The car I test-drove had much more powerful brakes than the car I took delivery of. I asked the dealer if the test car had a bigger power booster, but he said they are all the same except the charger R/T. So I put up with underpowered brakes.
The quality of finish was quite poor on my Regal, and the dealer wouldn't provide more than an apology, but I got over it soon enough. The vinyl roof was wrinkled above the rear window, the paint (white) was thin at the edges, allowing primer to show through.
The hoodlining went moldy and the interior smelled musty after three weeks
of owning the car.
Front wheel alignment needed doing every 8500km. Can anyone tell me why this is so expensive on such a cheap car?
Other than that, it was completely reliable for the 13 or so years I had it.
It could tow almost anything, had incredible acceleration and was the most comfortable car I ever owned.
Valiants were a long way behind the competition in the 1970's, and my car became very expensive to run during the petrol shortages.
I recently saw my old Regal rusting under a gumtree in a backyard, along with about four other Valiants. It still had my old Queensland number plates on it!
I don't know why alignment would be expensive, but I can tell you why it was needed so often. A mistake was made when printing up the factory service manuals for these Valiants resulting in wrong camber adjustment everytime you got a service, that's why your front tires scrub on the inside, its not the car that's flawed, its the mechanic working on it.
I don't know how you worked that one out - Valiant set POSITIVE camber and TOE-IN as factory spec. How on Earth do you get the inside edges of the tyres to wear out from those settings?
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