1984 Dodge Aries Base from North America - Comments

Brakes, head gasket, burns oil, EXTREMELY bad factory carburettor.

This car belonged to my grandfather and I recieved it for free when he passed away in Oct. 99. This car has absolutely NO options at all. No rear defogger, no FM radio, no center armrest, etc.

It's also a nightmare from hell in a New England winter due to almost no heat, no rear defogger and a real bad carburettor. I had to sit outside for about 20 minutes in the freezing cold with my foot on the gas pedal to keep the car from stalling. I won't even tell you about what it's like driving the thing in the cold, except for the fact that your hands will turn blue on the steering wheel because it's so cold.

Car also has NO balls at all... it takes me like 30 seconds to go from 0-60. Good thing about this car is the fact that it's awesome on gas mileage and it's somewhat of a reliable ride in the good weather.

Also, I ripped out the AM radio and threw in a Pioneer CD deck with 4" Kenwoods under the dash and Polk 5x7s in the back... I couldn't take listening to AM any longer.

In closing, I'm very grateful I received this car for free but I would never buy one with my own cash... unless I was severely intoxicated or something.

I happen to own a 84 Aries that I acquired in 97 at 130,000 miles. It is now at 170,000 and still going strong. Yes, the carb takes some tweaking to make it run good, and the automatic transmission made the 2.2 feel seriously underpowered, but after installing a super slick shifting 523 5 speed from a Sundance and removing the cat from the exhaust, it can more than hold it's own.

For about $350.00 I now have a car that is fun to drive, super reliable (only had to replace the fuel pump and inner tie rods) and gets decent gas mileage. Plus it can haul stuff cause it's a wagon.

I too own a 1984 Aries, mine is the 2.6L Mitsubishi engine with auto transmisiion, which also ran cold, and had carb problems! My car does have a rear window defroster, and after replacing the thermostat with a Stant super stat, the car is able to run warm enough.

The carb is a nightmare, little literature I have found explains anything about it! All the books available are written as if I know where the solenoids, relays or diaphrams are located. With so many different solenoids, relays and diaphrams on this carb, to know which one they are talking about would help!!

None the less, after considerable tinkering, I have been able to adjust the choke and get the engine to idle when cold, and after adding a fuel pressure regulator between the fuel pump and the carb, it has reduced the fuel consumption and leaned out the fuel mixture!!

When all is said and done, I like this car. It now starts, runs and drives just fine. Has never left me stranded, and for the money invested so far, it does it's job.

I once owned one of these chick magnets, and mine was a convertible!!! It was black with grey and black interior... It made all of the Buick Grand Nationals so jealous. Ya right! I went through 4 carbs on this car, a transmission, power steering rack (a Dodge trait, they all suck), 2 batteries, of course the AC never worked (another Dodge trait) and God forbid it began to rain and I needed the top up, it took about an hour for that to go up. Did I forget that stupid talking dash always reminding me of the obvious!!!

I however did buy a 1989 Aries 4 door with fuel injection 7 or 8 years after that one, and it was a good car. Does every 2.2 liter engine have that lovely tapping valve sound? I think that was an added luxury to those engines.

I recently purchased a 1984 Dodge Aries for a winter car here in PA. The carb also had many problems until I disected it and found that the mixture control selenoid had shorted out and burnes a hole in itself. Apparently about 40 percent of the 2.2 engines had this problem. It is easy to fix and the part is only about 40.00 bucks. The car runs better now then it did when it was new according to the previous owner. If you have carb trouble I reccomend checking this part which is located in the center of the carb with a green wire and a brown wire protruding from it. It is also somtimes called the duty cycle selenoid.

Pretty much all cars from this era have BAD carburetors. They are complicated heaps and are computer controlled even though they are 99% mechanical. Not to mention, they require warm up time. Since you have to have it on low idle in order to put it in gear, it stalls until it is warmed up... With fuel injection, nothing you can do will make it go to low idle unless it knows it is warm enough. My car (A Chevy Citation) has the computer controlled Rochester Varajet (actually it has given me no problems, just annoying to have to warm it up) There is OODLES of information on the Quadrajet, Varajet and Dualjet so I know the operation/design of it inside out. So don't hate a car for a bad carburetor, they were all too common in the 1980s, as common as bad A/C or a falling headliner.

Way back in the 80's my family and I also had a dodge Aries as our primary transportation. it was an 84 wagon and as such was not what you would call a "screamer". we had problems with our carburetor also. and the falling headliner (my father resorted to using super glue and a stapler) and and the headgasket nightmare most owners of this car also had. but it was a fun car to drive, great on gas and NEVER once left us stranded. it was also very cheap on insurance. we finally parted with it in 91 due to a deer who thought the road was a great place to stand!we later bought a dodge spirit and let me tell you this car is one of the best cars dodge ever made! we have not had one problem with it even after 93,000 miles and I am told that the spirit was based on the old k car platform like the aries! I guess it took chrysler a decade to iron things out.

To the person who wrote this review:

The newer 1985 and up cars have an extremely well designed bosh fuel injection system. the carburetor is always going to be defective on any older vehicle.

I have had 4 of these cars 1 - 85, 2 - 87's and 1 - 89.

Everyone has been an awesome car with extremely high relaiability with the exception of the 85.

I would most certainly reccomend these cars to anyone for low cost relaiable transportation.

When the carb is well tweaked, nothing can stop the 2.2. We had one in the 80's and in winter it got very cold up here in Prairie Canada. If you forgot to plug it in it would start anyways. The Parisienne wouldn't.