1983 Plymouth Reliant LE from North America - Comments

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.

What does GM have to do with this Plymouth/Chrysler car?

EVERY American car maker in the 1980s produced absolute crap. Only recently (last 5-8 years) has Ford, GM and Chrysler realized that they were building absolute junk.

Now lets not put ALL the blame on them. They were building cars with massive V8s and the cars weighed over 2 tons. Then BOOM, they had to do a 180 to small, light, slow, 4 cylinder cars filled to the brim with emissions and fuel economy systems. Import makers had always been making smaller, lighter cars so it wasn't such a shock for them to switch to even smaller cars which means their quality was better.

Today's cars are so complicated, it is a miracle they are so reliable. I mean, we are amazed when a washer or VCR lasts 10 years, then we start cussing and yelling at a car that has lasted 20 years or more and is finally being fussy. And we can't fault car makers for their engines or transmissions, again VERY complicated machinery compared to the days of Ford Model Ts. Them lasting 100,000 miles is amazing. Someone would be lucky if a model T would last 30,000 miles before the engine was worn beyond repair. A simple matter of looser tolerances and technology that wasn't there.

So lets respect a 20 year old car for what it is, a tired, old, slow machine that is failing with bad parts like mad. But it has been 20 years for goodness sake!

Oh and BTW, we talk about how unsafe and unreliable 1980s cars were. Well wait 20 years and look back on the cars now that are "so safe" and "so reliable"

We also can't fault a car for being less safe than a modern car, if we knew then what we know now, then it WOULD be as safe as today's cars.

We bought a brand new Reliant K car in 1983 with the standard 2.2L engine and auto trani. I have to agree that it was the worst car I have ever owned as I fell for the Lee Iacocca sales pitch. Our other car was a Mercury Bobcat (nee Ford Pinto) and even coming from that car the Reliant was a bad car. Ours was dark brown with a tan interior and cost $8300 new.

The 83 models were the last with a carburetor and from day one the car would hesitate and stall when sudden acceleration was needed. That acceleration was very poor taking about 15-16 seconds to reach 60MPH. However from what I recall, the 2.2L engine was rated at 96 HP not 80 and it weighed 2300 pounds which is just over 1 ton. I rebuilt that carb twice in the 45,000 miles I owned it and it still stalled out.

The rest of the drive train held up OK, but again this was for only 45K miles. However the suspension required struts at 35K, front wheel bearings at 40K and a new exhaust system about every year. One time my wife got stranded by the front end of the muffler breaking loose and falling down and jack knifing the rear suspension up on the muffler so the rear wheel was off the ground. Some motorists helped push the car down and tear the muffler off. The radio was dealer installed and sounded crappy and failed after about two years.

The AC lasted 3 years and whenever the humidity was high would deliver condensate vapors (white smoke with no smell) from the vents until the condenser or evap froze up and the system had to be turned off for a time to melt the ice buildup.

It had fairly OK handling and had good visibility, but the body was tinny and the roof rusted through along the front seam where the welds were. The dealer would not honor the rust thru warranty and I wound up filling it with bondo and painting it myself. Finally I had it with the upkeep and sold it for $2300 after only 6 years and 45K miles and bought a 1989 Camry which I still have with 170K miles.

Lastly one funny story: We were having a new house built in 1987 and made frequent visits to the site. One time when the foundation was just poured the "road" in front was very muddy from heavy rains and as I pulled up in the Reliant I went a bit too far into the unpacked mud and the front wheels sank in up to the wheel spindles. Well I tried to rock the car out and I didn't believe it, but the car did not have enough power it even spin the tires! The engine rev'ed up until the torque converter stall speed stopped it without spinning the tires. We finally got out with the help of a few people pushing and rocking the car.

Hope that today's Chryslers are better?

Steve D.

The person who posted the first comment is clueless. Babbling on about Model T's--what does that have to do with today's cars or even 1980's cars?

And if the person who wrote the original review thinks that a 1973 Mercedes 450SL is going to provide reliable, low-cost transportation, he will have his bubble burst the first time he has to bring it in for repair, which will be soon if it hasn't happened already. If you can't afford to buy a new, or at least a late model used Mercedes, you will not be able to afford the maintenance costs on an old one, as countless people have found out. You can't take them to Joe's Corner Garage when they break--you have to go either to a dealer or one of those "European car specialists"--either one is $$$!

In 1983 the reliant got an increase of horsepower to 93, earlier models had around 80. Worst carburetor I have ever seen.