Comments: 1-15, 16-22
Timing belt broke at 60,000 miles (replaced every 50,000 miles after that).
The water pump started leaking at 130,000 miles.
The little car was very easy to keep up and easy to to fix. Would carry anything and everything I could stuff, tie on or pull.
Didn't these used to explode???
I don't know why these cars have such a bad reputation. They're actually built really solid. Too bad Ford doesn't make cars the way they used to.
There was ONE highly sensationalized case where a 36,000lb dumptruck ran into a Pinto filled with college girls and the car exploded. The car was absolutely destroyed--as any car would be if hit with something that big. The parents sued Ford as the "deep pockets" to get money, using the argument that Ford "should have envisioned that possible scenario" and designed the car "better" to survive it.
All that being said, I had a 1980 2dr model--the darn thing ran 188,000 miles with only one major problem (front steering arms worn out/replaced-$500.) A great car.
Finally rusted away after too many Minnesota winters.
Additional--The 2.3ltr engine in the Pinto is the same engine still being used today in Rangers, etc.--although now they've been updated with electronic ignition, fuel injection, dual-plug heads, etc.
If you see a pinto for sale and are freaking out just about the gas tank, why don't you get a fuel cell from a racing company for like $200 bucks, and then you have no reason to complain whatsoever. These cars are great, they just received a REALLY bad reputation due to some Engineer/Businessman clashing back into the 70's.
> There was ONE highly sensationalized case.
You somehow managed to miss the most sensational part of the story. Ford knew the car had a lethal design flaw. They calculated how much it would cost to recall the car. Then they calculated how much it would cost to let the occasional customer burn to death, and have their family sue. It was cheaper to let people die, so Ford pretended nothing was wrong with the car.
Just one case?! You have no idea what you're talking about. A Ford engineer forwarded Ford's internal memos and documents to the DoT that demonstrated that FoMoCo knew about the problem all along and decided not to fix it based on a cost-benefit analysis that showed it would be cheaper to let people burn to death and pay their estates after they sue than spending the money up front to fix the problem. The DoT did an investigation, resulting in Ford recalling all 1.5 million Pintos built to that date, and changing the design of all the Pinto's built thereafter. The truth about the Pinto can be readily found in newspaper articles from the time as well as several books, including one written by the Ford engineer who exposed the truth. You can find them at your local library. Don't rely on the internet postings of anonymous people.
It's true that Ford was highly negligent in handling the Pinto's design flaws and that a lot of human suffering came of it. Blame the U.S. public for continuing to buy every Pinto Ford ever made. They did the same thing with the Explorer. Just up the advertising budget and lower the interest rate at Ford Credit Co.
For the Pinto lovers who praise this archaic, unrefined beast of a machine - they were noisy, sluggish, rough riding and ugly. Obviously your last name is Ford or you have not driven many real cars. They were prone to camshaft bearing failure because the engine was so cheap the camshaft was supported with only 3 bearings when every other 4 banger on the street had a 5 bearing camshaft.
We can thank our German and Japanese competitors for the extinction of this dinosaur. Every foreign car of the time was superior in every way. Only the die-hard "buy American" folks kept Ford producing these things for as long as they did. There is no such thing as an "American car" anymore and there hasn't been one for almost 30 years. If it wasn't for foreign competition, Ford would still be making this loser and telling you every night on TV that the Pinto is better than sliced bread.
It is painfully apparent that the writer of the preceding comment harbors a deep bias against American cars and Fords in particular...perhaps, as an infant, he/she was frightened by an Edsel.
The low estimation seems to extend to the American car buying public, who, in the writer's opinion, continued to mindlessly buy Pintos (and later on, Explorers) despite their "inferiority", out of some "buy-American" hysteria, not because they met their needs and were competitively priced. The fact remains that the Pinto was available for 10 years and had respectable sales right through the final year, when it was replaced by the Escort, which has continued more than twice as long as the Pinto. Had the Pinto been as inferior as the writer alleges, it would never have lasted as long as it did. It's very easy to look back on it now, more than 20 years after it went out of production, and call it "archaic" and "dinosaur", but by the standards of the time (1970's) it was at least competitive with other cars in it's price class, both American and foreign, and considerably more durable than a lot of imported cars.
BTW, those "foreign cars" which the writer alleges were all "superior in every way" to the Pinto? Does that include such classics as the Austin Marina, the VW 411, the Datsun F10, the Fiat 128, the Subaru 360, the Renault R12? Are we to believe that the Pinto outlasted and outsold those models (plus many others that came and went) solely because of "buy-American" sentiment?
Finally, if one considers a 5 bearing camshaft to be superior to a 3 bearing one, I would point out that the two engines originally available in the Pinto at the time of it's introduction in 1971, a 1.6 liter and 2.0 liter, were British and German designed and built, respectively. So much for the "superiority" of foreign engineering!
The camshaft problems mentioned on the pinto engine are well documented here in the UK, we used this engine in many different cars from 1970-90, and despite it being used in Cortinas, transits, capris its still known as the "pinto" engine even though the pinto was never sold here. early version of the engine had a problem with the camshaft spray bar in that the holes were too small and would clog up too readily, a problem exaserbated by infrequent oil changes. most post 74 engines had a modified design and were as reliable as anything else.
The camshaft drive belt was designed to be changed every 36000 miles, if you do this and change the oil every 4-6000 miles these engines will comfortably see 200,000 miles and more, by which time it will be ready for new rings and valve oil seals. do that and it will keep going... I have had several vehicles with this motor and found it excellent.
Look guys my brother owned one of these pieces. I got the chance to drive it. Sure it gets up and goes, but getting into high speeds it gets me really nervous. It's a little piece and deserves to be gotten rid of. Oh and yes they do explode.
A 1994 Rutger's Law review study found that out of 10 years of production and a couple million Pintos made, only 27 known fires have happened. The record is about the same as any other car of it's day, and not much worse than modern cars (check on Honda CRVs right now...). The Mother Jones Magazine article that has spread the Pinto myth has used some decietful practices that few have checked up on. the film they show that "proves" the case is from a university study on what happens in a car fire, and was acrtually started with an incendiary device (much like the pickup truck in the Dateline" episode on NBC). It also shows the Pinto being hit by a Chevy, which Ford woudn't have used were it a "secret Ford video tape."
The Pinto actually was a pretty decent car for it's day. Yes, I've owned and even raced a couple of them. I've also had Hondas, Mazdas, Porsches and BMWs. I've also had numerous other cars of the early '70s from Japanese and European makers, and can directly compare them. Yes, they are pretty crude compared to modern cars, but so are even luxury cars from that era. They still make great cars to build hot rods and race cars from.
Great car, too bad they ended production of it, but still own one and drive it often, still get the same questions about it blowing up if hit from the rear from brain dead people that do not know anything about the pintos fuel tank, had two bad rear ends myself and saw what was wrong before the recall (later worked for a ford dealer installing a longer filler tube to fix the problem) the wagons did not have the problem, but I think more people has burned to death in chevy trucks.
And wasn't it the Pinto Hatchback that caused all these problems and not the Wagon? My parents owned a wagon a piece, and never had any problems with either. They were good cars (for their time... this was the 1970's, folks).
Ford management knew all about the problem, so they made a little cost-benefit analysis to decide whether to fix the problem or just to leave it as it was. You can look at the famous and often mentioned analysis below:
BENEFITS
Savings: 180 burn deaths, 180 serious burn injuries, 2,100 burned vehicles. Unit Cost: $200,000 per death, $67,000 per injury, $700 per vehicle.
Total Benefit: 180 X ($200,000) + 180 X ($67,000) + $2,100 X ($700) = $49.5 million.
COSTS
Sales: 11 million cars, 1.5 million light trucks.
Unit Cost: $11 per car, $11 per truck.
Total Cost: 11,000,000 X ($11) + 1,500,000 X ($11) = $137 million.
As you can see, Ford management came to a conclusion that it was much cheaper to pay the law suits, medical expenses, certain amounts for pain and suffering, in a total amount of $49.5 mio. Comparing it with $137 mio. for fixing the tank, it is absolutely logical they decided not to! Right?
Yeah, I'm from eastern Canada and I bought a brand new 78 pinto 2dr on may 5th,78.It was undoubtedly the best car I ever owned. I drove the bejezuz out of that poor thing and it still had guts after 94000 kms. I sold it 2 years after I bought it and kicked myself to death a few months after that. Sure people said "its gonna explode if you get rearended"but that did NOT bother me. I loved the body lines of the pinto from when I was a little kid and always said, I'm gonna have one of those when I grow up, well 7 years after they started making them, my dream came true.Now, my dream is coming true again because I just bought another one, only a 77,and restoring it is a major chore as I can't find parts for it, but its half the fun of restoring a car, trying to locate parts, but this one will be modified the way I want it with a 302,whew hoo. Oh by the way, i need fenders lol.