I wouldn’t be… excited… at this point, because I experienced reality firsthand. Unfortunately, I fell for that hype in 1981. As was GM’s practice for many years, the X cars were marketed before adequate reliability and durability testing had been done.
Interesting, the following is a review posted in 2010…BY YOU!!! Are we just taking opposing viewpoints just to disagree now?
"I had an '81 Citation, and it was nowhere near as bad a car as the critics would have you believe.
I never found the service brake to be problematic, but the e-brake was very problematic. For reasons that I could never fathom, the e-brake cable mechanism would rust itself into place about once every 2 years, thus necessitating a rear-lift tow to the mechanic each time for yet another replacement of the cable and related hardware. This was the main reason why I got rid of the car, in fact.
The self-adjusting clutch mechanism was also problematic, but if the one that you are looking at has an automatic trans, you would not have this problem area to worry about.
Overall, it was a sturdy little car. However, my experience with these cars goes back about 25 years, so you have to consider that many more problem areas could have developed with them over the years. I think that the main factor to consider–like with all used cars–is how well it was maintained."
The previous generation GM X platform was rear-wheel-drive. CAFE goals caused domestic auto manufactures to abandon most of their traditional designs and replace with light-weight vehicles with small displacement engines. Those cars went through years of refinement, eventually replaced with better designed platforms/bodies and powertrains.
The 1980’s cars don’t bring back fond memories for most people, by the mid 1990’s vehicles were much better.
Imagine that.
Some people speak favorably about their imported cars from that era, except the cars were no longer drivable after 7 years due to rust. Good cars expire after 7 years, bad cars annoy us much longer.
“Great” cars:
Example problem (and the one that caused my parents to get rid of theirs, becoming Toyota customers for life). And this problem was with the rear DRUM brakes!!
“It was the X-body’s brakes, however, that would prove the biggest bugaboo. Complaints poured in to both General Motors and NHTSA that every version of the X car had the frightening tendency to lock its rear wheels during heavy braking, leading to reports of accidents, injuries, and even fatalities.”
ONE so-called TOP EXPERT. I’ll take the consensus of 500 non-experts over ONE so-called EXPERT. It’s called STATISTICS.
Last year, I was doing some deep cleaning in my basement, and I came upon a box with a lot of old papers, including the folders containing the maintenance and repair records of both my '74 Volvo and my '81 Citation. Before I got rid of that old junk, I spent some time paging through the records, and that gave me some renewed reality on both cars.
In addition to what I had recalled 16 years ago, those invoices reminded me that I had to have the upper (dog b o n e) motor mount replaced at ~47k miles, and the left front wheel bearing went bad at ~55k miles.
Under warranty, the manual transmission was repaired once, and was also overhauled at a later point. The automatic clutch adjustment mechanism was repaired twice, and a later recall resulted in the automatic adjuster being replaced with a manual adjuster that was activated by pulling up on the clutch pedal.
The electronic feedback carburetor was problematic, in that after the engine warmed-up fully, the first time you stopped at a traffic light, the idle was extremely lumpy and erratic. The Chevy service manager told me the cheap “fix”: When you stop at a traffic light, shut the engine off and then restart it. That did work to even-out the idle, but then it had to be repeated at every stop.
The e-brake mechanism rusted to the point of not working 3 times, but I opted to skip the 3rd repair when I found a buyer who didn’t seem to care about a non-functioning e-brake.
Because of primer showing through the paint, the dealer repainted 2 or 3 panels. Visible rust started to form around the rear window molding by year two. There was also rust on the rocker panels about 1 year later. Luckily, there was never any panel perforation before I dumped that dog.
So, the good news about the Citation was that (unlike the Volvo), I was never stranded by a breakdown. The bad news is that the Citation needed a LOT of repairs. In order to save time when their cars were serviced, the maintenance booklet contained a couple of sheets of “stickers” with the VIN, so that the service writer only had to put one on a service order, rather than writing-out the VIN.
I used-up all of the VIN stickers w/in two years. I don’t recall exactly how many of those VIN stickers were provided, but I estimate that GM provided at least 12 of them.
So, you can continue to believe that those X cars were “good”, but I can tell you that this is absolutely false. As I mentioned previously, my co-worker experienced identical problems with her mechanically identical Buick Skylark. However, because she dumped it after less than 3 years, she didn’t have to replace that upper motor mount or a wheel bearing. I held onto that POS for 5 years, and the repairs were… frequent.
Think about all of the situations I had when the light suddenly turned green, and the cars in back of me were honking.
Just out of curiosity, how many manufactures did promotional videos about how crapy their vehicles really were???
For the life of me, I can only remember every vehicle manufacture promotional video(s) pretty much states that their vehicle is the latest greatest vehicle made at the time…
+1
Car ads, as well as political ads, all make promises. Many/most of the promises turn out to be nothing more than hype.
Yeah im really impressed with the mud splashed car driving off road, or speeding up a mountain or through town doing donuts. Who are these ad executives and when did they get dropped on their head?
Had a thought though from all the whining, my next to most hated boss had a 74 volvo. I figured he got the car he deserved. Or maybe it was what made him mad?
How else would the Jeep drivers who never leave paved roads know that they simply MUST have a snorkel intake?
Pretty sure I will not ever get bored enough to watch a video about a Chevrolet Citation.
If you do watch it, just keep chanting, “it was a good car”, despite what the owners of X cars said.
Why did you praise it in 2010?
Re-read what I posted this morning.
IMHO, Chevy Citations were not good cars. My family had one. It was good in the snow. There was nothing else good about it. It was underpowered, slow, stalled frequently, engine lights were frequent, the catalytic converter died 2x), and the electrical system was flaky… We kept it for 3 years, purchased new and convinced me to never buy a GM product again, which I haven’t. The worst PoS car I’ve ever owned, and that means something since the previous car we had was also an underpowered four cylinder PoS, a 1978 Fairmont. Another true PoS.
+1
Yes, that was one of its few virtues, but the same could have been said for virtually any FWD car. In retrospect, I probably would have been much better-off if I had bought a K car, rather than an X car.
My wife’s father had a company provided K-car. It was underpowered and slow, great in the snow and reliable.
We compared them to each other frequently. While the Reliant looked cheaper and smaller, it was actually more comfortable and far better built. It also had a better warranty at the time.
On the subject of car scams. I recently went thru the process of buying one. We ended up at Carmax buying a Mitsubishi Mirage.
Beware of scam car sales sites that look like Car.com. But aren’t. They don’t have any cars, but they collect your data and search for cars on other sites (like cars.com). They are effectively just add agragators, they sell the data you enter to third parties and then pester you with messages about cars that are supposedly available that meet the requirements you entered. You get search results listing the cars that meet your needs. When you click thru or call the dealer or private party the car is usually no longer available, or never was. Its a frustrating waste of time entering data only to get dead leads.
Lee told us if you can find a better car…buy it!