Point taken. Were the employees in the Lordstown plant not abused though?
I always maintained a car back then would not be worn out at 100k miles like many here would like us to believe, however i truly believe that most cars back then had the odometer tampered with.
I remember my aunt had bought a 78 Pontiac lemans with 77k, it was about 11 years old at the time, she ran it to 140k miles and thinking back how did a car from a suburban area manage only 7k miles a year. I truly believe that car had 130k miles when she bought it and 200k when it got sold.
It had a 305 chevy engine and was a perfect runner, though it leaked oil like the exxon valdez near the end
My explorer scout troop (teenagers) purchased an old car (early 1960âs American steel) with intention to make it into a dune-buggy. I wandered into the area where the guys were tinkering with the dashboard, asking what they were doing? "Oh, weâre just figuring out how to change the odometer. " Turns out pretty easy to do, so not surprising they were commonly tampered.
Nope, their abuse was self inflicted, they could have left at any time.
3 Likes
They were not abused. They were simply being told to do the job they were hired to do, and to refrain from getting high while at work.
2 Likes
Volvos were well built as far as safety and body integrity but every Volvo owner I kne kept a shop manual on the back shelf to help keep it running.
Ther was a Nascar compact car race at Daytona in 1960 and the speculation was if the Corvair would win because of their superior rear engine handling on the roasd course portion or would the Volvo PV544s win because of their better engun on the oval half.
Chrysler showed up with 12 1969 Valiants and took first through eleventh and thirteenth. A Volvo took twelvth, beating the Valiant that had rolled in the infield.
No the were abused. I suppose you are one of the people that told service workers that if they dont make enough to find another job, which they did in record numbers and now the same people who told them that are the same ones complaining about reduced hours and extended wait times at restaurants and fast food places.
My wifeâs aunt bought a new Vega back in the day when they first came out and she said it was a pretty decent car. I have no idea how many miles she put on it but she had it for about 8 years and drove the devil out of it almost daily.
Guy I knew back in the day had one (a wagon) but converted it to a 350/4 speed. Cragars and candy apple paint really made it stand out along with being pretty fast.
As for drum brakes being superior to disc brakes. No. Back in the 1950s days of the panhead Harley, cop bikes were fitted with drums front and rear. Cop bikes being punished in traffic all day long had a bad tendency to suffer brake fade. Not a good trait when trying to stop a 650 pound motorcycle with another potential few hundred pounds of rider aboard.
An aftermarket company came out with cooling rings for the drums and it helped. Those rings were designed to fit over the drums and dissipate heat. Most rings were tossed when the bikes left police service. Iâve only seen one on eBay and it went for (ouch) 400 dollars.
Since I had a good clear pic of one mounted on a drum a bit of measuring and I turned out a couple of them on the lathe. Both identical; one looks wider due to leaning. HD discs did not come along until 72 so 20+ years of fading and sweatingâŠ
3 Likes
In the 60s, nearly every dealership in Mpls/St Paul rolled odometers back to zero! Common, an legal at that time.
I was looking at the offerings of the day back in 72 and honestly the Duster would have probably been my choice. It was 73 dollars more than the Vega I believe but there was an ad that sold me on the additional value the Duster provided.
Now the MPG edge the Vega had may have been a smart buy, but we were not that snart in 72, or 22 for that matter.
Supposedly, it was common practice for Caddy dealers to do that as late as the '50s, and GM used to advertise something along the lines of⊠A pre-owned Cadillac is as good as a new car of any other make.
1 Like
My father worked in a large suburban NYC Chevrolet dealership in the 1960s. He said once a month a guy would come to their dealership to roll back odometers.
The guy charged $5/car and it would only take him a few minutes.
A sales person would guide him with: âTurn this one back 20K, and that one back 30K, etc.â
1 Like
They were that bad. I rebuilt my engine at under 50k miles. The problem was the manufacturing of the engine. The block was aluminum with silicon lined cylinder walls. Their process wasnât that good. After a while pieces of the cylinder wall would separate and start scaring the cylinder walls or even break a piston ring. Mine was burning 1 qtr. every 2 300 miles before I finally decided to rebuild. I tore down engine and then sent block to machine shop and they bored out cylinders and steel lined it. While engine was disassembled I replaced the pistons with high compression domed pistons (11:1). Added new pistons. Replaced all the bearings. The crank looked good (no scaring). Then reassembled (it started right up). Less then 3 months later I replaced the exhaust manifold with a tuned header and dual exhaust. Also replaced the intake manifold and carb with a dual carb setup.
But besides the engine problemsâŠThere were tranny problems (but it really depends where the tranny was made). Mine was made by Opel which I then had to rebuild at less then 80k miles. I swapped it out for a rebuilt instead of rebuilding it myself.
And lets not forget about the rear axle. This never happened to me, but I know a few Vega owners it did happen to. Something inside the differential broke and the axles would creep out causing a very dangerous situation if not caught.
And last (but surely not least). RUST. You must live in the south if you saw a lot of Vegaâs around in the 80âs and 90âs. The extremely thin metal and plus there were no inner fender wells made it easy for this vehicle to completely rust away in just 5-10 years here in the North East. If you had the Vega properly rust proofed then it could last.
The vehicle design was good. It handled well (when the axles werenât falling off). Decent power for the day. Looked good. But GM cut so many corners to get something to market quickly that they really screwed it up. IMHO if GM build the Vega right and Ford built the Pinto right then Toyota may not be the largest auto manufacturer in world.
5 Likes
I did respond. I was on a long camping weekend. Leave electronics at home
2 Likes
Yes, I believe if you are doing a job and feel that the work is too hard for you or that you are underpaid, go find a job where that is not the case.
3 Likes
Ok, I just hope that you are not someone who complains that âno one wants to work anymoreâ which is not true.
If employers paid competitive wages, plenty of people would be available to work.
4 Likes
Thankyou for your firsthand objective account of Vega ownership! This is what I was after. Very interesting and honest response
Hope you had a great vacation.
And a response quite similar to many of the other comments.
One didnât have to be a passenger on the Hindenburg to know things didnât go wellâŠ
6 Likes