand stuff bought at a regular store, not one of these scams (oil you have to get from a pyramidal “dealer” out of his garage or the trunk of his car) and a good quality filter. The filter got changed every 8,000 miles; the oil every 16,000.
Over the years I specified and directed some upgrades: European-spec headlamps (objectively not better, just differently lousy and a bit less uncomfortable to drive with), European-spec sideview mirrors (larger, spring-hinged), European-spec side turn signal repeaters (is it a good idea for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers to see your signal when they’re alongside your car on the side where you’re about to move? You be the judge!)
Mother, being short, had to move the seat far forward to reach the pedals. This put her within danger distance of the first-generation airbag in the middle of the steering wheel. She got one of the few letters NHTSA issued, granting blanket permission for the letterholder to have the airbag disabled on any vehicle. I did this in the LeBaron by installing an export-spec steering wheel centre pad with nothing behind it.
The tubular antisway bar integral to the rear suspension’s trailing arm assembly cracked, broke its minimal tackweld, and began making creaky kroinnnnnnkkk noises; we had a solid steel bar welded in, which stopped the noise and stoutened things up in turns. There was a TSB for improved cold-engine driveability by dint of a revised intake manifold, so we got that installed. It didn’t perceptibly change the car’s performance. When we had the timing belt done we used a Mopar multi-keyway cam sprocket to advance the cam a few degrees to try to compensate for the thin Denver air. It didn’t change the car’s performance perceptibly. When the muffler went away we had a Magnaflow low-restriction item put in. It didn’t change the car’s performance perceptibly, but it did make it louder.
My second year at UOregon, I got a call from mother: the car was dripping bright green fluid from behind the right front wheel. Okeh, that’s probably a water pump seal; take it over to South Denver Automotive and have them see to it. A few days later, she rang again: “I took it to South Denver Automotive and you were right, it was the water pump. But I don’t think they did the job right; all the way home from the shop the water pump warning light was on.”
«The…uh…sorry, the which, now? The water pump warning light?»
“Yeah. It was on steadily when I was driving straight, and it was flashing when I would go around a corner or over a bump in the road.”
«Huh. And where is this water pump warning light, mother?»
“It’s on the dashboard with the other warning lights!”
«What does it look like?»
“It looks like a little icon of a fountain!”
«Mother; you’re low on windshield washer fluid. There’s a jug of it on the shelf in the garage.»
A year or two later, after I’d transferred to UMichigan, one day I spent the afternoon gathering data to reproduce earlier experimental results that I do not like being drunk (confirmed!). Specifically, I’d been in a bar drinking a beer called “La Fin du Monde”, which in French means “The end of the world”. It’s a Quebecois (i.e., distinct) beer with 9 per cent alcohol. I don’t recall how much of it I drank—enough that I stood no chance of riding my bike back to my dorm. For the matter of that, I stood no chance of staying stood; I leaned on the bike as a sort of makeshift walker, shambled my way home, and heavily fell more or less into bed.
Nowhere near long enough later, the phone rang. I ignored it, but it kept ringing; eventually I had to answer it. Mother was at the Chrysler dealer, in the middle of an argument with their service department, and she’d somehow got it in their head that I worked for Chrysler and she was gonna call me and have me tell them what was what, tellya what. I’m sure I don’t remember what the quarrel was about, nor exactly how I managed to handle that conversation, but somehow I put out whatever the fire was. Thanks for that, mother!
The car was fine for what it was: an unpretentious box on wheels, with not many frills but not so few as to feel like a penalty box on wheels. It rode and drove pleasantly enough. It was practical, with plenty of room in the cabin and in the trunk. It got decent gas mileage. It wasn’t expensive to insure or to keep in good repair. Aside from the occasional flat battery or other such, and the steady trickle of parts it consumed, as we had grown to expect from the American cars we bought, it didn’t break down. It took my mother where and when she wanted to go. All in all, she put another 70,000 miles or so on it, with some assistance by my sister who drove it at university in Illinois for a year or two—when she was done with it there, I drew the task of bringing it home; that was an unexcused absence from my job at the wrecking yard, and mostly what I remember about that trip is listening to Pink Floyd while stuck seemingly forever in traffic on I-80 or I-90 under the hot sun.
That thing about the “water pump warning light” wasn’t the only mother-related laff with this car. Sometime in 1999 when dad was busy having lymphatic cancer and mother was busy making everything about it worse for everyone, the car’s radiator failed. I was in the auto parts biz at the time and used my connections to get an OE Valeo radiator delivered quickly, then spent a few hours putting it in with a new thermostat and hoses, etc. My walking back in the house afterward, all dirty and greasy and coolanty, lit the fuse on one of mother’s rages: “I AM SICK AND TIRED OF YOU ACTING AS IF WE’RE YOUR SERVANTS! YOU NEVER DO ANYTHING USEFUL AROUND HERE, ALL YOU DO IS TAKE-TAKE-TAKE-TAKE!”, she screamed.
I had much too much experience with these tantrums for the absurdity of the accusation to seem unusual. Keeping my voice deliberately low, I said “I’m all done replacing the radiator in your car. I put in new hoses and a new thermostat and flushed the coolant, so I don’t think there’ll be cooling system trouble any time soon with it.” Her response: “THAT DOESN’T COUNT! YOU LIKE WORKING ON CARS!”. Remember, kids, it only counts as work if you hate doing it.
At ~140k in 2001 it was getting kind of aged for her. There are some hoots to be had about what she replaced it with, and how that went; those will be told in their turn. I bought the LeBaron from her for $1,200, put an additional $600 worth of brake and exhaust work into it—I ditched the Magnaflow and the internally-broken headpipe resonator (oh, that’s why so much ping at full throttle!) and went back to stock, and proceeded to run it about 40,000 of the least expensive, most reliable miles I have ever driven. In the harsh climates of Michigan and Ontario, at that. I did a few more upgrades along the way: a FWD Mopar wizard in Brantford, Ontario worked some magic on the transaxle so its shifts were just lovely: crisp and quick without being jarring, rather than mushy and slurred as before. I swapped on a set of the ’94-type taillamps, intending to eventually use their inbuilt reversing lamp compartments for amber turn signals—the ’92 rear bumper had reversing lamps—but I never got around to the wiring work that would’ve been necessary.
By 2004 or so the car was beginning to get on my nerves. The driver’s seat, never the world’s most supportive, had grown even flatter than it started and was distinctly uncomfortable on long trips. The driver-side headlamp lens had cracked—the export lamps were cheap glass rather than cheap plastic—and replacements had grown costly and difficult to get. But it still ran and drove well, the A/C was still frosty cold, and everything else still worked including the Chrysler Infinity FM/AM/Cassette/CD player I’d added. I sold the car into the greater Detroit area for $1,200, to a friend of a friend of a friend. Eventually it needed a head gasket, I heard, and the cylinders were said to still have visible cross-hatch. I guess that validated my long (by US standards) oil change intervals.
Really no substantial complaints. It did an unapologetically fine job of being what it was, and I liked it quite a lot better than I would have liked a comparable car from Ford or GM.
(We’ll be back to the oldies next week!)
(is it a good idea for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers to see your signal when they’re alongside your car on the side where you’re about to move? You be the judge!)
My dearly departed Celebrity’s front side running lamps had a very tiny square opening in the retroreflective markers for the bulb to shine through and were pretty difficult to see during the day. I was frustrated when other drivers didn’t see clearly my intentions to change the lanes, leading to frequent evasion manouevres and occasional road rage. I realised that I didn’t have any issues when driving my first car, Alfa Romeo, with OEM side turn signal repeaters before.
I installed the Lancia/Maserati side turn signal repeaters (like this one in the photo) on my Celebrity in 1992, three years after I bought the car. It made a huge difference when changing lanes on the highways. It’s like using the fog horn to get their attention.
My late best friend’s parents loved to travel in their Suburban (seventh generation) with Airstream (either 27′ or 30′ in length) every year. He got so tired of same issue and had too many close calls that could lead to loss of control, especially with huge blimp in tow. After noticing my Chevrolet, his father asked me to install the ones from Fiat on his Suburban. Problem solved.
Mercedes-Benz figured it was cheaper and better if the side turn signal repeaters were integrated into the sideview external mirrors. Being at the higher position, this improved the visibility ever further. Other manufacturers thought the same and copied that design feature as well.
Fiat side turn signal repeaters.
As a owner of a euro spec version of this car ( Saratoga, I may have told about it ;-)) it is interesting to me to read about the experiences of others in the cars more curent years.
What always surprised me is the how much changed in the cars specs during its 5 year run. Even in europe it started with rear drum brakes and without airbag and ABS.
It is said europe spec cars a based on the Spirit and later ones on the LeBaron. Giving my car is a late model equiped similar to yours, except engine and transmission, I guess it is based on the latter. I have even have this mouse grey cloth and “quartz” upholstery, ha ha.
Engine is said Mitsu V6 (no valve problems, so far) and tranny the 4 gear A 604 “ProbleMatic” ( lol), which is also running trouble free.
@Daniel: I had to laugh when I read of you pulling out an engine stethoscope, which also provided the desired effect of “smacking the salesman beside the head” for his patronizing attitude! My examination of any potential used car always had the salesman somewhat rattled, and the majority of the time, as a car nerd, I knew MORE about the vehicle than he did. I also took every opportunity to upgrade with OEM/junkyard parts any option that didn’t come on the car. As least your “silver, medium quartz” LeBaron had a full gauge package, and as a result of your maintenance regimen provided good service. Another enjoyable Saturday morning read! 🙂
I viewed these cars as an example of Chrysler being almost . . . almost there. Their quality was pretty good, they looked good in a showroom, their performance was OK, and the styling was not awful. But maybe “almost there” in all the metrics was as good as Chrysler has ever gotten since Walter P died. They soon hit a home run with the styling and showroom appeal while the durability went into a hole.
I am noticing by now the tendency of the Stern family to buy used cars. This was something that seems to have been unusual for their generation and station in life, at least from my experience. Neither of my parents would have ever thought about buying a used car for themselves to drive.
I agree with the comment about parents not buying used cars. But then again, they came of age when cars would start to disintegrate at the three year point. I’ve had a lot of good fortune buying 2-3 year old cars with substantial factory warranty left. Today’s cars are built much better and last much longer than my parents’ cars.
I think these cars were very much the latter-day Dart and Valiant. They weren’t objectively stellar cars, but they were highly practical and functional, durable, and overall preferable, superior, and/or favourably comparable (depending on one’s perspective) to the competing Ford and GM models.
Aside from the ’70 Dart, the ’78 Caprice, and the ’90 Jetta, yes, my folks bought used cars…and then spent probably more on repairs than the used/new price difference. I’m not really sure why they did it this way. We were well-housed and stuff, and we didn’t tend to splurge—long after multiple, giant, and remote-controlled television sets began growing common in what looked like our income bracket, we had one set at a time: a 19″ RCA black-and-white until it failed around 1986, then a 19″ Zenith colour set, both with manual rotary channel selectors. We didn’t have cable. We didn’t get a microwave oven until I think 1989 or ’90, again long after they were common. We didn’t take expensive vacations. We mostly cooked and ate at home. I guess perhaps the house and school and stuff hogged up enough resources that new cars weren’t in the cards, and my folks preferred to spend money on car repairs than on car payments.
My parents were Depression children and many of their habits were handed down to me.
-We never had big vacations.
-We never had any ostentatious cars.
-We never ate in restaurants.
-We were all taught from a very young age the importance of conservation and living within one’s means.
To whit:
-I graduated from university with no debt.
-My wife graduated from university with no debt.
-My kids will graduate from university with no debt. One already has and is now doing a PhD on a full scholarship.
-I’ve never consumed more than I needed and went into semi-retirement at age 55.
I may add my Golf was the first new car I bought since 1986.
I totally get that. My folks weren’t children of the Great Depression, but rather Baby Boomers.
1992 was a weird year for the LeBaron sedan. The previous year, all LeBarons were equipped like the one in the video, full Brougham inside and out. If you wanted something plainer, you bought an Acclaim from the same dealer, which could be had in three different trim levels. For ’92, only the base Acclaim survived, but the LeBaron added two lower-trimmed models to take their place; the top trim (like all ’91s) was now called Landau. It was rather like 1975 all over again when at the last minute Ma Mopar decided the new Cordoba would make more money if badged as a Chrysler rather than a Plymouth as was originally planned. A few trim items had to be upgraded in the transformation from Acclaim to LeBaron though, such as the padded, fake-stitched, fake-wood dash trim (oops, forgot the chromed fake metal knobs and buttons). Unfortunately the center console on bucket-seat models wasn’t upgraded with woodtone trim (since ’91 LeBarons all had split bench seats), so the black plastic trim in the console looked jarring where it butted up against the woodgrain around the radio area.
Anyway, these were nice cars, especially with the Chrysler-brand upgrades (including the full-width taillights and nicer grille and hood ornament). I would have held out for a 5 speed manual and four wheel disc ABS that were available. I really like the ’91 (or ’92 Landau) better, as those loose-cushion seats were more comfortable and had a lumbar support adjustment. Unfortunately, they couldn’t be had with the fold-down rear seatback the lower-end models had, but had the mandatory Iacocca vinyl roof and opera windows. Either way though, I think sedans would still be selling today if they still had this car’s big wide door openings, large windows, and upright roof that allows for a large trunk opening.
“Either way though, I think sedans would still be selling today if they still had this car’s big wide door openings, large windows, and upright roof that allows for a large trunk opening.”
During the GM formal roof bash-fest the other day, I wanted to post something similar to this statement, but life prevented me from spending even more time in front of a monitor. With all of the fuel-mileage mandated aerodynamic styling applied on sedans now, the ingenuity that was the formal roof can be better appreciated.
As we see with current cars, roofs are too low, backlights are too long and trunk lids are now mail slots. The formal roof allowed (at a minimum) a bit more head room, decent sized doors and windows and a trunk opening that is not meant for the Postal Service.
But, time and regulations move on and SUV/CUVs have become the de facto sedan these days. Although, I notice that many of the newer ones are starting to get laid-back backlights and other aerodynamic tweaks that were previously applied to sedans; it’ll be interesting to see what we get in a few years.
I should have added easy ingress/egress to my list, thanks to the height as well as the width of the door openings. The arched roofs on modern Accords, Sonatas, and the last successor to the LeBaron, the Chrysler 200, make getting into even the front seats difficult. I have to really squeeze my head down to evade the heavily leaned-back windshield.
I had a thoroughly disagreeable new Chrysler 200 as a rental for about 750 miles and five days in the winter of 2016. I’ll give it this: the driver’s seat was supportive and comfortable for long trips, and the pretend-analog speedometer was easy to read. That’s where the praise ends.
The electric power steering felt like a toy kiddy-car (steering wheel not connected to anything).
The controls were thoughtlessly designed: turn-dials of almost identical size, shape, and feel, and all located close to one another, for the blower speed, radio volume, and gear selector (I get it, shifters don’t need to be sticks any more because they’re just selector switches, but this has led to a proliferation of dumb designs; here they were trying and failing to ape BMW).
A random selection of the HVAC controls were poorly-labelled buttons; the equally-random rest of them required navigation through multiple menus to access via the touchscreen. None of it was at all intuitive or thoughtfully configured.
The transmission was sluggish to engage and kind of drunken in its shift quality. It was a 9-speed. Raise your hand who feels like being on the hook for its overhaul when it fails…yeah, me neither, and Chrysler’s reputation in transmission durability is deservedly lousy.
The electric parking brake sometimes required two switch pushes (pulls) to release (apply), sometimes three, sometimes just one.
The 4-cylinder engine idled with noticeable harshness, much more so than Chrysler’s 2.5-litre 4-cylinder of the ’80s and ’90s.
The blue lighting on the IP wasn’t obnoxiously piercing like that on VW products, but the digital speedometer/message center was a damn pain. Push any button that affects it and you get to read all about how you’ve pushed that button for multiple long seconds until it remembers that oh yeah, the driver might’ve maybe kinda wanted to see the speedometer. The tachometer was just as pointless as ever.
The rearview mirror was this ridiculously giant, chunky thing—it contained no compass, no auto-dim, no reading lights, etc—positioned such that it blocked an unreasonably huge proportion of the view through the windshield. I’m sure the sideview mirrors met the minimum legal field-of-view requirements…and I’m equally sure that’s all they only just barely did.
The headlamps weren’t abjectly inadequate, but they were also a whole hell of a lot less thoughtfully engineered than they could’ve and should’ve been for no additional money: way too much foreground light and not nearly enough seeing distance on low beam; high beam almost marginally adequate. Taillamps were functionally pathetic.
But really, none of the above complaints matter at all. Know why? Because the radio could not be turned off. It could be muted temporarily until either the next engine start or one of a fairly long list of buttons or dials was touched, then it would come blaring and barking back. I looked in the owner’s manual: not a thing on how to turn it off. I looked on Google: lots of threads in the forums with people saying “I just bought/rented a 200, how do you turn off the radio?” and the answer was uniform: You don’t, because some shitwit decided an on-off switch isn’t necessary. Infuriating.
The cruise control switches were on the steering wheel…where the cruise control switches were on the Spirit/Acclaim of 25 years before. Right place for them, but the ones in the 200 could not be operated by touch because they all felt alike—not like the ones in the Spirit/Acclaim, which, like that car’s HVAC controls but not the 200’s, could be accurately discerned, selected, and operated without looking. The 200 overwall was adequate, and not a bare shred more; nothing about it any better than it minimally had to be. It was only better than the Spirit/Acclaim because people’s expectations, even the bottom end of them, advanced in the two and a half decades.
I cannot see making or buying this car ever having been a good idea. At best it was uncompetitive.
And yes, the squashed/arched roofline made ingress and egress a nuisance.
We would’ve missed those fold-down rear seatbacks, which were very practical.
5-speed manual: eh, maybe. Even the top-of-the-heap Getrag-geared A568 in the Spirit R/T was saddled with a sloppy, vague shifter. The 3-speed automatic could easily be set up to work very nicely, and it was a Torqueflite through and through. That said, I think the ’92 LeBaron I’ve described today might’ve had a transmission rebuild during my parents’ ownership. I have a dim memory of slippage between gears being caused by debris from flaking differential bearings or somesuch.
I never drove a Spirit R/T, but Car & Driver loved the 5-speed after comparing it with a Taurus SHO and Lumina Z34, saying “the R/T’s shifter took top honors, slotting into gear easily and accurately and generally making everyone feel all warm and fuzzy. Our logbook filled with raves: ‘It’s delicate and nicely weighted,’ and ‘by far the best gearbox of the group.'”
https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/comparison-test/a36053183/1991-american-performance-sedan-comparison-test/
I owned and drove a Spirit R/T kept in tip-top shape for four years or so, which I daresay was a great deal more than the glib dillweeds at Buff & Book ever drove one. And I tried out two or three others, which were substantially the same as mine. I can certainly believe the R/T’s shifter was better than the Lumina’s; a chopstick inserted in a pile of fresh Play-Doh would have a higher-quality, more precise feel than any of the Lumina’s pathetic fittings. I never drove an SHO, so I can’t comment there. The R/T was a notch or two less unshiftable than the lesser Chrysler 5-speeds. But all of this does nothing but say the R/T had a relatively-less-bad shifter, not that it had a good one.
I rather liked the AA cars. I thought they were the best iteration of the original K-car. As well they should have been by that time. I’ve never owned one, but driven a few and found them rather pleasant for average driving. One thing that impresses me is that I still see some of these in daily service here in Rust Country™, although that number is dwindling rapidly.
I would have liked to been able to get a Chrysler Saratoga, which would have had most of the tweaks you applied to your folk’s car. Actually, now that they’re old enough, I could import one…
I forgot to add the photo!
I have long regarded the AA-cars as “the promise of the K-car, delivered at last”.
I would’ve wanted a Saratoga, too, with the good lights and mirrors and seats and seatbelts and glass and suspension and brakes and all that. We’re not done talking about my obsession with (’90-’95) Chrysler Saratogas; matter of fact we’ve just begun. A few years ago I saw an ad for a creampuff of a ’93 Saratoga in France: a 75,000 km high-spec unit for €4,000. Very tempting!
In the early 2000’s a friend of mine needed a cheap car in a hurry, and he ended up buying an Acclaim for $900 (Canadian). Nothing exciting (hey, it was an Acclaim) but it was in pretty good shape and he managed to get a few years out of it without spending a lot of money.
I always liked a 5 door anything for the ability to sleep in it. I had a nice ’88 Chrysler LeBaron GTS with the 2.5 Mitsu (100hp, wow!) engine for a few months ’til it got rear ended, & totaled. It handled nicely, but what a performance slug. I replaced it with the same car, but found a 2.2 turbo version. Gawd, what a difference. It had over 100K on when I bought it, & was still purring when I sold it at 236 K. Never a hiccup.
The 2.5 motor was fully a Chrysler unit, a long-stroke version of the 2.2 with no relation to the up-to-’85 Mitsu 2.6.
So much to unpack here! This was a great story.
Did you have this car at the same time that you had the various 60s Valiants? That must have been an enormous contrast to go from an ancient and fairly primitive automobile to a slimmer, trimmer, lighter car with a lot more comfort features.
This was pretty loaded for 1992. Power windows, locks, cruise, tilt, intermittent wipers, and cassette players didn’t become standard on a midsize car until about 1995. A/C was an extra cost but pretty standard feature on most 1992 midpriced cars. I don’t think power windows were even available on the Aries/reliant at all so this would have been a big step up for someone trading in an Aries/Reliant.
That seems like a lot of money for one of these back in 92, and especially a third owner one with 70k miles. Back in 1992, a lot of people still thought that 100k was about the useful life of a car and marveled at anything which exceeded it. I’m sure with some not too aggressive bargaining you could have gotten a leftover 94 in 95 for around 10-11. Personally, I’ve generally found that used cars are not much of a bargain off of a new car unless you’re buying some 10 or 15 year old car. Dave Ramsey is always hollering about buying 2-3 year old used cars but I generally haven’t found significant savings outside of luxury models.
You certainly tinkered a lot with this car! Those TBI systems that Chrysler used and GM used in the Chevrolet 305 may have not been the most sophisticated in the world but they WORKED, were cheap, and VAST improvements over the electronic carburetors of the day.
La fin du monde is one of my favourite beers. I don’t care for overhopped IPAs, which I think craft breweries use to mask inconsistencies from batch to batch. . . an IPA is ok but I like the sweeter, smoother, richer Belgian style of beers.
@ geozinger I agree with you 100% on the formal roofline thing. The formal roofline allowed for excellent space efficiency and excellent people and cargo loading.
These cars were not what I would have bought at 25 but at 35 and up their proven qualities and great value would have been very appealing. They definitely weren’t flashy or sexy, they were kinda frumpy, but they were solidly built, comfortable, roomy, economical, and optioned properly were pretty plush and excellent values. Considering what the average transaction price on these actually would have been, they would have been comparable in cost to a Corolla or civic while offering the room and comfort of an Accord or Camry.
But the ’93-’95 cars (in the States, where we lived) had the infuriating and unsafe motorised seatbelt for the front passenger, and the ’94-’95 cars had less effective air conditioning—R134a was just dumped into the system, which wasn’t re-optimised for the new refrigerant.
Yes, we had the ’92 at the same time as the ’62 and the ’65. We didn’t really dwell on the contrasts; all three cars (eventually) had A/C and disc brakes and selectable tunes.
“and the ’94-’95 cars had less effective air conditioning—R134a was just dumped into the system, which wasn’t re-optimised for the new refrigerant.”
Ford did the same thing in my 1994 Club Wagon – the 94 system with R-134 used the same parts as the 93 system with R-12. The aircon was a perpetual thorn in stop and go city traffic on really hot days.
One other change I dislike on the 1992-95 cars was that the nice burgundy interior option (as shown in the video above) was replaced by a lighter, rather garish bright red. VERY garish on those with the pillowy seats. Actually make that two changes – the woodtone trim was a lighter, slightly orangish shade starting in 92 rather than the darker burled walnut look used in 90-91. Chrysler did seem to give up on these in later years, not bothering installing a passenger airbag or designed-for-134a A/C.
Agree with you on all counts. A passenger airbag would’ve required some fairly extensive and expensive re-engineering (which they could’ve largely avoided by doing that work in the first place), but the A/C upgrade would’ve been cheap and easy. And yeah, that awful Bordello Red was an eyestabber compared to the previous wine red, and that weird orange printwood was inexplicable.
I suppose “ignore it and it’ll go away” is a variant form of “decontent it every year or two”.
O I had forgotten about those awful motorised mouse seat belts. When dad was looking at the sundance/shadow in 89, some cars had them and some didn’t. Of course anything with them was automatic no. GM’s solution may not have been great with the door mounted belts but despite insistence they were significantly less safe in a crash, If real world statistics were ever collected I don’t think that was borne out. They worked fine. I actually open the door in my 91 cadillac with the belt buckled and unbuckle once the door is open. No real reason or idea why.
So you’re unaware of the actual statistics, but you’re sure they worked fine, because…um…because…uh…because you owned a ’91 Cadillac!
In actual(1) fact(2), they did not work fine; they let people fly out of the car in a crash that popped the door open. That is: the door-mount belt went away at exactly the moment the occupant urgently needed it.
Consumer Reports rated the 1992 Chrysler LeBaron sedan fourth out of four in a group which they admitted were all good cars. The others were the Ford Taurus, Honda Accord and Toyota Camry which were pretty tough contenders for a K-car derivative to stand up to. When they tested the Dodge Spirit, they only put it up against the Hyundai Sonata.
On one of my fairly frequent trips to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area in those years, Thrifty Rent-A-Car assigned a Chrysler LeBaron instead of a Plymouth Acclaim or Dodge Spirit. The upgrades were palpable but I was afraid that the car would be less suitable for my nighttime recreation, which was to prowl railroad facilities for nighttime videography of trains. Union Pacific had a fleet of Acclaims but in the dark, nobody noticed that this WASN’T one if their employees driving around.
I was thinking about a new car around then and these were more “honest” cars than the Chrysler New Yorker and Dodge Dynasty but I really wanted something bigger…and the Dynasty/ New Yorker were no wider than these. The rumor mill had new product coming out of Chrysler soon. It came the next year and after waiting to get the bugs shaken out, I went LH, a Dodge Intrepid which I still have and drive regularly. A friend opted for a V6 Acclaim which he kept for a long time until trading for a Chevrolet Aveo…about which the less said the better.
Interesting. When I say I’d prefer the AA-car, the Ford model I have in mind is the Tempo/Topaz. I’m sure there’s a sturdy argument to be made that those cars actually competed with the Sundance/Shadow.
Your railyard-camouflage story reminds me of the fleet of turquoise-green Acclaims with government licence plates of one kind or another (State? Municipal? I forget) at one end of High Street in Eugene. The cars were a little odd in that they had Acclaim badges and taillights, but LeBaron grilles. Guess they were end-of-the-line items built with whatever was in the house and sold at screamin’-deal fleet prices.
Your adjective “honest” is a good one.
I had a silver ’91 Dodge Spirit ES with the 3.0 Mitsubishi V6. I also saw it as a modern day Dart/Valiant and loved the upright styling, great visibility and general roominess. Acceleration was good for the time and so too was its handling.
I got it in ’95 as a used car but it quickly became a money pit of constant repairs. It ate head gaskets and leaked oil. As a life-long Chrysler enthusiast, it turned me off of buying subsequent models, in retrospect a good call given how most have held up.
Keep watching; eventually we’ll get to my ’91 Spirit ES 3.0!
This car had an interesting hidden feature: below the radio was a small drawer you could pull out with a single cupholder and an ashtray, but nonsmokers take note: you can pull out the ashtray and after you do, you can then slide a second cupholder into its place.
This was one of the most evolved K car derivatives and felt much more solid and robust than the early Ks. They certainly looked alot better despite a similar shape, and the interiors were richer. But a few interior pieces like the speaker grilles in the rear doors looked and felt cheap and plasticy. The Dynasty and FWD NYer/5th Avenue had nicer interiors even as their outsides were boxier and not well proportioned.
I remember the drawer with the cupholder and the ashtray. Didn’t know the ashtray could be replaced by another cupholder!
The entire interior was held together with what a friend—who owned many himself—called “K-car screws”. A particular screw Chrysler bought by the quadrillion, as it seems. Black, Philips drive, sort of halfway between round head and pan head with sorta-washer flare.
I really do think these cars were the apex (or aapex) of the K-car-and-derivatives platform.
Ford was a big buyer of those screws too, I have box fulls that came from various Thunderbirds and Cougars
I had no idea that folks could get official permission to get an airbag disabled. It’s always seemed to me that airbags must be mighty dangerous to short drivers. My wife, who is petite, sits very close to the wheel, and it’s something I’ve thought of often. Not that I would actually do this, but I wonder if it’s still possible to get such permission? And I’m curious too, when owners who got this sort of permission eventually sold their cars, were they supposed to re-install the airbag?
Also, though I’m not a big drinker, I’ve actually had La Fin du Monde beer… about 20 years ago, and it was memorable enough that it’s stuck in my mind. Very good stuff, and rather potent, though it doesn’t taste nearly as potent as it is.
There was a very brief window—perhaps a year or maybe less, around 1995/6—during which NHTSA issued the kind of letter I mentioned, permitting the holder to have the driver airbag disabled on whatever vehicle they might have. That was subsequently tightened so the letters applied only to a specific vehicle by VIN, and only in cases where the automaker does not make airbag on/off switches available for installation. As more advanced airbags came in, capable of detecting and adjusting for lightweight drivers, NHTSA issued even fewer letters than the few they originally had. The FAQ is here.
The letter my mother got came with a couple of stickers meant to be applied to the sunvisor, over the original airbag advisory label, reading CAUTION: The airbag for this seating position has been DISABLED and WILL NOT DEPLOY.
It’s undoubtedly possible now for automakers to program the individual keys so that if a particular one is used to start the car then the driver’s airbag is switched off – as other parameters can already be user-limited in various Stellantis (FCA) models’ keys and those of some others. Likely getting a dealer to actually program that parameter might be difficult due to the potential liability involved.
Another option would be to seriously consider vehicles that come with adjustable pedals in order to position the driver at the correct distance from the wheel, again something that is available in various cars, mostly but not at all exclusively Ford products in my offhand experience.
I don’t know what’s worse, a current lower powered (as opposed to many older ones) airbag deploying from closer than optimal or not having one fire at all but being particularly close to the wheel itself with the danger of the head whipping forward onto the rim.
Maybe Mama should just ride in the third row… 🙂
Much of the issue stems from the US airbag specifications, which require the bag to be sized, timed, and powered to “save” an UNbelted 50th-percentile male dummy. This specification was in response to historically pathetic US seatbelt usage rates—better now, but still lagging the rest of the first world.
Discussing the issue properly is made difficult and complicated by the consistent, loud drumbeat that airbags are supplemental restraints. Which is true and correct, but the requirement to “save” an unbelted-50%ile-male nevertheless remains, and that calibration is much too powerful for a small, short, lightweight individual sitting close to the bag. Deaths and injuries resulted, and the fact they were caused by a mandatory safety device fuelled heated, complicated debate: just how much power is it reasonable to cede to NHTSA’s dogged, insistent reliance on cost/benefit analysis; at what point do we demand to be shown which of NHTSA’s statistical decimal places a grandmother, aunt, sister, brother, son, mother was in when they were killed by the airbags NHTSA mandated? How reasonable is it to kill someone who used their brains and buckled up in order to save an unbelted moron?
Those kinds of questions led to the disconnect-permission letters, the on/off switch permission letters, the “advanced” airbags with (slightly) less force, and eventually somewhat smarter systems that take occupant weight into account when deciding when to fire.
In much of the rest of the world, these problems didn’t arise; airbags were specified and calibrated around the assumption of a belted occupant, as truly supplemental items: smaller, less forceful, and with a higher deployment-trigger threshold. Australia’s specs were probably the best, with the UNECE (Europe + much of the rest of the world) second-best.
Sounds about right, zero thought given to personal responsibility and the result costs everyone else that actually tries to do the common sense right thing.
But it’s just not that simple. Hard though it might be to swallow, even the willfully stupid are humans and citizens. We don’t (explicitly) say “You smoked cigarettes/ate Big Macs and fries/drove a convertible/went mountain biking/rode a motorcycle/tried to fix your own lawnmower/did other risky stuff, so you get no medical treatment and you deserve whatever happens to you”. That’s what makes questions like this into thorny ethical territory.
Maybe we should to some extent. We DO charge smokers more for health insurance if I’m not mistaken. Do risky or dangerous things and you may well end up being more likely to need more care that you do pay for (at least here in the US). I pay more for car insurance for cars that are statistically more likely to be involved in accidents or have claims against them. When I owned motorcycles I paid for those policies too. When I got life insurance I believe I was asked if I ride motorcycles or mountain climb or fly a Cessna 172 or whatever. I’d be OK with my health insurance rates being tied to my voluntary physical activities as long as the inverse was also adjusted for the other way. (add mountain climbing or hunting to the policy and it goes up, cancel the motorcycle license and it goes down).
In Germany for example we mostly think there are no speed limits on the Autobahn and you can drive as you wish. On some stretches there aren’t limits but there IS a blanket maximum “recommended” speed of 130km/h everywhere. Wreck at a speed higher than that and the driver pays a portion of (takes responsibility for) the resulting damages.
I wasn’t advocating nothing compensatory but programming the airbags to be of most help to those that use them as a supplemental system as intended makes the most sense, morally as well. How is is more moral to injure those that do what is recommended but are injured due to compensating for those that don’t want to take the suggestion? I’d suppose using my best anecdata that those that don’t belt are the same that think being thrown clear is the best option statistically anyway (incorrect I know) and likely don’t want the airbag either in the first place…
I don’t necessarily disagree with any of your points here, and to a certain degree I share your perspective. But I can also see the other side of it. As I say: ethically thorny!
“A 50th-percentile male dummy”
A perfect description of an Ex or two of mine…😉
Hah! 🤣
Daniel I’m amazed at your dedication to improving your parents’ vehicles. Mine were mostly invisible to me, my particular brand of ADHD meant that things not interesting to me were REALLY not interesting to me. Not to mention risking the wrath of my mother should I screw something up.
Once a high school friend asked my advice on a new car for his widowed mom. She was still driving her husband’s 351 powered Crown Vic and wanted a smaller car. As I recall she was looking at a V6 Acclaim but I steered her towards a Neon, which had just come out. Looking back I think the Acclaim may have been a better old lady car, but perhaps I saved her from valvetrain and transmission woes.
My people! My p’ticular brand of ADD-or-whatever-it-is means if I am doing [thing I’m interested in] recreationally, it’s relatively easy. If I’m doing [same thing I’m interested in] for money, to make a living so I can buy groceries and pay bills, it’s a hideously difficult uphill slog. The overhead involved with just getting and staying on task is enormous, and that’s before we even start looking at the workload of the task itself. Whee!
It also means I’ve had a lifelong dependence on urgency; nothing gets the job going—or in the case of a COAL entry or other writing project, the words flowing—like a deadline, but late-into-the-night writing sessions are more expensive the older I get. Ackthpth.
In retrospect, it’s kind of baffling that I put so much energy and time into my mother’s car.
The Lancer was fun to work on with and for dad.
I rarely comment on this COAL series because I “use” CC primarily as my guilty workday pleasure, so I don’t read these until I’m gearing up for my Monday, usually over a coffee before the day actually starts. Just wanted to share my enthusiasm for the series.
I’ve mentioned before that my family owned or drove dozens of Chrysler products throughout the ’70’s, 80’s and 90’s, but none of these. Those “K-Car screws” are very familiar though.
I bought my first (and only) new car in ’96. I would have considered one of these but I was a model year late, and the Cloud Cars were hot commodities and priced just a bit above my sweet spot. I had a neighbor in the mid 90’s who drove a very basic Acclaim and was very happy with it. Her husband was some kind of executive for Volvo who drove a top-line V-whatever as a company car. They were a very pragmatic couple, and the Acclaim was what they chose as the car they actually OWNED. I thought that spoke well of it.
Thanks for the enthusiastic feedback! 🤓
That is very telling, isn’t it, that the Volvo exec and his wife bought an Acclaim.