(first posted 7/17/2016)
(Also a Mini-COAL report on a 1996 Saturn SL2)
In early 1990 after the birth of our son, my Dublin born and Manhattan bred wife TIP (The Irish Princess) got her driver’s license after living up to then in the urban environment of Manhattan’s upper west side.
Moving to the suburbs in late 1990 and driving a Mercury Sable wagon was an eye opening experience and TIP and our son Will traveled all the by-ways and back roads of New Jersey seeking out new life forms and going to antique shops no man’s been to before.
In five quick years TIP put 60,000 miles on the Sable and despite my vigorous maintenance efforts, the smooth riding gold station wagon started to show signs of impending and expensive repairs. We decided to make the Sable my business car and get TIP and Will a new ride.
I suggested a small Jeep Eagle dealership in nearby Far Hills that local people recommended in hope she would come home raving about test driving a nice solid and proven 4.0 straight six XJ Cherokee.
She did not come home raving about a nice solid and proven 4.0 XJ Cherokee.
TIP came home in love with an automotive ghost from my past.
“I found our next car; I already drove it. It’s really fast! They’re holding it so you can drive it” She told me.
Do you remember what the exact model is of this beauty?
“Yes”, she said showing me the brochure, “it’s the top level with the big engine, the Eagle Vision TSi”.
Great, I thought, not like the dealer is going to let me bargain on the price or anything like that.
I looked at the brochure and thought, OK, it’s not the 4.0 straight 6 Jeep I was hoping for, but this is her car, her choice, and it sounded good on paper and looked good in the pictures.
Some details: The 207.4 inch long 1995 Eagle Vision TSi had a longitudinal V6 engine that developed 214 hp at 5,850 rpm and 221 lb. ft. of torque at 3,100 rpm, front wheel drive, and a 4-speed 42LE automatic transmission. The engine had two intake manifolds, four valves per cylinder, a single overhead cam per bank driven by a timing belt. It was a non-interference design.
When I went to the dealer the car was sitting in front of the showroom and it did look good. The color was called Char Gold, and it changed color depending on the sun and the viewing angle. And leather seats; I never had a car with leather seats.
Brian the salesman had a big smile on his face. TIP had that endearing characteristic of always wearing her heart on her sleeve. He knew the car was sold before I got there.
Then I sat in it and it was déjà vu all over again. I may be over using that phrase but I loved Yogi Berra.
38 years of automotive advancement and design changes separate the 1995 LH Chrysler cars from the full size 1957 Chrysler, but when I sat in it I could just about FEEL those big 1957 tail fins behind me, even though I knew they weren’t there.
Like the 1957 single headlight Chrysler 4 door hardtop that was the first car I legally drove on the road, my butt was almost on the floor, my feet seemed to be just a few inches lower than my head, and the whole back half of the car seemed to rise up behind me. Even the doors had that familiar hollow, metallic, low quality sound when I closed them. Not a good sign.
There’s no way this 1995 Eagle Vision is anything like that old 1957 Chrysler, but these thoughts would stay with me as long as we had that car. The mind is a funny thing.
We went for a test ride down two lane country roads. It had a taut stable ride and it felt wide and long. I finally stopped, let traffic pass, pulled back out onto the road and straightened the car out, and hit the gas. Oh dear, I hoped TIP was ready for this. It jumped off the line much like that old 1957 Chrysler with the exception that the Vision’s 4-speed 42LE was not as quick or as crisp shifting as the old Torqueflite. But it was clearly much quicker than the Sable wagon.
Allpar discusses Torqueflite at here and the 42LE at here.
Geezers sometimes bore people with stories and statements like “they don’t make them as good as they used to”. In the case of the old Torqueflite verses the new 42LE, put your money on the geezers.
Brendan Saur wrote up a 1997 Eagle Vision ESi (a lower spec 3.3 liter and timing chain equipped model) here.
And again Brendan Saur wrote up the “luxurious” stretched LHS Chrysler here.
Transmission push buttons to the left of the steering wheel would have been nice, but I’m sure that was just me being me. The rest of the world and safety standards had moved on from those buttons back around 1965-6, probably because of the National Highway and Traffic Safety Act of 1966.
Shortly after moving to NJ I transferred to Digital Equipment Corporation’s (DEC) Piscataway office to be in their technical sales support unit. DEC was reeling from sales and financial setbacks and had started what would be a corporate death spiral with their first layoffs in the company’s history.
DEC had been very successful in the late 1950s through to the late 1980s but its founder and CEO Ken Olsen, and his management team completely missed the personal computer revolution and other subsequent technical standards and killer software applications.
Business and technical visionaries who created successful corporations often fall victim to the phenomena of being considered geniuses for building a company and then losing what was built over time as the world and technology steadily moved on.
In his 1995 book “The Road Ahead” Bill Gates mentioned his concern about the difficulty of corporate founders and CEOs maintaining and successfully managing the corporations they created through the changing business and technical world. Bill Gates said avoiding this corporate killer condition was a primary priority.
Even with this awareness and careful observations, Gates missed some big parts of the Internet revolution and some critical software functions. Accordingly, he had to play catch up to out-develop, or buy-out, smaller, smarter, and more flexible competitors.
Ken Olsen did not catch up. He tried, but his efforts were always too little, too late, or badly out of touch with the real world from which he was sadly isolated by the corporate bubble built around him.
Those of us on the front lines of technical sales support who spent our time in front of customers working to design solutions for their business requirements knew this as clearly as the naval architect Thomas Andrews, Jr., had known that the Titanic would sink as soon as he saw the damage from the iceberg.
We tried to tell people up they ladder but we were told to make bigger and more profitable sales and leave the big picture and corporate management up to them. After all, DEC’s huge size and past successes were proof they knew what they were doing.
I was hoping to replicate in NJ the successes I had with the Port Authority of NY & NJ and the NYC Department of Correction, but I found it hard going in the new business reality where DEC was seen as having lost its magic.
At first I got a well used 1988 black Ford Taurus as a company car which I thought was terrific, for 30 dollars a week I got a car (albeit not new), plus gas, and plus insurance. In the early 1990’s that was a good deal.
Then local management, under pressure to cut costs, planned to cut back on company cars and have us use our personal vehicles, which management told us had to be recent model 4 door cars.
After the expected outcry from sales and tech support people who were always on the road, and, if they had a second vehicle it didn’t fit the “rules”, management rescinded that plan until a year or two later when further cutbacks forced more drastic plans and once again we were told that we had to return our Tauruses and use our own cars. Again, they had to be late model 4 door vehicles. “No trucks” they warned us.
These back and forth car policy reversals would continue for years; DEC management was clearly out of their league and comfort zones in handling a company in crisis.
One of their more “interesting” cost cuts was to remove the Deer Park water bottle fountains from all NY and NJ offices and to remove some cafeterias in NJ offices and replace them with drinking fountains and vending machines.
This is about when TIP and I got the Eagle and I put the Sable wagon into use as my company car. But, after only a few months, the Sable was showing signs of not being up for long term high mileage business use. I looked at car magazines and heard about the new second generation Saturn SL2 with plastic body panels (they all had those) and a DOHC 124-hp double-overhead cam 16-valve 4-cylinder “lost foam” engine. They even had a 30-day/1500-mile no-questions-asked, money-back guarantee.
What could possibly go wrong? If it wasn’t as good as they said, I could return it. Like that would really happen!
There was no bargaining over the “fixed price” gold SL2 sedan, but I got a good trade-in on the recently fully repaired and detailed Sable. They immediately started using the Sable to go to sales and management meetings in southern NJ because it was nicer than the old GMC van they were using.
When I went to pick up the car on a Saturday morning, the windows on the right side did not work. It took them four hours to find a car at another dealer from which to cannibalize parts and install them in my car, and I got home with the new 5 speed SL2 just before dinner time.
During the next few days (Sunday through Tuesday) electrical glitches cropped up and interior parts fell off the car so often I took it back on a Wednesday, gave them a list of problems, and said “… fix these or I want my money back”. I thought that would get their attention.
It did not.
Amazingly, Saturn service didn’t fix any of the issues identified on the list. I was incensed.
On the following Saturday morning I stormed into the crowded dealership red faced and demanded my money back.
They ushered me into the back office and told me they couldn’t cut me a check until the following Monday after 10 A.M. when local headquarters managers were in. “Do you want your Sable back?” they asked. I looked at it sitting outside all dirty inside and out from their hard use of it and missing one of its deer whistles (it had two when I traded it in) and said no, you’ve been using it as a bus. I left the SL2 at the dealer. I did not want to drive it any more than I already had. The sales rep drove me home in the SL2.
That Monday after taking Will to school, TIP and I drove the Eagle Vision to the Saturn dealer and I got all of the money back including the traded value of the Sable.
So now I was carless, but as I was doing some work again in NYC, I again started to walk to the train station and commute to Manhattan by rail for a while.
Around that time I got a call from my old customers at the NYC DOC (Department of Correction). The original fixed price Inmate Telephone and Commissary system sale that I and the rest of the sales team had worked on and gotten so much credit for, was completed and now the DOC wanted to expand it into a series of one year labor-only project phases and they wanted to make it time and materials (T&M) rather than fixed priced. T&M would allow DOC management more flexibility in planning and reacting to changing business needs and court orders.
The wanted me back to run the whole thing because they saw DEC’s current NYC sales and management personnel as “uncooperative and inflexible”. Actually they used another series of adjectives to describe my DEC co-workers in NYC, but I feel Paul would prefer I use the terms “uncooperative and inflexible”.
I liked T&M; that’s the type of business my former partners and I had used to great success in our little software company and it was, in my opinion, a far safer and more flexible way of doing business than fixed price contracts.
Local NYC DEC management didn’t like the T&M approach, but they were in no position to impose their opinion, so around mid-to-late 1996, I developed a business model between DEC and the NYC DOC that I would run from 1997 to mid-2003 bringing in seven figures annually of high margin consulting revenue. And that was not counting some unplanned emergency business services we delivered to the DOC during that time span (which I will describe in future COALs).
After about 5 years of swimming up stream in the NJ DEC office and making a few small-ish sales but not making any really big deals, this come-hither from my old customers at the NYC DOC was a boost to my business self esteem that I needed at that time.
Now I knew how Sally Field felt when she finally got her Oscar in 1995. Someone out there (in the NYC DOC) liked me.
There was good news and bad news attached to this new opportunity with the NYC DOC:
Bad News – I’d be on Rikers Island more than I liked. But let’s be frank, no one likes to be on Rikers Island at all. Ever.
Good News – I’d have a waterfront office. Do you see those little white rectangles on the edge of the island on the right side of the photo? They’re trailers, and the MIS trailer was just about in the middle of them. During high tides and storms the water would lap around the trailer’s support foundation making those of us in the trailer a little uncomfortable. But hey, waterfront!
When not on Rikers Island I’d be at the NYC DOC headquarters at 60 Hudson Street, a few short blocks north of my old Port Authority work site in the WTC North Tower. What could possibly go wrong with this scenario?
With my new business agreement at the NYC DOC, DEC assigned me a new tan-ish, beige-y 1996 Taurus for my travels to Rikers. They were so giddy with the service deals my DEC sales rep Jack and I were making with the DOC, they quickly signed exceptions to the cost-cut-back rules regarding company cars.
For all of the critical comments about the 1996 Taurus’ obsession with ovals and its resemblance to a flounder lying on its side, this was a good riding and comfortable car. The seats were much better than earlier Taurus models and it proved to be a very reliable and comfortable car over time.
In my opinion, the business fleet level 1996 Taurus sedan was light years better than the 1996 Saturn SL2.
As the Eagle Vision aged past 4 years it began to act like the dreaded Forward Look (above figure) Chrysler 38 years its senior.
In no particular order:
- A/C failed. Twice. Very expensive to fix. Twice.
- Transmission failed; TIP limped home in “limp-home-mode second gear” and told me car seems really loud. Very very expensive estimate to fix. Dealer cut me a break. Still expensive.
- Car would not start in very cold weather. Local shop said there was a silent TSB and they did not have the right software to fix it. Took it to dealer and they fixed it immediately. “Why didn’t you send us a letter about this?” Embarrassed apology; “not all Eagles had this issue”.
- CD Player got stuck on a CD on high volume and not only would not eject the disk, the volume and other controls did not work. It would continuously play the CD, Best of ZZ Top when the ignition was on. OK, it could have been worse, but still, who has ever experienced a radio glitch like this? I had the original radio/CD player replaced at a local detailer shop.
- Stopper pins holding the front hood properly in place when down would not stay put. I replaced them with homemade pins made out of large plastic screws, fuel line hose, and black cable ties. That was a permanent fix.
- Front hood would not stay up; I carried a broomstick in the trunk so the hood would not hit me on the head as I charged the battery after the (see above) cold staring problems. We had the hood holdups replaced.
- Two recalls; one about the fuel injectors and the other… I forget, maybe fuel injectors again.
- Rear door hinges would come loose with use and I had to buy a special, very large screwdriver to re-tighten the hinge screws about every month or so. Tried larger bolts, locking washers and super glue; none of which worked.
There’s more but I’m starting to get a headache. I also noticed that the dashboard was three inches (3 INCHES) higher on the right side than the left. It didn’t affect the driving but it kind of explained the other problems in a way.
While all of this was going on, in mid 1998 TIP informed me that this marriage, which had started in 1985, was not going as she had expected or hoped, and we needed to see a marriage counselor.
While not exactly surprised (one kind of knows when one’s spouse is not overjoyed), I was, well … surprised.
Does that make sense?
Why am I asking you?
I was told that while TIP had grown in many ways as a wife and mother and volunteer at a local senior citizen housing center, it was clear to her that I had not changed and matured and was the same hard working, anal retentive obsessive nutcase unexciting, and no fun-to-be-with husband that I had always been.
She said she wanted a fun husband “like, like, … like Russel Crowe, someone who likes to go to parties and socialize and go to weddings, and dances and maybe once in a while, drink a little too much champagne and do impulsive stuff like fly off the Rio”.
I thought to myself “Russel Crowe? Who is Russel Cro…, the movie actor? The gladiator guy with the muscles? Did I hear that right”? But I did not pursue that exact point and instead diverted to: “Rio? As in de Janeiro Brazil? That Rio? Do you know how unsafe Rio is?”
She ignored me: “That’s not the point and you know it. Forget Brazil. The point is, I have grown and matured and developed and you have not.”
She continued: “On Saturday nights you like to sit in the living room and listen to A Prairie Home Companion on the (*) radio”.
(*) Note – The above link is a scene from the movie A Prairie Home Companion which was based on the radio show. Can you identify the blonde woman is red or the red headed woman in green?
I protested “I’ve been listening to PHC since the mid 1970s, years before we met”. Then an unspoken thought popped up in my mind: “Well… yea, OK, maybe, not too much change there”.
TIP continued: “… and on Sunday nights you sit in the living room and listen to Don K. Reed’s Doo Wop Shop“. More unspoken thoughts: “No change there either”.
Uh oh.
“Well gee, I enjoy these old fashioned radio shows and ….” but TIP interrupted: “Don’t say it; you’re a grown man and all you do is go to work, clean the bathrooms, wash the cars, clean the parakeet’s cage, and listen to the radio.” You don’t even like TV!”
She had a point; nothing she said was untrue. I had to admit, it, I was, might be, no, was a boring husband.
We started seeing a marriage counselor once a week. We’d hire a neighborhood girl to stay with Will and to make it a “night”, we also went out for dinner after the sessions. Some of those post session dinners were nice times; others were not.
TIP became annoyed because she thought the counselor, being a man, was tilting in my favor.
I wanted no problems on that issue: “OK, so find us a woman counselor you like”. But she did not; we continued with the dude.
At one session in October 1998, she told the counselor, “All he does is buy plain, dull, four door cars. He never gets anything fun-like. I think he’s suffering from anhedonia.”
The counselor nodded thoughtfully and made some notes.
“What’s anhedonia?” I asked.
Counselor dude added, “Maybe you two should go out together and buy a car that gives both of you some fun.”
“What’s anhedonia?” I asked again, but TIP and the counselor were on a roll.
Dude continued: “Something he would never buy on his own, but that you would want him to choose.”
TIP’s mood visibly brightened.
Counselor dude warned: “That may not solve some, or any of your marital problems, but it may be a start. And you could continue to work on the marriage from there”.
So that’s how this boring guy got a silver 1999 NB1 Miata.
Empty heart, indeed.
They are expensive, aren’t they?
Are you referring to cars, wives, or both?
I’m sure TIP didn’t give any thought to whether the engine was a clearance or interference design!
And you say you’re a boring man… this COAL has proven to be anything but boring!
And well, reading in between the lines, it would seem like the application Marriage 2.0 suffered an unrecoverable BSOD event. Sorry about that. We are coming to the negative slope part of the cycle.
Three inches variation on the dash is insane.
Don’t know much about Grace Potter but was introduced to her by Daryl Hall. Spunky, and can write a great country-inflected song. What’s not to like?
I also like the soothing tones of Garrison Keillor, but you gotta get out some. Hope it’s not too late.
The problem with the rear door hinges is a far more serious issue.
Occy straps through the inside handles and over the rear passengers’ legs would have taken care of that. But that dash would have been staring at me every time I drove.
Chrysler redesigned the hinges in 1996 or so. But maybe New Jersey dealers didn’t get informed about them. My 1995 Intrepid got the new ones, no charge. Rear only, front ones were apparently not affected.
Great reading Mr. Plaut. May we have more, please.
But seriously, many of the writers here have a real talent (regardless of how boring they may be in real life, LOL).
There you go….1999 Mazda Miata. Things are looking up (car wise).
Forgive the length of this post but RL, you being a tech guy, this is what your marriage sounds like.
Dear Technical Support,
Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance — particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0. The new program also began making unexpected changes to the accounting modules. In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5 and then installed undesirable programs such as NFL 5.0, NBA 3.0, and Golf Clubs 4.1. Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. I’ve tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.
What can I do?
Signed,
Desperate
——————————————————–
Dear Desperate:
First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an Operating System. Please enter the command: ” C:/ I THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME” and try to download Tears 6.2 and don’t forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5. But remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1. Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta.
Whatever you do, DO NOT install Mother-in-law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources). Also, do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.
In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend Food 3.0 and Hot Lingerie 7.7.
Good Luck,
Tech Support
Dear Tech Support:
Last year I upgraded from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 and noticed that the new program began running unexpected child processing that took up a lot of space and valuable resources. In addition, Wife 1.0 installs itself into all other programs and launches during system initialization, where it monitors all other system activity. Applications such as PokerNight 10.3, Drunken Boys Night 2.5 and Monday Night football 5.0 no longer run, crashing the system whenever selected.
I cannot seem to keep Wife 1.0 in the background while attempting to run some of my other favorite applications. I am thinking about going back to Girlfriend 7.0, but un-install does not work on this program.
Can you help me please?
Thanks,
Joe
——————————————————–
Dear Joe:
This is a very common problem men complain about but is mostly due to a primary misconception. Many people upgrade from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 with the idea that Wife 1.0 is merely a “UTILITIES & ENTERTAINMENT” program. Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM and designed by its creator to run everything. It is unlikely you would be able to purge Wife 1.0 and still convert back to Girlfriend 7.0. Hidden operating files within your system would cause Girlfriend 7.0 to emulate Wife 1.0 so nothing is gained.
It is impossible to un-install, delete, or purge the program files from the system once installed. You cannot go back to Girlfriend 7.0 because Wife 1.0 is not designed to do this. Some have tried to install Girlfriend 8.0 or Wife 2.0 but end up with more problems than the original system.
I recommend you keep Wife 1.0 and just deal with the situation. Having Wife 1.0 installed myself, I might also suggest you read the entire section regarding General Partnership Faults (GPFs). You must assume all responsibility for faults and problems that might occur, regardless of their cause. The best course of action will be to enter the command C:\APOLOGIZE. The system will run smoothly as long as you take the blame for all the GPFs.
Wife 1.0 is a great program, but very high maintenance. Consider buying additional software to improve the performance of Wife 1.0. I recommend Flowers 2.1, Jewelry 2.2, and Chocolates 5.0.
Do not, under any circumstances, install Secretary With Short Skirt 3.3. This is not a supported application for Wife 1.0 and is likely to cause irreversible damage to the operating system.
Best of luck,
Tech Support
^^^Priceless! If this is original, it’s punishment worthy.
No, its been rolling around the internet for at least a few years.
Oops. Too late to edit, but I meant “Publishment-worthy” time for more coffee.
I like “punishment worthy” better.
I lost the manual. But as usual tech support comes through!
As the pastor who married us used to say about weddings, “She’s looking into his eyes and thinking “I’m going to change him,” and he’s looking into hers thinking “She’ll never change.”
(c:
(coming up on 29 years married to my first wife, FWIW, so I must be doing something right)
LOL There are good reasons that this is a classic! (Still running Wife 1.0 myself)
Yeah, I’ve been married 20 years…9.5 the first time and 10.5 the second. I’m currently on the lookout for Ex 3.0
Those 3.5 Chryslers were pretty quick for back then. My friend’s mom had a dark green Intrepid with that engine, and it was impressive. The “cab-forward” cars disappeared from the roads without my noticing, like many cars from the ’80s and ’90s. Now we know one reason why!
I’ll attempt to add nothing to the relationship commentary, as history has proven me utterly inept and unqualified.
As for the Chrysler Conundrum, Nancy Reagan said it best: Just Say No. I’ve mentioned more than once that my father’s friendship with our local dealership owner meant that my family had at least one Pentastar product in the driveway for 30 years or so. This was not product loyalty built on good experience, but rather loyal friendship supported handily by the availability of top-line loaner cars liberally supplied whenever said products were in for warranty service (and it was pretty much all “Warranty Service” -wink-).
My grandfather, on the other hand, was one of those unwitting saps who DID subscribe to the product loyalty ideal. A new Chrysler every 5 years (keep in mind the 5 year/50,000 mile warranty here) was purchased from his own local dealership, Wyckoff Chrysler/Plymouth, right up until the end. I’m now driving the last of them, a ’99 300M, which at 59,000 miles and 17 years old is proving that these are vehicles best driven with the security of a friend in the business and a liberal interpretation of what’s”Under Warranty”.
The ’94 LHS that preceded my current car suffered a fatal engine management failure with less than 40’000 miles on the clock. The ’89 New Yorker that preceded that one had its Ultradrive replaced twice. Once under warranty, and then again after it was purchased by my ex mother-in-law (a purchase brokered by me, which in retrospect I have no guilt over). And the list of faults and failures could go on, probably back to before I was even here to witness them. I can distinctly recall my mother ranting in frustration at my grandfather for his stubbornness in replacing an absolutely abominable ’75 Cordoba with a ’77 LeBaron, as a matter of fact, but he was never persuaded to give up and buy anything else. (From ’77 until ’84 my father even had the good sense to go GM rather than adhere to his bond of loyal friendship and buy Chrysler’s, as he too had suffered through 2 years of ownership of his own ’75 Cordoba.)
Anyway, all of this is simply to say that there are literally millions of Chrysler customers who feel your pain. But then, when they’re running right they can be lovely vehicles to own and operate. Even I, who have a deep sense of nostalgia and respect for family history am bemused by “The Chrysler Experience”. If only the workmanship and materials would live up to the engineering. If only, indeed.
Is Sergio Marchionne suffering from that corporate “affliction ” you mentioned ? He’s given up on front drive cars, which I feel is a bit drastic . Our ’96 New Yorker has been a pretty good car. It has 97000 miles, and our biggest repairs have been an a/c evaporator, and a timing belt. Still has the original transmission, thanks to fluid and filter changes- twice so far.
? Harvey Corman ? =8-) .
.
Great story telling here , wouldst that I could make my crazy young life and failed marriage so entertaining .
.
-Nate
Strange, I’ve never seen most FWD engines out of their respective vehicles so I had no idea how much space they occupy top to bottom and side to side.
In the 90s I worked for a privately owned phone/phone equipment sales/refurbishment company that for a time refurbished DEC equipment. Even then, they seemed to be a “small fish in a HUGE….and growing pond”.
Almost never see either generation of Chrysler cab – forward big or medium sized cars. In 1996-1997 I think I might have been willing to gamble on one of those cars, if for no other reason than they looked MUCH better than their Ford/Mercury counterparts and on paper sounded MUCH MORE sophisticated than their GM counterparts.
As far as your encounter with a TIP, sounds like both of you failed to communicate quite often….from the beginning. Interestingly, my sister, a neo-TIP, married a husband who would “dump” her for the reasons your wife dumped you…..my sister wasn’t “exciting enough” for him.
Sorry to hear the second marriage didn’t work out. It seems maybe she is the one that did not grow. It takes some maturity to understand that money, cars and vacations usually come from hard work.
I crossed shopped the ’96 Taurus with leftover 1995 Chrysler LH cars. The Taurus came across smaller, and decidedly less performance and handling oriented than the 3.5 Concorde, so the Concorde came home with me.
Your Eagle Vision was the least distinctive of the LH cars. The only unique sheet metal was the hood. Otherwise clipped and screwed on trim bits and filler panels made the difference between it and the Chrysler Concorde. Outside of color and trim bits, you and I had the same cars.
My Concorde was around for 10 years and 100K miles. It was not perfect, but I think my dealer experience was much, much better, and that made the difference.
Addressing some issues…….
My AC also failed twice. It was repaired both times under warranty, and Chrysler sent me a post card extending the factory warranty on the system to a full five years after its in service date. The two repairs effectively replaced the entire AC system, and it ran flawlessly for the next eight years. It was the first Auto-Temp control AC system that I had that actually kept the temperature even year ’round. I thought the Chrysler warranty extension was an impressive olive branch from a company that was trying harder in the 1990s.
The AC repairs required full removal of the dashboard. In my case, they put the dash back together expertly, and I never had any problems with it. My guess is they left a few fasteners out of your dash after your AC repairs, causing it to fall.
My car had the top line Infinity stereo with CD player and cassette tape. My guess is your car did as well. It was the best factory set up that I had had to date, and ran flawlessly for 10 years. Me thinks TIP may have stressed your system with warped or dirty CDs, or tried to run it during extreme heat or cold on start up – issues that I recall being addressed in the owner’s manual.
I recall my door hinges were a little sensitive to needing lubrication and being kept clean, otherwise they would bind and make bad noises on operation. I’d wipe them down after a car wash a few times a year and apply WD-40. Otherwise, my door hinges performed perfectly for 10 years.
Never any problems with the hood hardware. I probably did replace the hood struts (hold-ups) once, myself, at very reasonable cost. Those were usually maintenance items back then. They’d wear out on just about any car after several years. Like most things, the newer stuff lasts longer. The struts on the tailgate of my 2002 Durango are 14 years old and going strong.
Zero transmission problems. I am a stickler for timely transmission servicing, which may have helped. In its 10th year, we did have an engine stalling gremlin in very cold weather. The dealer had a hard time duplicating the issue. With my wife still transporting small kids in the car, three kids, and the lack of a rear seat center shoulder belt, we finally traded the car for a large crossover.
I’d agree with you that the front seating could be a little claustrophobic if you were tall. The extreme rake of the windshield brought the header awfully close to my forehead, and at times it bothered me.
Overall, I really liked my 1995 Concorde.
Then there were the anomalies like the 95-ish Intrepid that a SIL owned. She bought it used at well over 100K and ran it to nearly 300K. She did have some repairs with it (including the a/c). I drove it once – there were some rattles, the seat felt strangely uneven and the engine had a lope at idle, but get it out on the road and it was still quick and smooth. She had offered to give it to my oldest kid when he got his drivers license, but I was afraid that she had used up every last bit of good life that the car could possibly have had, and declined.
The second marriage has not failed yet (perhaps in the next installment). I kind of liked “A Prairie Home Companion” way back when (late 80’s?), but if you listened to it a few times you basically heard everything. The program is still on, although Garrison Keillor has retired yet again, and has not changed as far as I can tell. I don’t listen to it much, but if I am in the car and turn on the radio, it may be on (late Saturday afternoon). I usually turn it off.
Garrison Keillor might explain Anne.
A couple of word tense choices in the article would indicate that the relationship ended. My best guess, anyway.
“Happy wife, happy life”.
OH what men do to make their woman happy!
It seems Miata is always the answer.
I rode in a friend’s LH car once, think it was a ’95 and was only 2-3 years old. Hard seats, uncomfortable ride, cheap interior plastics and rattles everywhere. Junk. Maybe this is why Chrysler is in trouble again.
Another great read. I love the pairing of the LH cars with the 1957 models. Both fabulously appealing packages when new, they both turned out to be great engines attached to cars were almost everything else failed prematurely. As you say, at least the 57s added a great tranny to the mix.
I do find it funny that when your wife complained that you were a boring guy who bought nothing but 4 door sedans, she was the one who picked the one she was stuck with every day. But it was probably a good idea to not bring that up.
When Car and Driver tested the first LH cars, the reviewer said that the cars reminded him of the 1957 Mopars in terms of styling and driving pleasure. One of the reviewers then singled out Tom Gale, the chief stylist, for praise, and added, “Let’s hope his career doesn’t end up like Virgil Exner’s did by 1961.”
As this story shows, however, the lurking problem ultimately wasn’t styling-gone-wacky on the order of the 1961 Plymouth, Dodge and Imperial. It was a level of reliability and quality control that recalled the infamous 1957 Mopars.
My 1995 Dodge Intrepid has been excellent, though my driving is low-mileage (odometer is currently 102068). I chose one with the 3.3L OHV engine, first used in the minivans. It has excellent low-end torque and the strong tip-in is “helped” by electronic contouring of the throttle position sensor, already by the mid-90s a trick by the Japanese to meke their engines feel peppier than they really were. It is a tad quicker than the 1994 Taurus but feels much quicker. It has the Chrysler LH touring suspension and handles (with upgraded tires and polyurethane bushings on the rear anti-sway bar replacing the stock rubber ones) much better than a large car has any right to…better, in fact, than recently-rented Nissan and Toyota sedans.
It has needed two air conditioner repairs, one under warranty and another when a rock punctured the condenser up front (so not the car’s fault). At 95,000 miles the water pump started to weep coolant; I replaced it myself, the easiest water pump job I have ever done. There have been no engine issues and the transmission has been flawless.
Some gripes: the column shifter (it has the front split-bench bench seat) is annoying; the lever rotates as it is moved among the selector positions. The door hold-open checks creak, and the one on the left rear door got too weak and needed replacement (a redesign appeared in 1996). The turn signals malfunctioned and troubleshooting was complicated by a change in the flasher and the wiring…my 1995 has the wiring and flasher of the 1996 model but the 1995 service manual has the old circuit diagram. The fault was in the multifunction switch which was unchanged from 1995 to 1996…and the knob on the end of its stalk did fade to a whitish color, like the one in the photo above. The windshield wipers lift off the glass at over 75-80 mph. It’s hard to clean the inside of the windshield. The defroster left an uncleared band in the driver’s field of vision, fixed by blocking part of the defroster outlets to redirect air flow.
The polycarbonate headlights have deteriorated and need polishing at intervals even though the car is garaged (typical for plastic headlights).
Just this month the air conditioner control head lost the click stops on the fan speed control. I opened it up and found a soft-rubber tip providing the click action had worn out. I replaced it with a plastic push button from a free ball point pen I got from my insurance agent! If I had wanted, a replacement control head from an auto wrecker would have cost about $35-40.
After test driving a ’95 Chrysler Concord, taking note of the slow shifting transmission, the noisy but barely adequate air conditioner, the road rumble & lack of suitable insulation, the sqeaks and rattles on a car showing 200 miles on the odometer, my ’95 Mercury Grand Marquis was the obvious (and cheaper) choice.
130K trouble free miles later I sold the GM to a co-worker who snapped it up at my asking price.
ANOTHER car that I shudda kept.
I had a coworker in the late ’90s who had an Intrepid, which she had sarcastically renamed the “Chrysler Entrapment.”
The Dodge Decrepit was another sobriquet.
As was Mercury Mistake .
.
Oldsmobile Econolux .
.
Etc.
.
-Nate
“Then local management, under pressure to cut costs, planned to cut back on company cars and have us use our personal vehicles, which management told us had to be recent model 4 door cars.”
This is astonishingly out of touch – when they withdrew company cars without payment, they should’ve done it with the FULL KNOWLEDGE that their reps would be showing up in…
1. Toys. Trucks, yeah. Muscle cars both new and old (the cars middle-aged guys wish they had in high school). Sports cars.
2. Whatever they could find in the amount of time they had between announcement and turning in the company car.
Sad thing about the downfall of dec to is how they pioneered internet search with Altavista.digital.com but never went anywhere with it. from 1995-2000 it was all anyone I knew used for search.back then it was altaviata, yahoo, web crawler and a few others and altaviata was the best BY FAR. Imagine what could have been if the guys at DEC saw the earning potential that was internet search before Compaq bought them in 98. DEC could have risen back to its former glory in the new age if the internet.
As for the dec guys who developed and ran altaviata…..they went to google.
I haven’t had any experience with DEC. My computers were CDC 6600, 7600 and Cray 1, and multi processor Crays.
I learned Fortran on a CDC Cyber (don’t remember what Series). Couldn’t write “Hello, World” in it today, though.
When I learned Fortran (iv) it was done on punch cards. The first 6 columns were used for numbering statements or continuing them. A statement started on 7. The first line (not a comment card) would be:
Program name
Print *,”hello world”
call exit
end
Or something like this. Fortran 90/95 does away with the column formatting. I did have to google fortran to remind myself how.
Xerox Corporation’s Palo Alto Research Center invented the graphical user interface as we know it, but successfully commercializing it was another matter. Dealers of Lightning by Michael Hiltzik is a fascinating book about this. One of my all-time favorite nonfiction books.
Trouble In Paradise. The Irish Princess. Thoughtless Ignorant Persecution. That’s It, Pal.
This Is Perplexing.
The reference to A Prairie Home Companion speaks volumes – I think the author would find himself very much at home here in the land of Garrison Keillor, where I recently saw a man in a restaurant wearing a shirt that said “Keep Saint Paul Boring.” Your writing is the opposite of boring, though, I look forward to the next installment!
Great article, as always.
My dad had a ’95 Intrepid LH company car in that so-very-nineties teal color. In the summer of 1997 we drove down to Miami from Chicago. Sure enough, somewhere in the warmer southern regions of the country, the A/C gave out. And then we noticed it had soaked the carpet. So, yeah, the rest of that trip was made with the windows down, desperately trying to air out the car in the humid Florida weather. Wasn’t a fun ride back to Chicago in August, either.
That’s the point where I pretty much swore off Chryslers (although I still would love an old Wrangler or Cherokee.)
Excellent COAL series! Been eagerly following since the first installment.
It may not have started out that way, but with today’s story I think “Princess” is meant to be sarcastic!
I’m not going to pile on Chrysler vehicles except to say I’m finished with them for good after our experiences with my wife’s PT Cruiser. A couple of years into our ownership (we purchased it new) the airbag warning light started coming on intermittently. We took it to the dealer where we purchased it and they said they could not diagnose the problem unless the light was actually on when we brought the car in. A few weeks later the light came on and stayed on, we took to the service department, listened to 15 minutes of “yada, yada, yada”, the gist of which was they had no clue what to do. In other words they could sell the car but couldn’t maintain it. Now some (or much) of this might not actually be Chrysler’s fault, but, on the other hand, their name was plastered all over the building. We did achieve some measure of satisfaction because this dealership (Evansville Chrysler-Plymouth) was one that lost their franchise in the great Chrysler purge a few years after this.
No man anywhere truly understands women. I can still remember my grandmother telling me that she wasn’t going to tell me what to do, followed in the next breath by her telling me exactly what she wanted me to do.
That is not the case. Chrysler dropped the pushbuttons after the 1964 model year—that is two years before the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (is what it was actually called), and four years before the advent of the first Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. Chrysler’s takeup of shift levers had nothing to do with any safety standards; none existed at the time. It was primarily because they felt with conventional controls they’d sell more Chrysler vehicles to driver’s-ed programs, and this was considered crucial because it was some of a new driver’s first real vehicle exposure, which was thought to be foundational for vehicle preferences.
Moreover, the pushbuttons were regarded as something of a played-out fad; they’d been introduced in 1956. They were dependable and didn’t make trouble (unlike the Rube Goldberg electrical crapmesses on the Edsel and Packard), and were regarded, including by Ralph Nader, as safer than a lever. But the tailfins-and-pushbuttons-for-everything age was in the rearview mirror.
The actual safety-standards influence on automatic transmission controls was to force GM to change. Many GM quadrants were arranged P—N-D-L-R. This was (correctly) regarded as dangerous because a forward and reverse position were immediately adjacent with no effective lockout. In the absence of Federal vehicle safety standards, the Goods and Services Administration drew up their own list of standard equipment required on cars purchased by the government. The list included front and rear seatbelts, nonglare windshield wiper arms, windshield washers, a driver’s sideview mirror, reversing lamps, and automatic transmission controls with no forward and reverse position immediately adjacent. The GSA requirements had the effect of making those items standard equipment even for cars not bought by the government, which is why things like backup lights and sideview mirrors and screenwashers moved off many models’ option list for ’66 and became basic equipment. GM—having previously issued smug dictates that they were the market leader, so the rest of the industry was just going to have to go along with the GM way—were forced to adopt P—R-N-D-L. When Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard № 102 then came in, it stipulated that a neutral position shall be located between forward drive and reverse drive positions, re-sealing the fate of GM’s unsafe design.
Sir, I love your post. Full of accurate, detailed information, well written and I look forward to them!
»doffs cap« Uhhthenkya. Thenkyavurramuch.
Both the hydramatic and dynaflow transmissions had reverse at the end. However, the Buick triple turbine used P-R-N-D-Gr. My guess is that GM was not staying with the old scheme.
I could be wrong, but my understanding is it’s not that GM thought P—N-D-L-R was the one and only right way to do it by dint of their doing it, but rather they had a bunch of transmissions that were configured that way and wanted to preserve the option for “market differentiation” (i.e., not better, just different). Compare red rear turn signals: inferior to proper amber ones and GM knows it, but still they fight, tooth and claw (as recently as last week), to keep the US regs as they are despite the rest of the world having banned red turn signals decades ago.
They are still legal in New Zealand.
From. https://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/rules/vehicle-lighting-2004/#62
6.2(1) The light emitted from a forward-facing direction-indicator lamp must be substantially white or amber.
6.2(2) The light emitted from a rearward-facing direction-indicator lamp must be substantially red or amber.
Not quite. This what you cite is only one of the applicable rules; others constrain things further such that amber front and rear indicators are required on all vehicles except that trailers may be equipped with red rear ones — and NZTA are working to eliminate that unintended loophole.
Yes many truck bodies and trailers are equipped with red not amber turn signals but separate from the stop/tail lights,
Amber front turn signals became the default fitment on British cars in 66, Australian cars in 73 which is where NZ bought most of its car fleet from back then.
One thing that the dynaflow would allow if you were stuck was that you could shift back and forth between low range and reverse. This might get you enough movement to eventually get unstuck. Whether or not this was a consideration in the design is not clear.
It was also very good for burning out the transmission in a hurry.
It absolutely was.
Of GM’s pre-Turbo Hydra-Matic passenger car automatics, the only ones that didn’t put Reverse at the bottom of the pattern were the triple turbines (Turboglide, Flight Pitch Dynaflow, Triple Turbine) and 1958-on Powerglide. With the triple turbines, the PRNDG/PRNDH pattern was dictated in part by the layout of the various clutches. Powerglide had previously also used PNDLR, but Chevrolet decided that confusing drivers switching between Powerglide and Turboglide cars would be a bad idea. (Buick did not seem worried, oddly.)
The point of putting Reverse next to Low was to make it easier to rock a car out of mud, snow, or the like. Having it at the bottom of the pattern was an artifact of the original Hydra-Matic’s mechanical layout (at rest, going from Low to Reverse and back alternates between engaging the rear band and engaging the reverse pawl), but that was the purpose of having them adjacent.
With Hydra-Matic, it was actually fairly difficult to go from Low to Reverse if you were moving faster than a crawl because the pawl wouldn’t seat. Later Hydra-Matics (from 1951 on) used reverse cone clutches instead and had hydraulic interlocks that were supposed to prevent the L–R shift above 5–6 mph, although they weren’t 100% reliable.
As for clinging to that pattern, in GM’s defense — not something I say that often — it was (a) adopted for a specific, moderately useful purpose and (b) had been used across tens of millions of cars and trucks over more than two decades in an era of strong brand loyalty, so the argument that changing a basic control layout that everyone uses and almost no one pays close attention to would confuse a lot of people and potentially undermine the intended safety benefit was not without some foundation.
Thanks, very informative and well-stated. I was unaware of the driver’s ed connection, but it makes sense. Yes, Ralph Nader had quite a lot to say about the GM transmissions, with many of the them having the PNDLR quadrant. My aunt’s ’61 Olds Dynamic 88 had this, except “S” for “Super” was in the “L” position.
I drove that car when I turned 16, never messed up with the tranny, but once I left the parking brakes on. After several miles (or more) of driving, I smelled a burnt odor and realized my mistake. That was another item added as a safety standard — a warning light for low brake fluid or an applied parking brake.
Nader’s comments on the shift pattern were actually mostly recapping stuff Oscar Banker, an independent inventor, had been saying rather loudly around the SAE for several years. (People attribute all sorts of stuff to Nader personally that he was mostly just relating, something Nader himself made pretty clear in Unsafe at Any Speed.) Banker, ironically, hated Nader’s book and Banker’s own memoir expresses a lot of bitterness at being associated with him.
Rambler also had pushbutton auto transmission until 1963. There were a lot of cars built and on the road from the mid 50’s till 1965 that had pushbutton auto transmissions. One thing about them you couldn’t accidentally shift into reverse trying to shift into to low unless you had an IQ of 2. In the late 60’s when I was in high school a good friend of mine inherited a cherry ’56 Chevrolet from his grandparents. It had a 265 V8 with Powerglide. Within 6 months he had to have the transmission rebuilt because he kept hitting reverse when he was trying to shift onto low. Had to have it rebuilt a second time for the same reason. His next car he had a lot better luck with. A ’67 Corvette 427 435hp with a m21 four speed. Never had a transmission problem but had to get the motor rebuilt after a couple of years. I drove it many a time because I was the designated driver. It was fast, 130 mph in third and shift into 4th.
I think those GSA specs were effective for 1965, if memory serves. As an aside, Studebaker (as a Canadian company in 1965-66) never changed its shift quadrant from the old PNDLR, which I confirmed in this picture taken of the last one built.
No, sir. The GSA specs took effect for 1966-model vehicles.
As for Studebaker, that doesn’t surprise me; if ever they sold more than a few vehicles to the government, it was probably long before 1966.
I don’t believe that GM issued any “dictates” regarding the pattern of automatic transmission selectors. It did sell Hydramatic to any car maker that wanted it (primarily the independents in the 1950s), so the shift pattern came with the transmission. Ford, Chrysler and AMC didn’t consistently follow GM’s direction. Apparently the competition felt comfortable ignoring GM in this area.
The main reason that Chrysler dropped the pushbutton selector was because it wanted to conquest sales from GM and Ford. When Lynn Townsend took over corporate leadership after William Newberg was forced out because of a payola scandal, the corporation’s market share was headed for 10 percent, and would bottom out at this figure for 1962. (Corporate market share had been 18.9 percent in 1957.) Townsend knew that the only way to really grow the corporation’s market share was to conquest customers from GM and Ford.
A big part of the plan was more conventional styling, which showed up on the 1963 full-size Dodges and Plymouths, and 1963 Plymouth Valiant and Dodge Dart.
Surveys conducted by the corporation showed that Chrysler loyalists had no problem with the pushbutton automatic transmissions, but a fair number of GM and Ford owners wouldn’t even consider a Chrysler-built car solely because of that feature. Hence, the decision to adopt a more conventional transmission selector for the 1965 model year.
If you look at Chrysler Corporation sales brochures for the 1965 model year, all of them specifically – and prominently – note the adoption of the conventional automatic transmission selector. I doubt that this information was included for the benefit of personnel responsible for choosing a driver’s education car. The bottom line is that, by the early 1960s, this feature was meeting with considerable sales resistance from a large number of buyers. Dropping it was good business sense, particularly given the need for Chrysler to steal customers from GM and Ford.
“Dictates” is here used not denotationally, but for its attitudinal connotation. Spend some time trawling through GM’s transmission-related SAE papers of the era and you’ll quickly come to see why I picked that word.
About pushbuttons and levers we don’t disagree much in principle, I just stated it in different terms (played-out fad). Remember that Chrysler started putting lever-type selectors in certain sporty models for ’64.
The sales brochures for 1965 do not “all specifically and prominently note the adoption of the conventional automatic selector”. Here’s a de luxe full-line ’65 Dodge brochure that doesn’t. And here’s a giant 83-page full-range Chrysler Corp vehicles brochure that doesn’t seem to say a word about lever-type selectors (though I just skimmed it; perhaps with closer scrutiny you’ll find mention). Here’s a ’65 Plymouth brochure that doesn’t appear to speak up about transmission levers.
As for surveys that may or may not have been conducted and what they may or may not have found, we’ll have to lump that in along with driver’s ed and market share and such, and file it all under [citation needed].
Jeffrey Godshall, a former Chrysler stylist who began working at the corporation in the mid-1960s (he joined the corporation in 1963), has written many articles on Chrysler products and the career of Virgil Exner for publications as diverse as Special Interest Autos, Collectible Automobile and Automobile Quarterly. He has claimed that Chrysler ultimately dropped the push-button controls in favor of a conventional shift lever in response to customer feedback on surveys.
Given that he worked at Chrysler during this period, I’m inclined to trust his version of events. It dovetails nicely with Lynn Townsend’s direct order to get Chrysler Corporation vehicles back into the mainstream (meaning, following what GM and Ford were doing) in as many areas as possible in order to make conquest sales easier. Chrysler’s market share was down to about 10 percent for 1962; it had to snag sales from both GM and Ford if it wished to increase sales and market share.
Of course, as you note, the push-button controls were ultimately a fad, and by the early 1960s the hottest trend was a floor-mounted lever placed between bucket seats.
As for what the brochures say – on page 7 of the 1965 Dodge full-line brochure, it specifically says, for the Dart, “Automatic transmission selector is steering column mounted.”
On the pages where the specifications for various models are given it notes that “The Torqueflite has a column-mounted shifter…”
In a brochures devoted to the 1965 Plymouth Fury and Belvedere/Satellite, the copy in the Fury brochure mentions a “3-speed automatic with steering-column mounted selector” on one page, while the Belvedere/Satellite brochure states, “Note the new steering-column mounted selector” for cars equipped with automatic transmission.
In the full-line brochure for the 1965 Chryslers, the copy highlights “a 3-speed Torqueflite automatic transmission, complete with selector lever on the steering column.” On another page, the brochure notes that “a selector lever now controls the slickest three-speed automatic transmission in the business.”
I’m sure that snagging business for driver’s education cars was a consideration in Chrysler’s decision, but given the constant references to the column-mounted shifter in the 1965 sales brochures, it’s also apparent that the corporation thought that this feature would be an important talking point for potential customers.
I likewise hold a great deal of respect for Mr. Godshall.
I don’t agree with you, however, that any of The Torqueflite has a column-mounted shifter, 3-speed automatic with steering-column mounted selector, or complete with selector lever on the steering column counts as “specifically – and prominently – not[ing] the adoption of the conventional automatic transmission selector” (your words).
The brochures repeatedly refer to this feature – often with photos of the lever. It’s rather curious to highlight a feature that, by 1965, was quite common on GM and Ford products, unless Chrysler really wanted to get the message across that the push-button controls were gone.
Those early levers worked the same cable mechanism that the pushbuttons had been attached to.
This version makes the most sense to me. Sales tanked after the debacle of the Exner designed Chrysler products of 1962 – ’64. These cars were just plain weird, and the public avoided them in droves. Townsend had to turn things around fast and Elwood Engel came up with the nicely (and much more traditionally) styled 1965 line in an effort to appeal to GM owners. In the process quirky, non-GM like features such as transmission push buttons bit the dust, although they were one of the most trouble free items on the car.
GM was at the height of it power at this time and competitors were loath to be different. Even Ford felt the heat as it moved the starter key from its long held position on the left side of the instrument panel to the right.
Dan, once again superb research. Always look forward to your posts.
We cross shopped the Intrepid and the Taurus back in the early ’90s. Interestingly, the salesman at a very large and busy Ford dealer, after pitching the car and letting us test drive it, asked us what else we were looking at. When we told him we were going to look at the Intrepid, he immediately walked away, no business card, nothing. The Intrepid was a better “first date” than the Taurus on pretty much all aspects. What sold She Who Must Be Obeyed on the Intrepid was the built in child seat. Though we probably used it only a handful of times, as it did not have all the safety features of a typical portable child seat of the day, the idea of providing the thing, built in, triggered SWMBO so that nothing else would do.
It all went to pot at 60k to 70k miles, the fuel injectors, the transmission, and other gremlins. When we delivered it to the Honda dealer for the trade-in on the Odyssey, the car spontaneously half-dropped the rear door window at some crazy angle in the Honda parking lot. Sort of a parting statement on the part of the car, I guess.
“The Intrepid was a better “first date” than the Taurus on pretty much all aspects.”
Exactly my experience, which led to the purchase of a Concorde. Fortunately, my experience with ownership was better than yours, per earlier thread comments.
Thanks for the stories of a lifetime.
I really think you need to do a little more research in car buying choices. The Saturn and LH were among the worst cars on the market in those days.
The litany of LH problems listed here are all common. The cars were just not well put together, and the basic parts, especially in the front end, were of very low quality.
My sister had a Saturn of the era, I think a 2002. It went almost exactly one hundred thousand kilometers and proceeded to blow itself to bits. Now she drives a Honda Fit and in the last six years she’s had no trouble with it.
Marriage is never easy, but perhaps you need a Chinese wife. They’ll never be upset if you overwork.
TIP has not dumped a pot of boiling rice on him as yet (or we have not heard about it as yet). Hopefully things will work out…
Moral of EVERY story, American car bad, Asian car great!
I was starting to get annoyed with the name “TIP” but now it’s starting to make perfect sense. My guess is divorce #2 did occur, probably good riddance.
Those LH cars were certainly lookers when they first came out, but they turned out to be nothing but trouble within a few years.
Coincidentally, we bought a 1990 Mercury Sable sedan brand new; it was one of the few midsize cars available at the time with a driver’s airbag (instead of those “mouse motor” automatic belts, or worse, GM’s “passive” seat belts). The car was quite a revelation, a stunning design and an ergonomic wonder.
But, after 4 years and 65K miles (of course just after the car was paid off), all of the typical maladies of the Taurus/Sable made themselves known, including transmission failure and multiple failures of the a/c system. Fortunately we had the Vulcan V6 which never had a problem, unlike the infamous 3.8-liter V6 with its head gasket issues.
We managed to keep the car until it was 10 years old with 135K miles, and everything was fine and working at the time we sold it. It still looked good also. But in retrospect, we should have dumped it at the 4-year mark. Worst car we owned with the exception of my very first, a 1975 VW Rabbit.
Interesting that you had transmission troubles with your Sable, as it was my understanding that the automatic transmission had no problem handling the 3.0 V-6.
A few friends had Tauruses of this vintage with the 3.0 V-6, and when the transmission acted up (generally around 100,000 miles), it required only the replacement of a very inexpensive part, and then was fine. The real problems started when that transmission was teamed up with the 3.8 V-6.
Our transmission lost overdrive at 93K miles. I was hoping it was an electronic glitch, something relatively cheap and easy to fix. No, the transmission was diagnosed as gone at our trusted independent repair shop, to the tune of $2300 for a remanufactured replacement. Before going ahead with the work, I took the car in for a second opinion at a well-regarded locally owned transmission specialty shop (not AAMCO or other national chains). Same diagnosis, but they quoted a significantly lower price of about $1600, so I went with them. To this day, I have never incurred a single repair job costing this much.
One thing is the owner’s manual was quite vague on the need for fluid changes, and I didn’t have the first one done until over 60K miles, when fluid started to leak from the pan gasket. I decided to have it changed at that point and ideally stop the leak with a new gasket. Maybe more frequent changes would have forestalled disaster before we sold the car; I’ll never know.
I still say that the transmission and head-gasket troubles of the Taurus, Sable and Windstar during the 1990s played a large part in Ford’s troubles at the turn of the century.
Those vehicles sold a lot of Accords and Camrys.
If Ford got lucky, those customers traded for an Explorer. But I’ll bet that quite a few did not.
When my wife started a new job around 1994, she decided her 1990 Alfa Spider was not a good daily driver in ATL traffic (she still has it, and it’s been stupid reliable), so we bought a used 1988 Taurus L (yes, the base model) with the 3.0 V-6 and 56K on the clock.
At 75K it all started to go sideways. The infamous Taurus A/C failure, then over the next two years, basically every fluid started leaking. Transmission, Power steering, oil, radiator…
What sealed the deal for us was a problem that caused the car to accelerate all by itself from rest to about 45-50 mph. Not fast, mid you, but you needed to be careful. Three shops later we got it fixed and sold the car.
We replaced it with a brand new 1997 Honda CR-V and she’s now on her 3rd Honda (’97 CR-V, 2007 Pilot, 2017 Pilot). She will not even consider a Ford product. She barely tolerates the ’09 Buick we inherited from her mother.
’95 Dodge Intrepid bought brand new goes down in history as truly the shittiest piece of junk I ever owned. My sister worked for Chrysler, I had just bought my first house and needed a reliable vehicle. Used was outta the question as I didn’t want to worry about repairs for at least 3 years. Employee discount too? “I’ll take that back one over there. Not being picky. It’ll do”.
First <50 degree day in the Fall? Had to wait for the trans to engage in reverse just like the 1977 Pontiac Grand Prix I had with 170K on it …..it only did that in subzero temperatures though. Then the A/C. If it worked it stunk my clothes up like mildew, foot and ass. Not good when a suit reeks when meeting new potential clients. A friend jumped in and asked "Why does it smell like wet dog in here?". CHRYSLER A/C SYSTEMS STILL HAVE THIS PROBLEM TO THIS VERY DAY!".
This isn't even funny either. The headlights would "flutter". I have no other word to describe it. I discovered those headlight assemblies were held in place by these little plastic tabs that had broken prematurely. Keep in mind I didn't put but 20K miles on this disaster before I dumped it.
Having a background in the automotive industry, working in the logistics department of a major automotive manufacturer, this is the first car I noticed that all the parts come from different sources. The interior of that Intrepid was 16 different shades of gray from the glove box door to the armrests.
My big fat 300# boss loved that Eagle though with its "cab forward" design. She actually fit in it. Her previous car was a Chevy Cavalier.
Why don’t you tell us what you really think ?!
Funny you mention the a/c stink. I had a lot of customers complain about it.
The a/c on November LH would usually fairy immediately after the warranty. Replacing the leaky evap was a 12 hour job if I recall correctly. I could usually sell some brakes and tie rid ends at the same time, so an easy $2000 retail bill. My boss loved me.
The most I ever got out of an LH was $5000 on one r/o.
This really should have gone in the installment where Annie went berserk on you, but I haven’t gotten the time to write it down until now. I had a similar experience from Chris’s viewpoint, although not as dramatic.
My mother was mentally ill (paranoid schizophrenic), and this had its effect on me. My folks started sending me to a psychiatrist when I was 5. I remember that when we drove in for my first session, my mother said, “We’re going to the Child Guidance Clinic, and a man named Dr. _______ is going to talk to you.” When you’re 5, the larger implications of being taken to a child guidance clinic, whatever that is, go right past you!
One day during the fall semester of first grade, my mother took off for her mother’s farm in Virginia with me in tow. I didn’t have any objection to ditching school and going on a road trip! I learned years later from my stepmother that my father came home that night to an unexplained empty house, and of course he was frantic. When we got within a mile or two of my grandmother’s farm, the ’46 Jeep CJ-2A rolled over. I sustained a cut on the leg. Not a bad cut by adult standards, but too much excitement for a 6-y.o. in one day.
Cell phones were decades off, but somehow my father put 2 and 2 together and came and got me. We drove back to Pennsylvania in the now topless Jeep. I remember the temperatures not being too bad, so it can’t have been too deep into the fall.
My father moved out temporarily. My mother acknowledged that she wasn’t up to being a parent, didn’t contest the divorce, and didn’t seek custody. My father moved back in and was a single dad for a few years, until he remarried. My stepmother later told me that my psychiatrist told my father that he would have to divorce my mother for my well-being. I don’t know if the trip to Virginia was what prompted this, but it would make sense.
If my father had been writing a COAL at this time, the other family car was a ’49 Frazer, which would be replaced a year later by a ’53 Pontiac 8.
I still see a good number of Mopar LH cars still on the road here. Most of them are later Intrepids, Concordes and 300m but also a fair number of the original New Yorker/LHS.
Seems like if you got a good one, they are pretty decent cars. I always thought the old New Yorker/LHS and second generation Concorde and 300m made for a passable looking near luxury sedan, especially with the wood topped steering wheels. I never thought the interior materials, including the plastics and plastiwood was really any worse than comparable lower level Cadillac Devilles and Lincoln Town Cars. I love that era of Deville and Town Car, but honestly they had some pretty crappy plastic I on the inside for cars that at one time were the pinnacle of American luxury.
Interesting because here in the Midwest, I use these LH cars as the prime example of they seemed to have all disappeared off the road overnight. You just realize one day, “remember those cars, I never see them anymore”. Really, it’s as if they were all hauled to the junkyard in the same week like they never existed.
One irony of the Eagle “Vision” was that it had some of the worst headlamps ever foisted on American motorists. They were much, much too small and optically basic for the job they were asked to do. Their performance was grossly inferior to that of a 1979-spec sealed beam, and their materials and build quality were inexcusably lousy. The export headlamps were a couple of notches less primitive and, with thoughtful bulb selection, could give reasonably decent performance, but the domestic lamps—both the originals and the post-TSB items—were cheap, nasty, expensive, severely inadequate junk.
In the days of sealed beams, you had the option of swapping them out for quartz-halogens. If I had a newer car with terrible lights, I imagine I’d get auxiliary driving lights.
How easy was it to get a set of export lights?
“Driving lamp” or “driving light” is a widely misunderstood term. People use it to refer to all kinds of different lights. In fact, driving lamps are auxiliary high beams. They are effective, safe, and legal only for use with the vehicle’s main high beam headlamps on dark, empty roads (or off road). Never with low beams, never by themselves, not in bad weather, and never in traffic. That means driving lamps are no fix for lousy low beams. Neither are fog lamps. There used to be a pretty good auxiliary low beam offered by Hella, but it’s been discontinued for many years and it was difficult to mount on modern aero-front cars anyhow.
The export headlamps for the ’93-’97 Chrysler Vision fit the Eagle Vision and the Chrysler Concorde. They came in two varieties: left-traffic (they sold perhaps four of these cars in Japan) and right-traffic (Continental Europe, Scandinavia). They were costly and difficult to get hold of; doing so required a dealer parts manager who knew how to jump through Chrysler’s hoops regarding other-market parts. Those hoops got boarded up when Daimler then Cerberus then Fiat took over; it is no longer possible to get export-spec parts at a US or Canadian Chrysler dealer. The internet has made it easier to make contact with overseas dealers, but the point is moot; the headlamps in question are no longer available even over there.
Counting all parts needed to make a proper job of the changeover, I think the total came to something like $800 in 2001 or so. The result was pretty good (and a big improvement over the stock equipment), but headlamps that work really should be standard equipment.
And, as I mentioned above, on the ’95 Intrepid I had the headlight assemblies were loose and you’d get a “bouncing” of those headlights (sorry I don’t know how else to describe it). Upon further perusal, those headlight housings were attached by little, tiny, itty, bitty plastic tabs that all broke. That car didn’t have but 20K on it at the time either.
Another unexpected turn in this series, maybe the fact that the Miata can corner well will help a bit..
The Canadian alternative to A Prairie Home Companion is The Vinyl Cafe on CBC radio. My wife doesn’t much care for it but it does not cause the marriage problems listed above, mostly because the weekly episodes are only 1 hour long and not 2 like PHC
I used to tape-record radio shows and listen to them after the fact. Now I stream them online and save them as MP3s.
I’ve never heard Don K. Reed’s Doo Wop Shop, but it sounds like my kind of show.
I helped develop the chassis for that car! It’s successor, the ’98LH was even more interesting because Chrysler was on a major weight saving initiative, trying to bring the car down a weight class for CAFE, even though our part was similar it was aluminum intensive, with special tempering of the Alu parts (for toughness and strength) being done by a military contractor that also made plasma nozzles for anti tank shells and missiles. Chrysler was putting a lot of emphasis on chassis systems with European levels of performance and feel. .
I wonder if anyone has ever done a study on how much more likely buyers of new Hondas and Toyotas are to have their marriages succeed than buyers of other cars.
The two cars we’ve bought for which my wife was the final decision maker were our ‘93 Corolla wagon and our ‘08 Prius. Both practical and reliable; the latter still our son’s daily driver. 32+ years of marriage and going strong.
Is there anything they can’t do?
How sad! The relationship is only in jeopardy when the woman isn’t happy, eh? Bah.
The LH cars were total, absolute junk. They were cut down to the point major components like a/c and the transmission usually failed right after warranty.
-The transmissions were junk.
-The engine air intake is in the left from wheel. I saw two cases of hydro-lock.
-The battery is in the same place.
-The brakes wore out after 20,000 km due to small rotors and pads.
-The a/c evap would fail at 60,001 km and replacing it was a 12 hour job.
As for Saturn, both my sister and mom had them. By 140,000 km, my sister’s car was a smoking pile of GM crap. Mom’s SC1 had 80,000 km on it when she passed and it felt worn out. It was a horrid car.
These are just as much fun to re-read as I remembered them being the first time.
I’ll bet it was a great pickup at the end of a crummy day at work to think – “At least I get to drive off of Rikers Island whenever I want to.”
Yes. After the “pop the trunk” test it was like taking off a pair of uncomfortable shoes.
Except… if there was a short mid-day inmate count the island went into lock-down. No one off the island until the count was made right. It did not happen often, but it did happen.
Sad news – yesterday Don K Reed passed away after a long kidney illness on Long Island.
I used to listen to his show every week when I was with my relatives in Central NJ – him and Bobby Jay (still with us thankfully) are responsible for my odd taste in music (my wife joked she married a 70 year old man in a 34 year olds body).
27 years he hosted The Doo Wop Shop on CBS-FM (1975 – 2002) – mighty long time in radio. He also helped with the soundtrack for “A Bronx Tale” – a perfect fit given the era of the movie, and the locale.
Back to the cars…as a kid I loved the look of the Chrysler LH cars. But man I am I happy that my family (for the most part) avoided 90’s Chryslers. My grandfathers 98 Jeep Cherokee Spot 4.0 4WD was traded in 4 years after purchase – the seat frame was cheap and my 6 foot 6 grandfather had it twisted like a pretzel.
I’m sorry to hear that. It’s not yet on the internet.
So many people that were actually, or vicariously, part of my life are now gone.
“… she married a 70 year old man in a 34 year olds body…”.
Better THAT than the other way around!
RLPlaut,
Great writing sir. I appreciate your sharing the gory details of cars and wife.
jiro
Wow, a couple of those cars are “I wouldn’t get near with a 10 foot pole” type of cars back then.
My first hint of issues with TIP was when she said the Eagle was “fast” and ergo you know who wasn’t.
I glanced through the comments and I didn’t quickly see guesses on the two gals in the Prairie Home. I believe they were Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin.
My 1996 Concorde LXi was a reliability nightmare. The 1993 Taurus with 270k+ it was supposed to replace was pressed back into service after the Concorde ate me alive in repairs and still died. Heres a pic not long before it was scrapped. I drove the Taurus another ~20k before it burned a valve, and i sold it to a guy who replaced the head and drove it another 50k, or so he told me.
I have over 100k more miles (than the Chrysler did when it was squished) on my current 1995 Taurus. Still runs and drives on its original drivetrain.
To answer your question about the two women in “A Prairie Home Companion,” the one in red is Meryl Streep and the one in green, Lily Tomlin. Or were you asking the question in jest?
Ive only ever seen one LH car they are very rare here and the one I saw was RHD, exJDM? who knows it was going along nicely though an elderly gentleman at the wheel, sounds like he may have got THE good one everybody else missed out on.
The poorly paid teachers at the high school I once worked at often drove Taurus‘s and Sables. One teacher also had an SL2. He once remarked that the Saturn was far better engineered than his Taurus, and he trusted it more on long trips. “We like our Taurus, but we know it’s limitations” he told me. His Taurus soon went to the junkyard with a bad head gasket and a faulty transmission, a common ending for the Tauruses the teachers drove.
When the Vice principal’s Sable broke down, I asked him if he was now dis-Sabled. He thought that was pretty hilarious.
I don’t get the ‘American bad, Import good’ comments .
Just different .
I prefer American made light duty pickup trucks and Import cars that are no bigger than necessary .
I love older American cars having grown up with them and made my living fixing them for many decades .
Variety is the spice of life .
(just don’t let S.W.M.B.O. find out) .
-Nate