Back in '82 you had different emission requirements across the country. CA was the toughest and most lilkely any cars sold in CA had the throttle body and cars in other parts of the country with less or no emission requirements got the carb.
I haven’t seen a GM X car on the road for years. The old Chrysler K cars are still to be seen occasionally. Considering how many more GM X cars were sold the fact that so few are left is a testimony to just how bad they were.
I still get to visit with the iron duke because I’m a postal contractor and I work on LLVs. The memories it brings back are all bad.
A colleague of mine had a 1980 Oldsmobile Omega which had that 2.5 I4 engine with the carburetor. He had a similar problem and it was something in the base of the carburetor. One shop he bragged about solved the problem by removing the carburetor and hammering something. Unfortunately, the job only lasted a month and the problem reappeared and the first shop and managed to crack the bottom of the carburetor which opened up and made the problem worse. I recommended a different shop to my colleague and he left the car at that shop. Unfortunately, the shop was located next to a railroad where the cars went under the tracks on the road. The area had a flood and the Oldsmobile Omega was in the flood and the water was up to the roof. Thus. the problem never was fixed.
Another colleague had a 1980 Chevrolet Citation which he purchased new in 1979 when these cars hit the market. This Citation had the 2.5 I4 with a manual transmission and the clutch, transmission, and cv joints were always a problem.
The university where I taught had the Chevrolet Citations and the Chrysler K-cars in its fleet. I taught an off-campus class at a military base about 65 miles from campus. I preferred the Chrysler K-car to the GM X-cars, but I had no choice as to which vehicle I would be assigned. However, none of the vehicles ever let me down.
I agree; the K Car was homely, but the model with the 4 cylinder engine and 3 speed automatic was the best car Chrysler produced up to that time. I still see an ugly beige one here every now and then, complete with a CB antenna. By the time they got renamed Plymouth Acclaim (don’t remember the Dodge name), they were better cars than either Fords or GMs.
The original K-cars were the Plymouth Reliant and Dodge Aires. For the times, they were reasonably good cars. I couldn’t seem to get our local Chrysler dealer to give me a good price on one, so I bought a Ford Tempo instead. The K-car had more room in the back seat than the Tempo. I had no problems with the Tempo, but my wife didn’t like the car. I don’t know if she would have had a more favorable impression of the K-car. The Plymouth Acclaim and the Ford Taurus were really a step up from the K-cars and the Tempo.