1988 Dacia 1310 TLX review from Romania

Brake pump was losing pressure and had some rubber o-rings replaced inside. It turned out the new o-rings were counterfeit and the next day the brake pump failed catastrophically (no effect whatsoever when pushing the pedal) while descending into an underpass in downtown Bucharest and I rear-ended the car in front of me. Brake pump was replaced with a new one that worked fine afterward.

Further brake problems: left rear wheel locked due to a clogged brake caliper.

Brake booster failed.

Both mufflers replaced 2 times each (both the one at the back and the one in the middle of the car). The exhaust pipe connecting them was also replaced once due to rust.

A lot of rust: had the body of the car rebuild twice and lots of patches in various places.

Rain water kept leaking on the floors. The floor on the diver's had been completely eaten away by rust, I could have driven the car like the Flinstones. A smaller hole appeared on the passenger side too - and a friend of mine claims he lost a bottle of bear through the floor of my car!

The nut holding the alternator pulley in place unscrewed itself and flew away while driving in the middle of nowhere, Saturday afternoon (all shops closed until Monday morning).

A rod broke in the gear box and the car was jumping out of the gear. Had the transmission rebuild in order to fix it.

Clutch replaced twice.

After the first rebuild of the body the car kept losing alignment so it went trough the tires pretty quickly.

The dash had a crack in the middle.

Every approx. 10000km the engine would refuse to start. The solution always was to replace some ignition parts (platinum contacts and the distributor). After that, for the next approx. 10000km the car would always start at the first crank, even in the coldest winter day.

Oil kept leaking all the time from the engine.

The fuse panel rusted out and created a lot of seemingly random electrical problems.

A lot of suspension parts were replaced - they break really quickly because the roads in Romania are in pretty bad shape.

The drive belt broke and I made a temporary replacement out of my girlfriend's stockings (and had to endure her protests, of course :-)

I bought the car used in Sept. 1997 with 40k km and I used it only until Aug. 2000 when it had about 85000km on it. After that my parents used it for 3 more years until they finally sold it in Nov. 2003. The above list of problems includes the repairs performed by my parents, too.

There was always something a little bit wrong with the car, like with all Dacias. I always carried tools and spare parts with me. This car taught me some pretty sharp mechanical skills - I can now make a pretty wide range of repairs on the spot.

The car has better performance than most other east-european cars of that era (Lada, Trabant, Skoda), but it is light-years away from any decent western car.

The stick shift is very imprecise and clunky. Shifting into reverse takes some training and every car is different (if you know how to shift your car intro reverse it does not necessarily mean that you know how to shift your friend's otherwise identical car into reverse).

Parts are widely available in Romania and they initially seam cheap. However, I learned the hard way that most of these cheap parts are counterfeit. Factory certified parts are not that cheap though, but they are of good quality and they are well worth the money.

Seats are very soft and comfortable.

All in all, this car got me trough the better part of my college and at the time I was happy with it and considered it reliable.

Now, after moving to the US and driving other cars for a couple of years I realize that Dacia's reliability is just a myth.