Top 6 List of Worst Domestic Cars - Which Classics Should You Avoid?
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- čas přidán 4. 12. 2022
- Here's my list of worst domestic cars, narrowed down to six that I feel negatively impinged on the public perception of the Big 3.
- Auta a dopravní prostředky
Moral of the story, don't trust Motor Trend's car of the year award to help you decide what car to buy.
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I agree! They got some others way -wrong too!
Yep! An ex gf of mine bought several based on Motor Trend reviews....all of em were nuthin that great.
Advertisers control that, they always did
I remember my parents bought my sister a very low mileage 1972 Vega back in the mid '70's. Clean, fun to drive, almost looked like a smaller Gen Two Camaro. She complained to Dad that it was "steaming" out the hood. Dad took it to our neighborhood Chevrolet service department for a check. I so remember picking it up one evening and the service manager telling Dad they couldn't find any issue. My Dad was a man of few words and told me to jump in, we're going for a ride. He drove it for about five minutes more aggressively than usual and returned back to the dealer. The cloud of steam filled the entire service department. Very few words were exchanged and Chevrolet paid for a new steel sleeved cylinder engine under some sort of silent warranty.
WOw!
As a former service writer at a Ford dealership, I can tell you the "no problem found" bullshit was one of my most hated dealings with customers. It DOES happen rarely, but truth be told there is also sometimes a component of 'technician doesn't want to fix something under warranty' when the problem could wait til it's 'out of warranty' to fix the problem at a much better pay rate. It does happen - or it did happen during my time as a service writer in the 00s...
Steaming Dads unhappy about steaming engines can be persuasive.
I got my license in 79 and a few of my friends got Vegas as their first car. Every single one of them had an engine failure within a year. Since by this time they were no longer under warranty, all except one of these cars went to the the junkyard. Except one whose Vega was fully loaded and in really good shape. Her dad rebuilt the engine, then she wrecked it 3 months later and it went off to the yard.
@@wilsixone ..I was always under the impression that the dealers service department received compensation from the manufacturer for every part of warranty work they performed.
…is it not the case that dealers were never eating the cost of warranty work….so why would they be reluctant to do this work?…
Vega. Worst American four-cylinder motor ever produced. My dad inform me his new ‘73 Vega had a engine issue after 11k miles
My 1972 Maverick Grabber 302 GT will argue with you
He should have changed the oil.
I was told the engines would rust just sitting in the showroom
@@YS-fr6nu They did
A Vega, my first car. Beige with blue doors and falling front suspension. Out for my first ride with a buddy. He stated " What a piece of junk ". Slapping the dash with my right hand in defense of my investment I stated " Not it isn't, it's a solid car, it's just ugly ". Just as I finished that statement whe crossed the rail tracks going about 50mph. The shock caused the mirror to fall off his door. We had a good laugh 😆 🤣. I paid $300 at the time, 1982 , depressing to think how much that would be in today's $.
I learned how to drive in a 1980 Aspen. The instructor called it an ass-pain.
I had a '78. I would drive to school with a rubber truck mat on the floor because it had rusted out completely and it scared me to see the road while I was driving. I even lost a book out of the hole once.
@@WalkiTalki Good times.
I have a 2.3L 1977 Pinto and it is super dependable and starts right up we have had it for 20 years most trouble free car in our stable
A recurring theme in this video is how something started out with such promise, then crashed and burned.
And how illigitimate Motor Trend's Car of the Year Award is.
Years ago a UCLA economics professor did an exhaustive research paper on the Ford Pinto that covered every detail. Turns out that it was no more unsafe than any of its common contemporaries. The VW Beatle, Datsun B210, Chevy Vega, Dodge Colt and AMC Gremlin. In fact it had a better than average record. None of them of course were as safe as a full sized car. Combined; the internal memo, several high profile accidents, an NTSB that targeted Ford and the tarnished image was carved in stone for the rest of time.
A good friend of mine in college died in a Pinto fire after being rearended...
The Pinto defect was fixed as well and even offered a Pinto gas tank retrofit kit for people with used ones.
The GM trucks with the side mounted gas tanks were way more dangerous than the Pinto. I quote The Center for Auto Safety " The side saddle fuel tank design installed in over 10 million trucks - all 1973-87 General Motors full-size pickups and cab-chassis trucks (pickups without beds) and some 1988-91 dual cab or RV chassis - is the worst auto crash fire defect in the history of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Based on data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (formerly known as the Fatal Accident Reporting System), over 2,000 people were killed in fire crashes involving these trucks from 1973 through 2009."
Did any of the other manufacturers have a memo that was a cost-benefit analysis of how many deaths were "acceptable" go public?
@@troynov1965 I believe the Pinto gas tank issue was corrected on the 1975 and later year models. Even though the factory did provide a retrofit kit installation on the earlier cars most owners ignored the recall and so the vast majority of those earlier cars finished out their service life without the modification.
@@timothyhh GM did something similar with the ignition problem from the late 90’s early 2000’s everyone involved resigned with their money and they hired a woman ceo to take the fallout
Regarding the into Pinto - The "infamous Pinto memo" you mentioned was not a memo written about the Pinto at all. It was a general engineering study that used NHTSA values for a human life. Pintos were not particularly fire prone (see history of Chevy Chevette for instance). The big problem was that Ford decided to fight out a lawsuit in court and lost. By losing, the Pinto became an easy target for follow-on lawsuits. In the case of the Chevette, GM settled lawsuits out of court and by doing so kept evidence sealed. By doing so, they forced possible future plaintiffs to start from scratch when trying to build a case. The Pinto trial that got the ball rolling involved a car backing down a highway to retrieve a lost gas cap and being rear ended by a heavy truck at high speed. At trial, Ford presented evidence that the Pinto gas tank safety was typical of many contemporary vehicles. None of this mattered to the jury who fell for the idea that if Ford had spent $11 a car the people would not have died in the crash. This was total BS, but juries aren't often rational in product liability cases. Once the Pinto was branded as fire prone, and the winning liability case strategy was readily available, it became an easy target for lawyers.
This guy should stick to interviewing stylists. Those are interesting... When he goes solo, the videos turn into clickbait.
I worked with a guy who had a 74 vega with a big block 396 swapped into it,
I was actually terrified of that car.....not just the power to weight, not the poor handling but the shoddy home made engine swap made for some interesting bangs and clunks on deceleration just to keep you guessing after the initial terror was over.
I put a 350 Chevy small block in mine total sleeper car but it was FAST.
Right answer. Perfect car for a V8.
@@donvermeer2319 I put a 350 chev in mine definately much more fun to drive especially on the highway and watching others expression as a vega passes them with ease
@@FedUpCanuck I had a 1977 Chevy Monza Spyder with a factory 305 V-8. Fast little car for being stock.
Must have had a subframe and cut the strut Towers. If not the big block didn't fit
Vegas were a huge disappointment for those of us just getting started in a career and buying our first new car. They were dubbed “Mini Camaros” in styling, but that was as far as the similarities went. Truth is, it took a long time for American manufacturers to make well-designed, decent quality small cars.
I had a 1972 Vega that the block melted at about 40,000 Miles..... Chevy replaced it and we promptly sold it.
The Big Three still can't build reliable cars and trucks.
And till this day they still ain't got it right 🤣🤣... That's one of the reasons why they stopped making small cars all together and just jumped the EVS
I'm not sure about that. They are still haveing issues. Ford Ecoboost motor as ex
@@jermainec2462 I think you mean crossovers. An EV can still be a small cars. They said people aren't buying sedans but people weren't buying their sedans. Civic, Accord, corolla, Camry and Altima are some of the best selling vehicles in the US. Sad too because the Fusion, Malibu and Impala had finally started to become decent options when they were cut. They had done a lot to close the quality gap and improved styling.
My Dad must have been the luckiest man in 1973 when he bought his Vega. He had to get a car with good mileage and reliability. The Vega fit those requirements well for him. He drove it to and from work every day for 9 and 1/2 years before giving it to me for my first car. It had over 190,000 miles on it when I got it. It had the original engine and transmission. Dad did replace the tires, brakes, battery, and muffler. It was an amazing little car. The main things I didn't like about it was the AM only radio and the color. Eventually that green looked okay to me.
There was so much hoopla over the Vega and how it was going to be a game changer to combat the imports, I remember Car and Driver was really pumping them up
Magazines pump up anyone who advertises in them.
Most famously, GM sent a bunch of ringers to C&D for the release of the X Cars. I believe Pat Bedard is still pissed about that to this day.
I drove a 74 pinto wagon for a while in the mid 80's after it had already been well used and abused and the thing was still a fun to drive with decent power. Tough engine. I hated the hatchbacks but the wagons were actually fairly useful.
Every interior knob & handle was broken on my stepfather's rusty orange one. Seemed to run OK.
In the early 1980s, I knew two guys who used to come to our shop and buy Chevette engines. They would then retrofit those engines into Vegas. These Chevegas, as we called them, were pretty decent cars then. I also agree with the Pinto assessment that they were pretty good cars as I had 4 of them through the years. Fortunately, I never got rear ended.
I bought a 1974 Vega Kammback Wagon new. It had the higher performance engine with the 4 speed manual. One of the first things I did was installed a gauge package. One day after sitting in stalled traffic for a long period, watching the coolant temp keep rising, I decided to install a heavy duty radiator. It was about 1-1/2 times the size of the old one. No more cooling problems! I had the engine checked by a mechanic friend at 90,000, it was starting to use oil. He said the valve seals were shot, but the rest of the engine looked amazing. Very little wear. I chalked that up to changing the oil and filter every 3000 miles (standard - not synthetic lube). I kept it to 100,000 miles, then traded it for a car with air conditioning (due to a growing family). Overall it was a good car for me at the time. Gave me good gas mileage, up to 34 mpg on the highway.
I had a 1977 Pinto in the late 70's and it was a good car.
My parents first car was a Vega. My dad liked the car and he got about 6 years out of it. But it was rust magnet. You could see the road in the hole in the driver's side floor board. It's a shame that so many corners were cut to rush it to market. It's a nice looking compact car with clean lines. Performance figures were good for the time. If they got it right, it could have been iconic instead of infamous.
The Vega was the "Bic Lighter" of cars! Use it (flick) and toss it!
Found a very clean one for cheap a few years back, was a very capable car, at least from my experience with it. Was also very low miles for 1973 (under 6000 to be exact). Was very sad having to sell it, but obviously was a bit of a ticking timebomb god forbid it self destructed
My uncle had one, and it did all the things. Rust including the floorboards, blue smoke exhaust, rattling exhaust, loud and crass. The back seat was a perfect fit, as long as you had no legs. The positive thing I remember was the built up ones in the hotrod magazines. Very cool but really, it was just a Vega body, nothing else was in common.
We Canadians were "treated" to a Pontiac version of the Vega named the Astre. My girlfriend's parents owned one that they were letting her drive and yes, it was indeed a POS.
Yup, I remember way back when seeing at least one of those down here in the US too, I suspect they did get sold here but probably in small numbers!
My Mum suffered through owning a Pontiac Astra in the early 70s suburban Toronto.
We were a Pontiac family (Firebirds, Grand Prixs, GTOs) that also owned Volkswagens and Fiats over the years, and loving Pontiacs (as a domestic mark)... she willingly put her money for our first North American "compact car".
Those childhood memories of the nightmare she (at that time a single mother) went through with that car was the start of my (perhaps unfair) lack of interest in American cars.
I'm 63 years old and only started to lose my suspicion (derision?) for North American cars over the past
15 to 20 years.
It's taken a long long time for GM, Ford, and Chrysler to regain my trust and admiration... all because of right or wrong ...the impressions left on me as a 12, 13, 14 year old.
I am of the generation that left domestic cars from 1978 through 2008. That's 30 years of lost sales.
Some folks I know, no matter how much I say/explain that domestic products have improved... will NEVER consider a U.S. nameplate.
It's truly a shame.
Sigh...
Your videos are always great and get a like before the intro is done! It's so great to hear the background stories and data you've accumulated and presented so well.
New in the showroom, the Volare/Aspen was pretty impressive. I can imagine being a customer back then trading in my Valiant or Duster and being impressed at the step up in trim and luxury. I likely would have been disappointed later on though.
My dad taught me to drive in a 1980 Chevette. I thought that was the worst car in the world, but then in drivers ed we had Dodge Aspens; It's a pretty tough decision which was worse. I'm leaning toward the Chevette because the Aspen at least had a 6 cylinder engine....
@@Flies2FLL there were some real toilets in early 80s. Escort, k car, Omni
We traded our 74 Scamp for a 78 Volare wagon, which was quickly exchanged for an 80 Colt wagon.
@@mph5896 escort’s were great as long as they had a stick
A friend of mine in college (ca. 1991) had a blue Volaré station wagon. He liked it because the campus police could never seem to figure out what it was; it kept getting written up as a gray Dodge, which he would point out to the judge was clearly not his car, whatever the officer thought the license plate said. That never worked, but he always enjoyed trying it. :)
I read somewhere many years ago that the Aluminum used for the Vega engine was a new alloy supplied by ALCOA. Supposedly ALCOA gave GM the idea that no cylinder liners would be needed. Obviously the bean-counters jumped on that. Guessed they didn't do enough testing!
The original engineering on the cylinder coating was very good, but it was expensive and the bean counters cut back on the thickness, causing the issues. Moto Guzzi came up with Nigasul, which seems to last pretty much forever. Mercedes uses a variant that eliminates sleeving and is only a couple thousands thick. The tech works just fine, just don't cheap out on it.
@@wymple09 Exactly. Nickasil is used in many engines today and has proven it's worth. The only drawback is that these engines can't be economically re-bored for wear, but that hardly matters when they can last a couple hundred thousand miles or more with the original plating and pistons without needing a re-bore.
A quick note on Vega - that airfilter had no replaceable element - you had to buy the whole can and all to service it.
I worked for a Chevy dealer in the 70's. One of my jobs was load the truck with Vega blocks and take them to a machine shop were they bored them out and resleeved them with a iron sleeve. All under warranty. There were a lot always busy with this.
I had a 87 Fifth Avenue loaded red on red we loved that car it has to be one of the most comfortable cars I have ever owned. Close second would have been my 1970 Oldsmobile 98 Regency what a floating boat.
I had a client 30 years ago who was a personnel director at GM in the 50s. This was in Los Angeles where they assembled various autos on the west coast. He told me that it was very difficult to recruit workers for the assembly lines, and that they were constantly quitting on short notice. As a result, many many new cars didn't run or were undeliverable pending repairs. GM then had to rent vacant lots and assorted parking areas in the vicinity until they could be fixed.
Chevrolet Chevette: There is no substitute for low-ness....
[Well, MAYBE the Yugo....]
I couldn't stand the Chevette; it was too slow, noisy and uncomfortable for the driver. But it was tolerably reliable, had great handling and, in the 4-door models, a surprising amount of room for passengers and luggage. So it wasn't all bad.
@@pcno2832 The Chevette/T-platform was designed to be the bread and butter earner in many markets so GM had to take it more seriously than the dedicated loss-leader (the Vega) that preceded it. It didn't have any sporty pretensions like the baby Camaro-esque Vega but that allowed it a more practical shape. Like you mention, the taller/boxier shape didn't hurt handling so all and all it seems to be a respectable car.
There was a kid i grew up who had gotten one for his 17th birthday. '71 or '72 Vega, 4 speed manual trans actually it ran very well and surprisingly handled good also got decent mileage (gas was just approaching $1 a gal at the time). It wasn't fast but it was reliable. It probably had gotten an updated steel sleeved engine. The body and paint were a little rough but both doors closed properly and not to mention it still had the agoning key-in ignition buzzer which would go off everytime you opened the driver's door if the key was still in the ignition. He learned shortly after to pull the key out slightly and it would stop. He drove it everywhere, allot fun times it that car. Old friend of mine had worked at a Chevrolet dealer back in the 70's, he told me that a proper "tune-up" for a Vega included a shortblock. Those cars at the time made great hotrods, install a healthy small block along with an entire drivetrain upgrade and you had something. Thanks Adam for another great video. Always enjoy watching and learning something new.
GM seemed to do all of their vehicle testing on the public. With respect to the Olds diesel, it still amazes me that a company with the vast diesel experience that GM had (i.e. Detroit Diesel and EMD) could omit something as basic as a water separator. Mind blowing!
Clearly consumer grade diesel was immune to having water accumulation. They probably did a cost analysis & decided they could blame water damage on the customer.
Whos to say the customer didnt intentionally put water in the tank! 🙂
Would have been a simple add on. We could'nt keep our Eldo from waxing up when it was cold. Had to stay overnight in a heated garage to run for a while.
Value engineering. 🙄
Yesterday i watched a video of a Chevy Blazer which is in pretty close to showroom condition with the original 5.7 diesel with many miles on it.
@@willc5512
How does water get into the tank with diesel in the first place?
Is it condensation? Or does it come out from the diesel fuel itself?
They haven't learned their lesson as there are still a crazy amount of Vega and HT4100 level terrible modern terrible GM/Ford/Chrysler cars from the past decade. Here some I thought of off the top of my head:
1.) GM 1.4L Cruze / whatever the Buick CUV thing is - major turbo/head issues
2.) any GM FWD with the 3.0L & 3.6L v6 - timing chains are prone to failure and expensive to replace
3.) 1st Gen Chevy Bolt - recalled for the battery pack catching on fire
4.) any FWD Jeep w/CVT - transmission failures
5.) Any FWD Ford with the 3.5/3.7 v6 - water pump is INSIDE the engine and costs $2500 to service (edit: with the bonus of leaking coolant into the crankcase when it fails)
6.) 2011-2018 Focus/Fiesta with the dual clutch automatic - class action law suit for high transmission failure
7.) 2013-up Escape or Fusion with the 1.5L turbo - head gaskets and cracked blocks
8.) 2013-2016 Dodge Dart - it's a Fiat with all the classic Fiat reliability
Edit I thought of two more:
9.) 3.xL Pentastar v6 - the plastic oil/water heat exchanger is under the intake and prone to failure which then leaks oil into the cooling system (and vise-versa)
10.) GM & Chrysler v8 - cylinder deactivation mechanically fails and destroys the engine
That is an excellent list of reasons for our nostalgic view of the cars from over 50 years ago.
@Eric Ruud That was the base engine in the Volare & Aspen example in the video...
My parents had an early 80s Eldorado diesel about $20,000 as I remember which was a lot. It would not run in cold weather. My dad ditched it fast and never bought another Cadillac. Our 70 Eldo was a tank.
During the height of the burning Pinto scare a TV show tried to demonstrate just how dangerous the cars were. So the put one at the base of a hill and rolled a car down the hill to crash into the back of the Pinto.
Nothing happened, so they tried it again... several times. Nothing happened, they took the gas cap off and put a gas soaked rag in it, nothing. Finally they dumped gas on the car and lit with a match. THAT time it caught on fire.
The Ford Pinto was one of the toughest cars ever built. The engines had a cast iron block and had GREAT MOTORS whether it was a 1.6-, 2.0- or 2.4-liter four cylinder. They were astonishingly reliable and would get 30 mpg all day long. My friends and I grew up driving them and: that those little Pintos survived all we gave them: and kept on cranking up every morning always amazed me. Not one of us ever had a fiery collision in any of our ford Pinto's.
The Chevy Vega and Pontiac Astres that I drove were actually great driving cars. But that engine was a complete pile of horse manure. When the gas crisis hit my dad bought a used Pontiac Astre as a car for his salesmen's duties. He had never driven it before he bought it. It was hands down THE SLOWEST CAR I HAVE EVER DRIVEN. He actually took me out to it and had me drive it and we both laughed at how much of a slow POS the car was. The pollution gear included a welded baffle in the exhaust system that just choked the engine to death and soon after he bought it, the delicious aluminum block revealed its thirst for oil. He ditched it asap.
I had a certifiably insane friend who owned a Chevy Citation that to this day, I say, must have been one of the toughest cars ever made, damn near as tough as the Pinto. Walt was a madman. No, I mean a real madman and he drove that Citation like it was a cross between a Top Fuel dragster and a Formula One car. That V-6 Citation always reminded me of a cockroach but what a tough cockroach indeed.
Another friend of mine commented that he owned a diesel Oldsmobile like the ones you are talking about. He said that the motor was simply amazing. He said he could cruise all day at 100 mph and the car was barely straining. What he didn't like was the electrical part that failed and that was so expensive he simply decided to stop the engine of the car, he would open the hood and take off the positive battery cable off the battery. He said after a couple of months, he just got tired of that and simply sold the car for salvage.
What made me stop buying American vehicles is constant expensive electrical issues that stop the car.
I cannot have that.
My wife worked four years to pay for an Oldsmobile Achieva V6 Sport that was a hell of a fine driving and looking vehicle.
Two months after the warranty expired, it started eating $500 alternators and simply would not stop. The GM trained mechanic working on it said we should take it back to GM and tell them the wiring harness must be bad. The car was never wrecked so why was that?
The disappointment in my wife's face when she realized we would have to get another car was something I will never forget.
We traded that GM POS for a brand new 1999 Honda Accord that she truly truly loved.
So, for the last twenty-three years, my wife and I bought Hondas, Toyota's and old Nissan's.
The only return to Car Hell was a bright red 2012 Kia Rio hatchback.
I hope that car is melted into manhole covers by now.
There are racing classes built on the Pinto motor. I have a DOHC crossflow.
you could replace the timing belt on Pinto 4 cyl in 30 minutes. Tough motors, I agree. There was also a v6 option in later years.
I had an 82 Ford Ranger with the 2.3. It went almost 300,000 miles without major engine issues. It was noisy though.
Thanks for this Adam! I thought I was losing my mind.....I have watched a lot of these "worst cars" videos and nobody has ever mentioned the Aspen/Volare until now. My family had an Aspen. It was in the shop more than it was on the road. When it was on the road the interior trim fell apart one small piece at a time; gearshift knob, radio knob, door handles, you name it. I am sure that my experience was shared by many. Those things disappeared from the roads in pretty short order. The only things that people remember about those cars were the TV commercials. After about a year and a half we ditched it and got a used Coupe de Ville. What a difference.
In high school a friend's father bought a new Aspen. The gas tank fell off on one of its first trips on the highway.
I owned the full glass hatch 1972 Pinto. My second car custom spec metallic brown with black interior and glass hatch. Completely satisfied it started on Nebraska winter's and was good driving in the snow. My vinyl bucket seats ripped at the seams almost immediately that made me very unhappy. I guess I duck tapped them though I do not recall I know I did leave them ripped for a long time. The engine later on would not start in the 20F degrees range and I learned to open the carburetor choke with my finger that always solved the problem. Almost immediately the valve stem seals failed and Ford replaced them under warranty. Most sensational around 1975 sitting still in freeway traffic a Lincoln Continental some distance behind me accidentally engaged its cruise control and with rear wheels smoking hit my rear at what must have been at least 30mph. The Pinto collapsed infront of the rear seat with the car shorter and having an elevated bow on the roof. No damage took place around the gas tank though my door and the passenger door compressed jammed. I kicked mine open. The body shop pulled the unibody straight and I drove it another 50,000 miles. Traded it in in 1978 with 97,000 miles and it felt like it would not go another five miles. I need to add the horn had the plastic squeeze tech and with age the plastic srank with the horn going off non stop in cold weather. Eventually I disconnected the horn. If the rear-end collision was not spooky my AM Pilco radio was. The radio failed and Ford under warranty had me take it to a repair shop. The shop repaired or replaced the radio though also removed the reception limit on it. Without the limitation from Omaha I could easily receive Chicago, Kansas City and Denver broadcast. Very cool!
Vega aluminum drive train was heavier than the Pinto and Vegas simply disintegrated. Reported built with 100% automation.
My dad had a '72 Ford Pinto and it was a very good car! He bought it from someone in Detroit when it was 3 years old, and it had the 1.6 liter Kent engine and a manual transmission. He told me it was peppy, his previous car was a '70 VW type 1 with the Sportomatic semi-automatic transmission. The only problems he had revolved around the carburetor, which he thought had seen sugar in the gas tank. I have read that this is really not an issue, and gum/crud in gas is more of an issue. Interestingly, this blue car had a white vinyl top and it was NOT a hatchback, it had a trunk.
Great video!
I had a 72 Vega. I thought 72 was the nicest looking year. Fun to drive. I put a high lift Crower cam, Hooker headset, and Holly 500 cfm 2 barrel carburetor on it. Had it painted a caddy color, Cinnamon Firemist with 1/8" white stripes down the side. Wider tires on the back and baby moon hub caps. Automatic transmission. Most Vegas came with Powerglide transmissions. This one was special ordered with a Turbo 350 transmission. For a cheap car it was fun car and looked great. Brought trophies home from the dragstrip. (That was before they started bracket racing). Drawbacks - Chevy didn't start putting it plastic inner fender protectors till later so the road salt destroyed the fenders. They should have sleeved the cylinders from day one. No hydraulic lifters made it noisy. It was prone to blowing head gaskets and breaking the rubber band (timing belt). And needed traction bars cause the rear end would hop. The factory paint would come off when spraying it in the car wash, as that's why I had it re-painted LOL. Chevy could have made it a winner. A friend of a friend remarked "I never saw a Vega with a header! Next spring he appeared in a Vega with a new lifted frame, extended front end and a 427 in it!
Regarding the Pinto, you forgot to mention that it was years ahead of its time. Mine ('72, 4Spd, 2.0L) was getting 30 MPG when most US made cars were in the 10 MPG range. I loved mine. Fun to drive, very reliable and the gas tank fix was a sheet of plastic. Later it came out that the Pinto was no more dangerous than any of the cars its size and vintage.
Your observations are the same as mine. My mom had a 1976 Pinto, which I drove a lot. I also found it fun to drive, with good handling characteristics and yes, decent gas mileage. While not exactly a dragster, it had quite adequate power with the 2.3 L 4 cylinder engine. It was quite reliable, and easy to fix when anything went wrong. Last but not least, there's the gas tank issue. It was no worse than many other cars, or the pickup trucks with the gas tank right behind the passenger compartment. They were a real mobile Molotov cocktail.
Had a new 71 pinto in high school. First thing I did after graduating HS and buying another car I swapped in a 302 with a then available swap kit. Now that was a fun car
@@alfavulcan4518 Yes, I can see how it would be fun. Yahoo!
The Pinto and Corvair were maligned and misjudged.
@@martinyarbrough1609 True. But the Vega was truly a POS...
My mom had a Pinto Wagon when I was too young to remember. She also had a Dodge Aspen that I loved. Baby blue, t-tops, white vinyl interior, 360 with a floor shifted automatic. I'd love to find another one like it
My first car was a ‘75 Pontiac Astre. (Pontiac’s version). My second car was a ‘73 Vega Estate wagon. Astre never burned oil. ‘Vega did, but I drove it for 3 years. Multiple 1000 road trips. Both reliable. Both very comfortable. Both better than my friend’s Pinto.
I was told ‘75 was first year for steel sleeves. I was told incorrectly, apparently.
The Astre and Sunbird got the Iron Duke engine in '77. It had more than steel sleeves, it's an iron block, OHV engine.
I bought a new 1980 Pontiac Phoenix. I was just getting out of the Air Force and I was married and had two new sons. We drove it from Maine to California. The lesson I learned was "Never buy the 1st model year of anything!". Ironically, the 2.5 liter engine was the most reliable part. The transaxle had to be rebuilt at 35,000 miles. The rear hatch glass started falling out. The FM stereo would quit if the temperature selector was set too high. Inside the steering column, the cruise control wire was severed by the column shift. The list goes on. The engine was reliable but weak. The Pontiac dealer finally gave up fixing all the defects and told me to take it somewhere else.
My first car was a '74 Vega GT 4 speed. I have to say I loved it. I had it for a little over 3 years with no mechanical problems. Rust yea. Around the front and side edges of the hood. Not an easy fix. Sanding just found holes. Looking to get a new hood, but not have the same problem. I found to be way cheaper, was fiberglass hoods in a drag racing magazine. I had the white Vega with red and blue stripes. Had the hood painted white with the stripes. I ditched the hood hinges and latch mechanism and used 4 hood pins. Just lift off to work on it. I always hated the backwards lifting hood anyway. I do wish I had that car now. With the parts available now, you could have some fun with it.
That was a "Spirit of America" Vega made to celebrate America's Bicentennial. They also made "Spirit of America" Novas and Impala's in '74 as well. They were good looking cars IMO.
I loved my Vega! I'd own one again, if I could find a little rust bucket worthy of restoration... they do exist, but they are a little out of my tax bracket.
Back in 1980 I bought a 1980 Ford Pinto and had that car for over 15 years and not one problem in All those years
Loved the video Adam. As for the Vega vs. Pinto, when I started high school in the late 70s, our school parking lot had a few Pintos and Bobcats ... and you saw them on the road. Moving onto college in the early 80s, and you still saw a lot of Pintos and Bobcats. I don't ever remember seeing a Vega ... EVER! My parents bought a 1978 Chevy Van. Being a car geek from birth, I remember the trip to the dealership. (My dad was buying this van from a dealer in another town where he got a really good deal.) We arrived and I went roaming the lot while my parents did business. I noticed there were no Vegas on the lot (not realizing they'd been discontinued with the '77 model year), so I approached a salesman to ask where the Vegas were. This heavy set man in a sport coat, no tie, funny hat and cigar said, if I remember correctly, "Kid, Vegas were a hunk of junk. They rust the minute you drive them off the lot. Chevy ain't makin' them no more." It was like something out of a Hollywood movie. I've never forgotten this illustrious character and his disparaging comment.
NOW, the worst made car in recent memory (and you teased us with it) was the Pontiac Aztec/Buick Rendezvous. Though I'm a Ford fan, my dad always bought Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles (except when we needed a big van for our family). As a result, I too was loyal to the two brands and owned two Oldsmobiles and three Pontiacs through the 80s and 90s. My 1980s Cutlass and Grand Prix were not great cars, but they were pretty cars and they were good enough. My 1990s Transport, Grand Prix and Intrigue were fantastic cars. Then, during the big GM strike that limited my choices, I bought a Buick Rendezvous. What a hunk of junk. I'd never had problems with a car in the first year of ownership ... until then. I replaced the radiator twice and went through I don't know how many sets of tires (the wheels were turned slightly outwards and my tires kept wearing to the threads). I spent so much time at the dealer repair shop with that car that I knew every person who worked there. I kept that car only three years (shortest time I'd ever owned a car) and traded it on a Mazda (my first foreign car). I would never touch a GM car again after that Rendezvous. I mean I grew to HATE GM. I love Mazda, though. So thank you Buick for turning me on to the best little car company in the world. ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM.
My aunt put 340K on her '86 626 sedan. Her daughter puked in the back seat as an infant, and drove it to college.
I owned an '83 Mazda GLC! Worst P.O.S. EVER! They gave this CRAPILE a sunroof and (kind of) "ergonomics", BUT IT WAS JUNK!
We used to carry oil in the hatch of our 73 Vega. A quart at each fill up. But I will note that it handled quite well. Always wanted to put a Buick 231 V6 in it.
That was an easy swap … And a good one as long as the 231 was the even-fire version. Those odd-fire lumps would out-shake hell …
You just reminded me they did not sell oil in 4 quart jugs in those days or resealable 1 quart bottles.
I was in college when the Vega and Pinto were introduced with much hoopla. All were getting good press and as Adam mentioned, the Vega was COTY. As my '63 Ford was about to die, I needed a cheap new car. Which one would I choose? I ended up with a new '71 Datsun 510 and hindsight proved that to be the wisest choice.
Those 510’s were great … You won that one …
My brother bought a 510. It was a great car. Like a BMW 2002 only much cheaper.
510s rock
datsuns[Nissans] were great cars at the time, now...not so much.
Hi Adam. Interesting note: when I lived in Beijing, China for almost ten years, a Chinese middle school student knew all about the cost / benefit analysis (cba) done by Ford at the time. It was taught in his school. Used, I would imagine, to not only learn about cba, but to point out negatively American ethics.
"Which car company do you work for?"
A major one. 🙃
Of course that Chinese middle school student will never be taught about the CCP’s “lack of ethics” as well.
Interesting...
THat is an interesting story.
I sometimes joke that BMW mastered the CBA of repairs in the late 1990s. They needed the cars to be fun enough to be desirable, but troublesome enough to get people to buy new ones.
That formula wouldn't work for Toyota, as their cars are so bland to drive. That may be why Toyota had to make cars not have brutally bad repair bills.
That's funny, considering China CCP ethics.
-When my dad, who knew NOTHING of the word "value" went looking for a cheap work car in 1980, we went to Richard Chever-Lay in Temperance, Mish-Gin and test drove two cars. One was the red '80 chevette that he eventually bought, but the other was a blue '80 Citation two door notch. That means it had a trunk instead of a hatch, which I think is pretty rare today. Anyway, the chevette was a total SLUG. But the Citation was a little tiger, courtesy of the 112 hp 2.8 liter V6 engine. I rode in the thing and though I thought it was AWFUL looking, I wanted dad to buy it because it looked very fun to drive!
Of course, they wanted $7000 for the Citation, and $5500 for the cruddy chevette and my clueless father went for the later. One year and 15,000 miles later he was stranded on the side of I-75 south of Monroe, Michigan. Because the front pulley of the chevette simply fell off~
LOLOL …
Although all domestic manufacturers built lemons over the years, GM will always be the king of lemons and half baked ideas. They really did have that "too large to fail" mindset back in the day.
I started my GM- Oldsmobile Career in 1978 and can relate how troublesome the diesels were. In all fairness, many people who bought them thought starting them was the same as a gas engine which was catastrophic in the winter. The 1st one I new car prepped had loud clank sound at 4 miles which resulted in the connecting rod breaking through the side of the block. It took the dealer 6 weeks to get a new short block
Wasn't that because of the diesel engine's high compression & not reinforcing the bottom end?
GM management: INCOMPETENT
Just my two cents. Some time ago I bought a 1980 Volare that was traded in at the VW dealer I worked at as a tech. Slant six automatic, velour interior. Best $700 I ever spent. Smooth, quiet, good fuel economy and it never gave me a moments trouble. Then there was the mint Pontiac Astre wagon sitting on a used car lot that I picked up for $600. Someone had welded the oil drain plug onto the pan. No matter. It used so much oil it was really getting a constant oil change. Aside from that, a pleasant enough car with excellent road manners. Shame about that horrid engine that was inflicted upon it.
We had a 1976 Vega that we sold when we moved. Dad always had all his cars aftermarket rust proofed. The lady that bought the car ran into dad at a Kroger after moving back to the area. She was still driving it and loved the car.
My Sister had a '77 Pinto in the early mid 80's and never really had a lick of trouble out of the thing. Yeah it was underpowered but for its time it was pretty good on gas consumption. Folks always mention the fuel tank but hell, I used to drive around in old pickup trucks where the gas tank was as close to you as they could have it without it sitting in your lap, LOL! being right behind the bench seat and that never stopped me from driving one. Conversely, A friend of mine had a '71 Vega that he swore up and down had been manufactured from compressed rust. Now, I have no brand specific loyalty as there are good cars from all three domestic brands and even back when there were four as I also once owned an AMC Jeep CJ5 that I absolutely loved so don't think I'm putting down chevys over fords or anything like that, those were just personal experiences. Heck, I even once owned a '59 Edsel that was as reliable as any other car of its time and had a '68 Buick Special Deluxe that was one of the most dependable cars I've ever owned.
Thank you Adam for being fair and objective. So much potential and so much that could have benefitted GM. This is when the domestics started losing market share. It is sad, but a enlightening truth. I wonder how many diesels we would have today if they got it right. Lincoln got theirs from BMW. That one did not last either. Then years later Volkswagen was in the diesel scandal. It is interesting how they got the right on trucks, but wrong on cars it seems.
The number of entries from GM in a Top 6 Worst list demonstrates one of their issues in the malaise era and beyond: GM's engineers had some good ideas, but they were seldom executed well. And sometimes (I'm looking at you, Pontiac Fiero), by the time they got it right nobody was interested anymore.
@@DinsdalePiranha67 Seems like the bean counters (sorry Adam) killed a lot of good designs for GM.
Diesel used to be a lot cheaper than gas. All in all though I would say its an inferior engine for cars. Smelly, heavy, and noisy. Ok for stationary powerplants.
@@DinsdalePiranha67 one could say that practice goes back to the first generation Corvair in the early 60s. Some very good concepts in that car, but the execution was half baked. By the time they addressed those shortcomings on the second gen Corvair, people were wary and looked elsewhere.
It’s possible to make the Oldsmobile Diesels reliable. The mistake GM made was using weak head bolts from gas engine instead of head studs. Add in dealer mechanics not familiar with these engines and warped heads sometimes being reused on head gasket repairs. There’s a guy here on CZcams with a website that’s dedicated to Oldsmobile Diesel engines.
Well, I put the 262 v8 and rear end from wrecked monza and put it in my Vega. With a bit of modification of course. And changed to heavier coils up front. Sway bars ect. I loved the car. Most Monza parts were a direct bolt in on the Vega. Motor mounts. Stuff like that. I figured GM was really going to produce a factory V8 Vega. That would have made good sense. A miniature Nova SS. LOL.
What I don't understand is why the Vega engine had such a bad reputation yet over here in the UK we had the GM ohc slant four since 1967 that was used in many cars and light commercials and was generally a reliable and durable motor. Why didn't Chevy just use a tried and trusted design rather than something with a cast iron head on an alloy block? Seriously?
Chevrolet had a perfectly good 2.5 litre four cylinder engine derived from the 230 CID six that would have avoided the entire issue... aside from being somewhat rough it was a good and reliable motor that was brought back around 1980 for use in the X cars. This motor was used for many years, albeit with numerous improvements over time.
My take on the aluminum engine is that GM had an idle and not fully amortized aluminum casting plant (originally for production of the Corvair flat six) and corporate decided to pay for this plant by using it to produce the Vega engines. The move cost GM very dearly... I am personally aware of several members of my generation who owned Vegas and never again set foot in a General Motors dealership.
Alloy block with no iron liner. Bad cooling system. Guaranteed oil burner.
GM was hoping to gain further experience with casting alloy engines and in particular with their etching method that eliminated the need for iron liners. This process is similar to what BMW and Porsche (among others) use in their engines (Nikasil and Alusil are the materials).
Alusil is a perfectly viable material and etched liners are perfectly feasible, but maybe wasn't mature enough at the moment for GM to use at the time. Keep in mind, Porsche had only recently started using it in the 917 race car and (as far as I can find) hadn't started using Nikasil or Alusil in road car engines yet.
The Iron Duke wasn't around yet and the I4s (Chevy 153, Pontiac Trophy 4) GM did have available in North America were too heavy.
@@skaldlouiscyphre2453 I had a 1982 bmw motorcycle with nikasil cylinders. I was under the impression that the whole block wasn't nikasil, but it was a cylinder liner treatment that was applied somehow and it was so tough it had to be machined to final tolerance with diamond tools.
@@mikekokomomike You're correct that nikasil is a treatment, it's an electroplated layer.
A390 like the Vega engine used is an alusil alloy that the whole block can be made from. The material is chemically etched to remove some of the aluminium which exposes some of the silicon, forming the hard wear surface.
A popular car for the decade, it was produced by the Ford Motor Company, the subcompact Pinto is today best known for its propensity to combust in rear-end collisions. Despite its horrific portrayal in *Pinto Madness* , published by _Mother Jones_ magazine in its September/October 1977 issue, later fatality rate data revealed the Pinto to be on par with other subcompacts of the day and certainly not the threat it was purported to be in both print and broadcast media.
Looking for a subcompact to counter the market onslaught from Japanese and European automakers, Ford Motor Company began work on the model that would become the Pinto in 1967. By December 1968, the basic design concept was approved by Ford Product Planning, but there was a catch: Lee Iacocca wanted the Pinto to be in dealer showrooms by the 1971 model year, condensing the typical 43-month development cycle into just 25 months. Furthermore, Iacocca insisted that the new model weigh no more than 2,000 pounds and cost no more than $2,000, standards that were considered by engineers to be set in stone.
Such an aggressive development cycle required out-of-the-box thinking. Tooling had to be created as the design was being finalized, and early crash-test prototypes were derived from the in-production Maverick. Complicating things was a pending change to NHTSA safety regulations, and with this in mind, Ford subjected the Pinto prototypes to a more stringent regimen of crash testing than would otherwise be necessary, believing the rules would be amended as early as 1973.
The results were not encouraging. In 11 rear-impact tests, conducted at 31 mph, the Pinto leaked fuel in eight of them. In the three tests where the Pinto’s tank didn’t rupture, modifications to the basic design (including a plastic shield to protect the tank for the differentials bolts, a steel plate between the bumper and the tank, and a rubber bladder insert within the fuel tank), prevented such leakage, but re-tooling the line to incorporate these safer designs would have been both expensive and time-consuming. With the new NHTSA crash testing rules delayed until the 1977 model year, Ford made the decision to produce the Pinto as designed.
To create more interior room, the Pinto used a steel fuel tank located behind the rear axle and in front of the bumper. Other subcompacts, including many Japanese sedans, used a fuel tank positioned above the axle, but there are safety pros and cons of both designs. The Pinto’s tank was far less likely to intrude into the cabin space in the event of a rear collision, and its design was mirrored by other domestic subcompacts, including the AMC Gremlin (which had a smaller crush space between the fuel tank and differential than the Pinto, and may have been more prone to rear-impact fuel spills and fires).
The first high-profile accident involving the car occurred in May 1972, when a Pinto carrying Lilly Gray and her 13-year old neighbor, Richard Grimshaw, was struck from behind at an estimated speed of 30 mph on a California freeway. Its fuel tank ruptured, killing Gray and leaving Grimshaw with third-degree burns over 90-percent of his body. Miraculously, the boy survived, but his injuries required over 60 surgeries. His family filed suit against the Ford Motor Company, and in August 1977, the case went to trial.
About the same time, Mark Dowie’s article - which would go on to earn a Pulitzer Prize - was published in Mother Jones magazine. In the piece, Dowie referred to the Pinto as a “firetrap” and a “lethal car,” citing 500 to 900 fatal Pinto fires, erroneously attributing an NHTSA calculated social cost fatality to Ford and incorrectly attributing industry-wide rollover fatality data to Pinto rear-end collisions. The actual number of rear-impact, fire-related fatalities that could be attributed to the Pinto at the time of the article, per NHTSA data, was 27 - still too many, but far fewer than the numbers cited in Pinto Madness.
Six months after the jury returned a verdict in the Grimshaw versus Ford Motor Company trial (awarding the plaintiff $2.5 million in compensatory damages and hitting Ford with $125 million in punitive damages, later reduced to $3.5 million), another high-profile Pinto crash caught the public’s attention. On August 10, 1978, three young girls were returning from a church event when their Pinto was struck from behind by an impaired driver in a full-size van. Again, the subcompact’s fuel tank ruptured, resulting in the entrapment and death of Lynn Mari Ulrich, 16, and her cousin Donna Ulrich, 18. The driver of the car, 18-year old Judy Ann Ulrich (Lynn Marie’s sister) survived the initial accident but subsequently died of her injuries. As a result of the deaths, Ford was tried for reckless homicide, but found not guilty by a jury in 1980.
Two months prior to the Ulrich crash, Ford had issued a voluntary recall for the 1971-’76 Pinto, retrofitting the cars with a longer fuel tank filler neck and a plastic shield that protected the fuel tank from the differential bolts. The move came after the Grimshaw verdict but prior to a 60 Minutes piece on the car, during which Mike Wallace cited a grossly inflated estimate of 2,000 deaths and 10,000 injuries related to fires in the Pinto.
For years, no one sought to verify if any of the sensationalistic data on Pinto crashes was true, but in November 1990, Gary T. Schwartz, a professor at the U.C.L.A. School of Law, presented a paper at the Pfizer Distinguished Visitors Series sponsored by the Rutgers School of Law. Entitled _The Myth of the Ford Pinto Case_ * , Schwartz patiently dispels, over 56 annotated pages, the idea that the Pinto was any more dangerous than the subcompacts it competed against at the time.
Perhaps the most illuminating data comes from NHTSA fatality rates per million vehicles for 1975 and 1976. In the published chart, the Pinto is responsible for 298 deaths per million cars in 1975, making it on par with the Chevrolet Vega (288) and Datsun 510 (294), but considerably safer than the Datsun 1200/210 (392), the Toyota Corolla (333) and the VW Beetle (378). In 1976, the Pinto’s 322 deaths per million cars was slightly higher than the Chevrolet Vega (310) and AMC Gremlin (315), but better than the Datsun 510 (340), the Datsun 1200/210 (418) and the VW Beetle (370).
Could Ford have built a better subcompact, one that resisted rear-collision fires and retained better structural integrity in a crash? The answer, of course, is yes, but when the Pinto met the federally mandated safety standards for its year of manufacture, what incentive did the automaker have to change the design? Fighting for market share against Japanese and German rivals, price was Ford’s primary concern, likely followed by fuel economy. Safety, according to Iacocca, didn't sell cars.
The issue of fuel tank safety hasn’t been eliminated in the years since Pinto Madness was published, either. The side-saddle fuel tank design used in full-size GM pickups from 1973 to 1987 was found to be the cause of over 2,000 deaths through 2009, some 20 times more than those ultimately killed in Ford Pinto fires. Despite the deaths and numerous lawsuits, GM has steadfastly denied that a problem with the design exists, and no recall was ever issued.
Chrysler faced its own fuel-tank fire crisis with the 1993-’98 Jeep Grand Cherokee and 2002-’07 Jeep Liberty, repaired (via a voluntary recall) by the installation of a trailer hitch at no charge to owners. Even Ford failed to learn a lesson from the Pinto, positioning the fuel tank in its Crown Victoria between the axle and the bumper, resulting in a series of fires particularly in cars modified for law enforcement duty.
Perhaps its best, then, to ignore the hype and remember the Pinto as Ford’s first legitimate import fighter, and a car that contributed to the advancement of automotive safety. Not bad, as others have claimed - simply misunderstood.
* _The Myth of the Ford Pinto Case_ can be found online but you need to dig - it is definitely worth reading.
Every vehicle ever made and ever to be made is/will be a cost-safety trade-off. Someone somewhere died today in a vehicle that met 2022 vehicle safety standards - lightyears ahead of the standards required in the early 1970's. One can rightly argue that for a few dollars more _that_ vehicle could have been designed so those people would have lived. Safety is always a slippery slope.
Excellent post …
Some Vegas had an optional larger radiator and I understood those usually went longer on the original engines (still smoked!) than the others, also Vega I understood popularized the radiator overflow coolant reservoir system which somewhat improved the radiator's efficiency by purging it of the usual air pockets by keeping it completely full of liquid and purging almost all of the air via the overflow bottle and then returning liquid when the system cooled down. The same old as the farmer's trick of routing the radiator overflow tube from his Farmall into an old Clorox bottle mounted on the tractor. Those coolant recovery systems I think eventually got put on almost everything.
I understand that the engineering of the Vega engine called for a curing process of the cylinder wall surface that did not get done on most actual production engines,also their aluminum alloy I don't think was as hard as the aluminum alloy used in period Briggs & Stratton aluminum cylinder engines.
I had the opportunity to drive several less than stellar US small cars when they were new/newer in the mid to late 70s and based on my personal experience I would rate the Pinto and Vega higher than either the AMC Gremlin or the Chevy Chevette. The Gremlin had a decent engine (straight 6) but was so front heavy that even in dry conditions you had to be careful not to have the rear swap ends in the middle of a corner. And everything rattled in that car. The Chevette was just an absolute mess in every way. By comparison the Vega and Pinto I drove were decent, though admittedly the other two did not present a high bar! Good video!
In January 1975 my parents took me to Fort Lauderdale, where I live today. I was 9 years old then, we stayed at a Howard Johnson's on Federal Highway. Anyway, we rented a '75 Chevy Vega notch from Grayhound rent-a-car, which is defunct. I watched Jaws for the first time hiding behind the seats at the drive in that is now the Swap-Shop.
My dad opened the hood of the Vega and I saw the aluminum engine. He shook his head, I saw the future!
Good take on the Pinto. My brother got a new 1972 Pinto with 2.0L and 4 speed. It wasn't a bad car acceleration and handling wise which he improved with slightly larger tires. Could use more foam in the seats. As far as the gas tank between the rear bumper and axle that is not uncommon. My 68 Mustang and 68 Cougar are that way and those bumpers aren't much.
Great 👍 show Adam ! My parents owned a 1976 Aspen, the drivetrain on the Aspen/Volares were very reliable but the body was the pits .
I had a Volare and It was overall a nice car, fun to drive. But it ALWAYS had some nagging issue that had to be attended to. The grommet connecting the column shifter linkage to the transmission linkage was very unreliable, leaving me locked in one gear in city traffic.
Great video as always. 'd love to hear your take on the Cadillac XLR (2004 - 2009). I had a 2004 example for a few years and found it both great fun and frustratingly expensive to own.at the same time. People love 'em or hate 'em and as a previous owner I'm not sure which side of the fence I'm on but would love to hear what you think.
Those taillights on those cars aren’t cheap and GM no longer makes new ones and there is no aftermarket option available. The only option is buy a used one or a repair kit.
God the HT-4100. I used to be a Cadillac dealer tech in the early 90s and worked on those boat anchors. We used to joke that it was built for GM by Hamilton Beech because it was a crappy powerplant but it was great at making milkshakes
Imagine if CAFE had allowed a 350 under hood. History would have been much different.
My first car was a brand new 73 Vega GT 4-speed yellow with the black stripe just like your thumbnail picture. Just as you said it began burning oil at 20k and rusted around the window edges. The black stripe was painted and the rear panel was dusted in black overspray. The GT emblem was missing from the passenger side fender. I have owned many Hondas over the years since.
My pick would be to avoid any of the late 70s early 80s pseudo computer engine controls on a carbureted engine. So Chrysler Lean Burn, Ford EEC and GM Computer Command Control.
I had a '77 low mileage Dodge Aspen wagon I bought mint in the late 80's that was pretty nice. It had a non-lean burn 318 and was pretty reliable. I later sold it and it ultimately turned up in a Avril Lavigne video where she basically jumped all over of the poor thing before it was hauled off to the scrap yard.
Good list. Didn't the Aspen/Volare have some kind of stick-on paper garbage for a trunk liner? Like that crap used on pantry shelves back then. They were embarrassing with some of the cheapness built into them.
Adam, a very well thought out list! As the owner of two of FoMoCo's smaller cars of the era -- a 76 Bobcat V-6 wagon and an '80 Pinto Pony sedan, I can attest to the fact that they were comfortable little cars to drive. The Pony got great highway mileage -- the V-6 Bobcat, not so much. It was a low point of the accountants' sway over car development that the sedans/hatchbacks suffered from poor design, as they did.
It's not the accountants; it is the finance guys.
Easy to work on and fun to drive with a four speed stick.
Pinto was the best Compact Car in 1972, unlike a German or Japanese car of the time, the Ford had a heater that worked.
@@mylanmiller9656 it worked. Once. Very hot.
Even the 2.3 4 cyl with the automatic in 1975 wasn't that great. A friend had one and commented he never got over 20 mpg. While digging thru the glovebox for something, he found the EPA fuel economy sticker, it was 18 city, 20 highway...exactly what he was getting! The 2.3 in 1975 didn't have a catalytic converter yet, so maybe the tuning for emissions had something to do with the low numbers.
Very well put. Pretty much every vehicle listed here had a lot of potential to be a fantastic, legendary car. But they fell flat when too much cost savings became a design criteria. I’m a mechanic and I have worked with most of these cars. Time and again I see things that could have been great if they had just put a little more time and effort into it. I went on a tour of Chrysler’s headquarters when they were just starting to build the F bodies. I remember the working scale models of the front suspensions - really cool 😎.
But another big issue with cars of that vintage were some truly awful transmissions - the GM Turbo Hydramatic 200 and Chrysler’s lock up torque converter to name two…
When I was a kid my parents bought a '71 Vega for my brother and that car was a piece of junk from the first day we had it. The engine used oil and overheated, the brakes were terrible, the hood wouldn't latch properly and the car sounded like a sewing machine when you rode in it. Surprisingly the only thing that worked properly in the car as I remember was the air conditioner.
Next you should do a top 6 list of worst domestic beers! That I'm sure would garner quite a few comments-- even if it has nothing to do with automobiles.
But seriously, great video. Your list pretty much matches mine, though I like the early 70's full sized Fords.
Milwaukee’s Best would be on there
Home Beer (Sold by Home Liquors in NJ in the late 1970's) Two or three beers instant hangover, nasty headache. Beer always tasted like it was skunked like it sat out in the sun for a year or two. I think it was $2 a six pack at the time....
@@joeblow8593 hell, you could get a sixer of that ol Milwaukee Adam mentioned above for $1.99 in 2005. Lol.
How about drinking too much Milwaukee’s Best while brake-checking large trucks in an old Pinto? Talk about bad choices 😂
The Aspen was a fine car except for the rusty front fendi and rusty hood vents
My dad bought it New in 1976 and he gave it to me I loved it
In early production GM made a few v8 vegas with the All aluminum GM DZ 302 ,it was called the Z29 with american shield Logo on front fenders.
Nicely done. A well thought out and researched piece. I’m old so I remember all of them. I would add that while the Vega lead the pack in rusting out, they were by no means the only ones. I lived in snow country then (Buffalo) and practically all domestic cars in the 70’s had rust perforation before the warranty even ran out. Of course, the warranty did not cover rust.
The Vega was such a good looking car, never understood why GM didn't put better engines in the Vega, like the 6 cil. Opel Commodore engine from GM Europe.
They actually put a standard 4 cyl GM engine (same as sold in Chevy IIs) in it with the 1977 Pontiac Astre, which was a Vega but without the Vega aluminum block 4. If they had done this originally, the Vega might have been a screaming success. But the reputation doomed the car. Car and Driver magazine, in a 1977 Astre road test, said, "The Astre is the Vega-polished and refined and significantly improved, but still a Vega in perhaps its ultimate state of development..It remained for Pontiac to do what Chevrolet probably should have done in the first place: the substitution of the marvelous old Chevy II cast-iron four-cylinder econo-motor for the much-troubled aluminum-block Vega engine. Sliding in and starting the engine was a revelation because its so quiet and smooth compared to the Vega. Also the Astre's interior trim was judged more plush than Vega's.
I’ve never been a small car fan but in 1976 I bought a 72 Vega gt because I liked the looks of it .Also it would allow me a second car so I could get a break from high gas prices that were a concern driving a 6 bbl GTO.To make a long story short I’m still driving the Vega though it’s had a few upgrades.One of which is the troublesome high tech (at the time)engine.A ‘70 454 now sits under the (now)rust free hood.
I LOVED my Vega. Had to rebuild the carburetor at least twice, and clear a little rust behind the front wheel wells, but it have new everything out could. Bought it in the mid eighties, drove it for four years and 135,000 miles. Lots of little things started going wrong. Had I had the funds at the time, I'd have fixed it back up; sadly, I had to let it go.
@@llofdarkwater9152 135000 miles wow! I didn’t think they were capable of that
@@johnandersonjjr They really weren't. The tow truck always picked it up from the front and left the drive shaft connected so it counted those miles too.
Whos towing their cars thousands of miles, the joke was almost funny @scottcurry479
The funny thing about the pinto is that it actually became a popular platform among professional mud racers in the mid 80's because they were dirt cheap, lightweight, and relatively easy to modify for competition.
I worked with a young man with a wife and two small daughters. He had a Vega and _loved_ it--perfect size for his family. He replaced the engine twice (total of three engines) until finally letting it go.
That was a good review. I had an early Vega wagon and I love how it looked and it handled nice. It's too bad they cut corners and didn't build it right
Adam, I think you are too protective of GM. The 5.7 Diesel engine calamity stretched all the way to the 1981 year! In 1999 I sought out and found my dream car, actually I wanted a 1984 and up but I settled on a 1981 2-door Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Brougham with a 5.7 diesel engine. The original vehicle owner told me that the engine in the car was its third diesel. Oldsmobile under warranty had twice replaced the boat anchor, 85 BHP, and you wonder why Oldsmobile went bust? I had evil in mind. I drove the pig daily for two years. The only way it would start was with a spray of Ether in the air cleaner. Finally one day it wouldn't start. I had it towed to the Oldsmobile dealership. They informed me that the fuel pump was out, and would cost $2400 to replace it. I told them I was patiently waiting for this day to come. I took the car to a Hot Rodder, ordered a Chevrolet crate engine, a 350 ZZ4 with a THM 700, and a corporate 10 bolt with 3.73 gears. The diesel block, transmission and 7.5 rear end were discarded. Today I drive that very same car with a newer crate engine, a ZZ383, 450 BHP, and this is the car Oldsmobile never got around to build! Did I mention the loop hole? There was no annual smog requirement for the diesel cars of this era in California... of all places! Nowadays I have registered my car as a historic vehicle in Arizona and drive it sparingly. (320 miles on the new engine)!
Oldsmobile went away because someone at GM realized that having two identically-positioned divisions was just competing with themselves, and Buick won the coin toss because it had the larger overseas market share. I doubt warranty problems with an engine series from 20 years before had anything to do with it.
Also back in the 80`s they were playing with the plastic parts. I`m sure you remember plastic door panels fading out and just falling apart. They were concerned about plastic not rotting when dumped into a landfill. Most plastic parts did not even last as long as the rest of the car did.
A neighbor of mine was working at a chevy dealer when the vega came out. He said they had stacks of vega engines at the dealership. He got really good at swapping motors in the vega and made a lot of money. He would put a business card on any vega he saw in the wild and would swap motors after work on the side.
I love the diesel and 4100 era GM cars. My mentor was a bodyman used car dealer during this time and he said they were the greatest thing for his career. He converted “moonroof cars from doctors lawyers and Indian chiefs” to gas from diesel or installed Buick Olds Cadillac used gas V8s in Cadillacs to sell them and made a fortune. Danny Beaudoin (a registered GM warranty refinish facilility and long time New GM buyer) Rest In Peace described 4100 Cadillacs as “only a good place to sit unless you change the motor.”
Glad to see the Aztec is not on the list. There was nothing really wrong with the Aztec, except it was 5-10 years ahead of it’s time. It could be considered the first crossover or mini SUV. Like many other things GM, (looking at you fuel injection & turbos), it wasn’t given enough time to evolve.
I'd put it, along with the '78-'79 Buick & Olds fake-hatchback Century and Cutlass, the '74 Matador coupe, the Dodge Omni 024, the early FOX-platform Mustangs and even the Pinto hatchback on an "ugliest cars" list, but none of them were truly bad cars in the way they served their owners.
Yup, and honestly, there’s been far worse lookng cars since the Aztek…
I bought that orange Vega with the white stripe down the hood. Swapped in a 350 Chevy with a turbo 400 & a nine inche Ford rear end. Drove it through high school, 4 years college & then gave it to my brother ...who then drove it for 5 years...
My third 'new' car was a Volare station wagon. Nice interior, roomy, drove well, and the kids loved 'riding in the back'. Bought the car in the early winter (Michigan), and by early spring the tops of the front fenders were rusted through! It was the first, and last, Chrysler product!
Thanks for such a comprehensive list Adam. I would argue the combination of the Vega in the 70s, followed by the X-cars of the 80s, were the two most significant factors which sent GM on their downward trajectory toward bankruptcy.
Anecdotally I’ve had family members that were GM loyalists since the early 60s that have owned both, and have since sworn off owning another GM product. To this day, they have kept that vow following their disastrous experiences largely in part of very positive ownership experiences with Toyota and Honda.
GM was the blunder company in the 1970s through their bankruptcy.
For example when they went to the vortec 350 the plastic intake manifold was garbage on quiet possibly one of the best engines ever made.
The 4L60E transmission wasn't a bad transmission but it should have never been put into full size trucks and SUVs
The Pontiac fiero was a great looking car but the four cylinder one suffered engine fires.
As this video points out the Oldsmobile diesel, it was garbage when it was new and it didn't age well as it progressed into the 1980s, I would imagine 95% of those cars are in the junkyard or rusting away in somebody's far back yard. Is this video points out the Cadillac 4.1 4.5 4.9 engine family, as having personally owned a couple of them all having camshaft problems junk engines. Then GM replaced that engine with the Northstar, it too is a garbage engine using small head bolts pretty much guaranteeing it would eat gaskets and then they didn't correct the car for 8 or 10 years even though the problem would rear its ugly head right around 100,000 miles.
Then there was the square body pickup fuel tank fires that they ignored and they made that truck from 73 to 87 in half tons and until 91 in 1 tons.
I could go on and on but I am definitely not a loyal GM fan for anything newer than about 1972.
@@AtomicReverend well said. You artfully outlined GMs tailspin into Chapter 11. Having worked in fleet management in the early ‘00s, I would go even further down the timeline and say the poor quality execution of models like the Catera, Malibu, HHR, Cobalt, 1st gen Equinox, the mediocre Saturn Ion, the half-baked anteater nosed GM minivans, and the numerous electrical and quality issues in most Cadillac sedans in addition to the Northstar woes were additional nails in their coffin.
Among other cars I've owned both a '96 Corvette (LT4 with 6 speed, Collector Edition, bought in '98 with about 30k miles on it) and a '72 Pinto (bought new by my grandfather, 2 liter engine and automatic and factory AC no less, it became my first car around 1983). I miss ONE of those two cars dearly and wish I still had it. The other caused me so much grief almost daily and I was laughing in tears the day I traded it and I literally jumped out of bed the next morning to check the driveway and make sure it was really gone and not just a dream. I think you can figure out which one is which LOL. :)
VW did get busted for smog fraud in the 2009-2014 Jetta and Golf/Rabbit. Before then, VW did not commit diesel smog fraud. Also, many of those earlier diesels were reliable.
I find it fascinating that the 1970s VW diesel shared many parts with the VW gasoline engine, but unlike the Olds, it really worked.
Nissan also did that when making the Datsun diesel Maxima in the early 1980s.
However, Olds ruined the name diesel so badly, that only Mercedes diesels had any interest. Mercedes built a name for themselves before the Olds disaster went on sale.
Family had a nicely optioned 76 Volare Premier 4 dr. In silver, 'just like the Mercedes'. And for what it was, it wasn't bad. The interior was very luxurious - 60/40 split with dual recliners, lots of 'wood' and filigree. The 318 was a slug (I used to marvel at the older Darts friends had, so much more alive), MPG was terrible, the steering was typical Chrysler vague. But it looked decent. However, lost a tie rod which could have been a disaster and the front fenders soon turned to dust. I think it lasted 2 years before being dumped. There would be two more domestic cars: a Grand Prix which was well liked, and then a Citation (actually 2 at the same time, for kids). That was the end. 'Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me'
Great presentation as always. I've seen those 4.1 in the baby Cadillacs oil pump fail at 60000kms. Leaving a real pretty car to the squish. Very few fixed them. It was big cash to do so.
On a quiet night, you can hear a Vega rusting...
Did you consider domestically built Renaults for the hall of shame?
The Aztec was great! If you got into an accident no one could tell because it looked pre crashed!
One of your best. Love the format of showing still pictures. It really captures the feel of the era.
When I was selling Fords in the mid-90s, they offered extended warranties on virtually every used vehicle. Category A covered most cars, category B was for less reliable stuff; Fiats, Renault, British cars, etc... No exceptions, except for Cadillac: there was the only asterisk, and it stated, "vehicles equipped with the HT4100 engine do not qualify for Ford Warranty coverage." Ouch.
The odd thing is the Pinto remained a strong seller even after the fuel tank issue became well-known. Although I think they corrected the issue for '77.
Yes it was fixed. I owned two of them they were cheap and reliable never had any issue with one but a broken ball joint that I had to replace. Overall they were good cars for the money.
Yup. The Pinto's worst sales year still saw them move around 185,000 units, and over the whole production run over 3 million were built.
My sister traded in her used 72 Vega in on a used 72 Pinto. Pinto wasn't as pretty but it was way more reliable.
I'd love to have a Vega GT with a Honda K20 swap. There are Vega body and trim parts. I like the Pinto as well. The Pinto wagon had less risk of fuel tank fires. None of the Japanese cars were safe in crashes and they all seem to rust worse than Pinto and Vega. I like the TE27 Corolla, but what a rust bucket. A Vega is a well styled small car.
Most of the F body problems are shade tree fixes. The M is virtually the same car when you put them up on a rack and look up from underneath. I'd take any of these three if the rust wasn't an issue.
The Vega responds best to a 383 stroker-SBC … Perfect swap …
I will never forget my 74 Vega in my teenage years. It was an old burner but always started. Omg have great memories.
My mom had a 76 Aspen 4 door when I was a kid. The car was mechanically bulletproof with the slant six, but that thing would rust if you sneezed on it. When we traded it in, it was a complete Fred Flintstone car. If you lifted the floor mats you could see the road speeding by.