Learn me K-cars

My friends and me are looking for a really cheap car and it seems most of them are K-cars. What should I look out for in k-cars (aka rust, etc)? And also are there any competitors that could be had for like $100-$400?

Absolutely anything else? A $400 scooter? I've picked up an EXP for free, an Escort for $100, and a Tempo for free so 80's Ford's are definitely good buys.

My friend has 2, they suck... BADLY

his biggest issue is that the paint is just plain peeling off of one of them.

his family got them cheap to be beaters, but after just riding around in one the hate is swelling in me.

This is to be a beater/ rally-x/ auto-x/ anything. Paint is not an issue (krylon is fun) and there will be no interior. B/c I found a Sundance near me for $150 that only needs a head.

sundance is better than a plain K car..

If it starts getting warm inside check for fire coming from the wheel well, I guess it happened to my uncle when he was driving with my grandparents and father, I guess someone said, "Man it's getting warm in here" then they said "your car is on fire." My uncle was smart enough to leave the ignition on so the car was toasted.

I'm somewhat interested in this. Isn't there a huge amount of swap potential for suspensions and drivetrains among 80s/90s front drive Mopars? I would love to find a nice 5 speed turbo Lancer for a DD.

benzbaron wrote: If it starts getting warm inside check for fire coming from the wheel well, I guess it happened to my uncle when he was driving with my grandparents and father, I guess someone said, "Man it's getting warm in here" then they said "your car is on fire." My uncle was smart enough to leave the ignition on so the car was toasted.

A friend of mine had an underhood fire in a Plymouth Acclaim (later K-car variant) once. The damn fool put it out!

96DXCivic wrote: This is to be a beater/ rally-x/ auto-x/ anything. Paint is not an issue (krylon is fun) and there will be no interior. B/c I found a Sundance near me for $150 that only needs a head.

Even a SOHC Neon is better than a K car and its variants. Aside from the power of turbo models and 3L v6s, but you have an inferior suspension.

I would only consider one if it was for LeMons, I would be hoping to see it crushed in the end

Back in the 80's the Post Office was considering a series of stamps to celebrate the K-car (the car that 'saved' Chrysler, remember?).

They shelved the idea, folks couldn't decide which side to spit on ...

(baaa-DUMP shhhh)

I owned one, brand new, for a while ....

Carter

They aren't all bad:

http://www.thedodgegarage.com/the_reliant.html

http://polybushings.com/pages/k-carwagon.html

Plus Cliff Ramsdell's DOHC turbo 2.2 Reliant Wagon

http://web.archive.org/web/20060704221352/http://www.members.aol.com/mopartek/home.html

I don't know why they aren't as well liked, they are the basis for the Daytona and Shadow, so cross pollination will get you some fun stuff. Sure the styling sucks, but the 4-doors and the wagons aren't bad, IMHO...

I don't agree that the suspension in the Neon is all that much better, they received slower steering than the GLH. The axles and uprights are practically the same as are the struts and overall front suspension geometry. The rear is much better, but since it is FWD, most tend to lock them up so badly that they are essentially solid axles, negating much of the benefit.

As far as rust goes, I wouldn't know since I live in the area that rust all but forgot (at least compared to the other side of the Rockies)

BTW, I noticed my 924 uses the same strut mounts as a K-car. Which means 924/944 struts can be adapted to allow more options for front struts. Rear shocks are easy as they are pretty standard shocks minus the springs.

Engine upgrades are well documented, up to and including Neon SRT4 swaps, Neon cylinder head swaps, etc.

Transmissions are essentially the same as the Neon, though the Neon parts are newer and many times stronger.

Interior and exterior aren't easy, but use your imagination and you can come up with something. Lawn edging makes good air dams and adding a vent to the hood will help with the heat build up with turbo equipped cars.

For the 3.0 cars, I can only say avoid the autos (or convert them to manual) and ditch the stock electronics for MegaSquirt since the stock electronics suck on the 3.0's. The same basic engine block was used in the 3000GT's and many Mitsu trucks, so larger displacements, multi-cams and dual turbos aren't hard to get to. Getting the larger motors and heads to fit in the engine bay is another matter ;)

The K-car holds the distinction of being the flimsiest unibody production vehicle ever produced. Its structural rigidity is terrible. Seriously. Drive one of the front wheels up on a little curb or speed bump and try to close the driver's door. Chances are you can't.

My best friend had a K-car that gave us laughs every single day, right up to the day that he opened the driver's door and it fell off the hinge onto the parking lot of a WalMart. He ended up taking the plates and leaving it there since it didn't have a VIN plate... in fact, it didn't have a dashboard.

Its just another cheap car that has gotten a reputation for being a POS, so people just buy them to ruin them and help make more people hate them. In stock form, yea they kinda suck. If you wanted to make one interesting, find a 2 door one, and swap in the drivetrain and suspension from an 89 daytona (the only kinda hard part is finding the right pedals for a manual swap, as they have to be from the k body platform. The suspension on all of them is the same, but the other parts dont interchange).

I'd consider a K-car, but only if it was free and had a trunk full of money.

I had a stick wagon. I bought it from a really old guy.Other than the seat smelling like pee, it was a decent car at the time. It was slow and didn't handle well, but it did get me (and a lot of stuff) from point A to B cheaply. It wasn't a quality car, but it didn't pretend to be. I dressed it up a bit with some tinted windows, mags, and some kicking sound system from a pawn shop. And a different front seat. I never had a problem with it and it sort of grew on me. But then again, I liked my Volvo240.

curtis73 wrote: The K-car holds the distinction of being the flimsiest unibody production vehicle ever produced. Its structural rigidity is terrible.

Truth. I remember back in the 80s watching a guy drag race a Daytona. He tried to launch it hard and experienced a simply breathtaking amount of wheelhop. While this was happening, I could SEE THE CAR FLEXING from 100 feet away as I sat in the stands. I was rather amazed.

On the other side of the flexing issue, my then-fiancee (and still my wife) totaled a new 1985 Reliant by dropping a wheel off the highway at 70 mph or so, overcorrecting, launching herself into the air, rolling one and a half times, and landing on the top right corner of the windshield. The complete list of her injuries was a small scratch on the back of her hand she got as she crawled out the passenger window. (As a good Canadian, she ALWAYS wears a seatbelt.) When I saw the wreckage in the compound later that day, you could still open and close the rear doors normally. I call that strong. We bought another K-car to replace it. I don't know how strong they are now if they've rusted, but when new, for my money, they got the job done.

i heard if you are driving and your brakes go out that you turn on all the accessories and that will drag the engine down enough to stop you.

or was that for a VW rabbit?

I had a manual shift Dodge Airies(sp) . It wasn't a bad car. My wife loved it, she drove it most of the time. Man was that thing good in the snow. Another thing I liked, I could change the oil and filter without getting under the car.

Tom_Spangler wrote:

curtis73 wrote: The K-car holds the distinction of being the flimsiest unibody production vehicle ever produced. Its structural rigidity is terrible.

Truth. I remember back in the 80s watching a guy drag race a Daytona. He tried to launch it hard and experienced a simply breathtaking amount of wheelhop. While this was happening, I could SEE THE CAR FLEXING from 100 feet away as I sat in the stands. I was rather amazed.

Did it have T-Tops? That would be the third party company that did the T-Top conversion screwing up the rigidity. The standard Daytona is pretty stiff for a hatchback car (I know, I've owned one) The T-Top bars on the Daytona's were glued and riveted in and overtime the glue loosens and the rivets start to come loose. A simple strut tower brace and rear shock tower brace fixes that. Much the same way the Rabbit's need them to reduce their chassis flex.

So much haterade directed at them, yet what did Ford and GM have at the time? Anything even remotely that good? How many of their competitors are still running around today? This is a group that likes Yugo's for crissake!

fiat22turbo wrote: Did it have T-Tops?

Yes, I'm pretty sure it did, actually. It was a while ago.

K-cars and their variants weren't terrible cars by early 80s standards. But Chrysler milked them way too much and for way too long, well into the 90s. For a while there, just about everything they made that wasn't a truck was a K-car variant. Minivans, sporty cars (Daytona/Laser), small cars (Shadow/Sundance), midsize sedans (Aries/Reliant/Spirit/Acclaim), even larger sedans (Dodge Dynasty, Chrysler New Yorker).

You can buy a much better car for the money. In the last five years:

Running 1g carb'd crx: $90 - (needed nothing)

Running 1g crx Si: $330 - "needs new clutch" (adjusted the clutch cable and drove away.)

Running convertible Dodge 600 turbo: $190 - (needed timing advance and some bleach to get rid of the mold.)

Running 94 Civic with bad transmission and extras: $75 + $35 worth of hot wings and beer for used trans. - delivered.

91 Ford festiva: $90. Needs fuel pump.

93 Ford Escort GT: $280 delivered. Needed nothing.

You won't find stuff like this on CL. Hit local public auctions, insurance auctions, and towing auctions. As long as you have a truck, trailer, and don't spend more than scrap price, you can't lose. Also, make friends with someone at the local towing yard, and try to grab stuff BEFORE it goes to auction.

fiat22turbo wrote: Did it have T-Tops? That would be the third party company that did the T-Top conversion screwing up the rigidity. The standard Daytona is pretty stiff for a hatchback car (I know, I've owned one) The T-Top bars on the Daytona's were glued and riveted in and overtime the glue loosens and the rivets start to come loose. A simple strut tower brace and rear shock tower brace fixes that. Much the same way the Rabbit's need them to reduce their chassis flex. So much haterade directed at them, yet what did Ford and GM have at the time? Anything even remotely that good? How many of their competitors are still running around today? This is a group that likes Yugo's for crissake!

Are you kidding? When the Daytona came out, the magazines all said the same thing; that the 224 hp was seriously stretching the limits of the chassis' capabilities.

I'm not hating, I'm just stating facts. Its a flimsy car. I remember in high school, my buddy lost control of his K on an ice patch doing 45. He hit a telephone pole sideways at 45 squarely on the passenger side. The car folded in half. There was exactly 11 inches between the passenger door and the driver's door, and the engine ended up (literally) in the trunk. It had ripped the motor mounts off the sheet metal and ended up laying in the trunk. That's not an exaggerated story, that's just truth. My friend was an EMT on the scene taking photos. That accident happened in February. The first time he walked after that crash was at graduation in June, and it was with the help of braces and two canes

If you ever want a good experiment, try cutting the roof off of one. My college buddy had an Aries that he got for free (and it was almost worth that much). We wanted to chop the top off for kicks. We got about 3/4 of the way through the roof and the saw locked up. We pulled it out, got it back in but it seized again. We pulled it out (leaving half of the abrasive wheel in the roof) and called it quits for the evening. The next morning we came out to find that the car had collapsed. The floorpan bent in the middle and was within about 1" of the ground. The roof looked like a used sheet of Reynolds Wrap.

This was the same Aries that developed cracks in the strut tower because the torque of simply putting it in gear made the whole front suspension shake.

Seriously... I'm very objective about any vehicle. I have no brand loyalty nor do I subscribe to internet rumor or subjective stories. I'm an automotive engineer, and I feel confident saying that they are really a pile. Later K-cars were slightly better, but not enough to call them adequate.

If you pay for one, you're not so smart. If you get one for free, it better be low-mileage and pristine. Anything else, they better pay you to take it away.

You're right, GM and Ford didn't have much to celebrate then, but as bad as they were, they were light years ahead of the K.

I once had a 1993 Lebaron convertible that flexed so badly that if you went over rail road tracks with the top down, the passenger's side door would pop open to the safety catch.

I've seen them pop the trunk lid after installing a single subwoofer in the trunk.