What Bugs Me About the 300

Is this what passes for wisdom these days in this NG?

Let me expand on the above-quoted "true-ism":

"Improperly-designed, improperly-adjusted <x> are indeed a pain in the
ass. Properly-designed, properly-adjusted ones are not."

Let's see someone top that.

 

Do you disagree with the statement? If so, how and why?

This isn't an expansion, it's a replacement of "carburetors" with "<x>".

Care to try again?

DS

 

Heat? What heat? My car is parked under the grey skies of London...

It is mostly outside.

And I did check at the weekend. No sign of the roof liner coming off. Now
that I have said it, I suppose it's the beginning of the end...

DAS

 

I'll take your word about about the peak years for quality for the items
mentioned, but I still prefer the good new days you seem to despise. Maybe
American cars now are worse than in the sixties (which I doubt, as a
generalisation), but leading-brand cars in the rest of the world are not.

Brakes
Bench seats (slippin' an' sliding at the front)
Manual gear shift
Standard wheels
Rust-proofing
etc

DAS

 

My only comment would be that a starter doesn't just fall out - sounds
like bolts were loose, unless the mounts broke, in which case you might
have a point, but I would be surprised if that's what happened. I can't
see a starter falling out as a design problem - more a mechanic problem
(from a previous starter replacement?).

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

Actually I should cancel my subscription after buying the POS Toyota Avalon
in 2001. Should have bought a second 300M instead. Still, when you are in
the market for something, reading their reviews gives you a good idea of
what is available. You may not believe their reliability surveys, and as I
was watching this old lady drive a Buick, I was thinking how that explains
why Buicks are rated reliable by Consumer Reports, there is nothing better
out there.

 

How does that make you feel?

What made you want to talk about carburetors?

What is it that you really desire to find out?

 

Actually we had a 67 4 door Valiant too for my sister. Comparable to the
73. The 71 was good except for being a 2 door hardtop which did not have
the integrity of the 4 door sedans. You can have your opinions and call
people names. My only point was that by 75 the car was a POS.

 

I believe it went thru 6 starters in 60k miles. I don't know the
particulars of the starter falling out. My father had been mechanical and
worked on cars and even owned a gas station in his early days but by that
time he was doing something else and letting a gas station mechanic fix his
cars. If it was simply a case of bolts loosening I'm sure he would have
blamed the mechanic and not the car. By the way the 57 was rusted thru by
the 2nd year of ownership on the back fenders. I prefer the current cars.

 

OK, so you're just yebbering.

Well, y'see, Mopar Man, I was participating in a discussion subtopic
started by Art Begun, who said "carburetors are a pain in the ass".

If this is all really so hard for you to follow, perhaps you should seek
easier reading material. I bet Barney (the purple dinosaur) has a
nice website with colors and shapes and things that would be more your
speed.

 

Agreed, but that wasn't your point. Your point -- I quote you -- was "73
was the best year for the Valiant and Dart".

Say what you mean.

DS

 

You know what happens when you assume, don't you, Dori?

I own a multiplicity of vehicles. Too many of them. The oldest is from the
early '60s. The newest is from the mid '90s, and is not the newest I've
owned.

Oh, NO! Not *manual gear shift!* (Come to think of it...not manual gear
shift. My oldest car has an excellent and efficient 3-speed automatic.)

....as opposed to...?

 

And some modern Toyotas have sludge problems and 90s Mitsubishi
engines burn oil and some Chrysler transmissions are junk.....

I wholeheartedly agree with you on carbs though. If you have a good
carb then great but if it gets messed up you might as well throw the
car away because noboby could fix it then and they sure can't fix it
now. In my opinion fuel injection is the best thing to happen to cars
since 1970.

'73 wasn't all that bad except for the miserable engines. All the new
emissions restrictions that manufacturers couldn't meet without
killing the engines. And 75... Granny had a '75 Nova that died when
you hit the gas about two minutes after starting the car. It did this
the day she bought it and it did it the day I sold it some 25 years
later. No one including myself was ever able to fix that problem.

Steve B.

 

What makes you think I am just yebbering?

What does that suggest to you?

I see. Tell me more.

We were discussing you - not me. What is your concern?

Why are you concerned about my speed?

 

I should have been more explicit: standard tyres.

DAS

 

Eliza, is that you?

 

Since we're talking about old cars *now* vs. new cars *now*, this doesn't
apply. Everyone uses radials on everything.

 

The sad news is, that same stuff GM used in the headliner, they also used to
keep the contacts apart in the horn button. So if your horn starts blowing
itself in the middle of the night, you can expect your headliner to fall
down soon after.

 

I saw the line item on a Chevy window sticker. That's the 'Chicken Little'
feature. Optional at extra cost.



--Geoff

 

Sorry, but that is funny. The horn sounds to warn you of imminent liner
failure...

))))))))) Harhar etc
DAS
--
For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling
---

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