1983 Plymouth Reliant LE review from North America

First, the heads have been replaced, its gone through too many alternators, fan belts, etc to even count, the heater core has gone out several times resulting in the entire radiator fluid content of the heating system to pour out onto the floor of the passenger compartment, the AC died, shocks and struts have been replaced many times and are again worn out, it has fuel starvation and ignition timing problems regularly, causing the engine to die at random, even in the middle of traffic, the head gasket's blown, transmission finally gave out while driving in downtown seattle; had it towed home. Air vents have billowed acrid white smoke on occasion, radio and speakers completely shorted out, engine -severely- underpowered (who the heck puts an 80hp 4-cylinder engine into a 1.5 ton sedan??), others.

My family bought this car a long time ago (1987) and it was my mother's work car until a few years ago, when I got stuck with it for my first car. Even though its essentially been a nightmare to own, it has a few good points. First, the seats are comfortable, it handles well, its easy to see out of, the paint and body have held up very well (no rust at all, amazingly.. despite several accidents and sitting outside in the weather), and nothing's fallen off the car, caught on fire, or exploded. Despite the largely good reviews I've seen for the K-series cars (Dodge aries, Plymouth Reliant) I've heard several horror stories concerning them. I also heard that GM's quality control was absolutely terrible in the late 70's and early 80's. I guess ours was a lemon. The family recently sold this heap anyway and replaced it with a 1973 Mercedes Benz 450SEL, which I'm VERY happy with... take my advice, buy a pre-1991 Benz if you're looking for a cheap bargain...I've seen ones with upwards of 400k on their original transmissions and engines. I got mine for 1500 bucks in perfectly good condition.