1975 Dodge Dart Custom from North America - Comments

Head Gasket at 245,000

rebuilt front end at 210,000.

This car is like the Energizer Bunny, just keeps going and going.

As I recall from my days as an owner of an auto repair shop the Dart of that era had poor gas mileage for the venerable slant six. As did all Chrysler products at the time the suspension had a torsion bar that would unpredictably fail with a large bang followed by the car's body collapsing on the side that the torsion bar failed in. There was a torsion bar running from front toward the rear on each side.

The Dart also had habitual carburation problems and ballast resistor failure in the ignition. Still it was a relatively simple car for its day and generally fit into the average mode. Styling was conservative. Seating comfort was not much better than average.

Referring to the torsion bar failure - this only occurs because of the frame rusting where the bar was seated. A real welding shop could fix this problem fairly easily. Also you hear of the ignition module failing but again rust keeps the case of the module from making good ground contact and the car won't run or stalls. First sand the rust off the module and fender wall and you will be running again. Darts were excellent cars and if you took even some care of it they would last forever.

I not only own a 1971 Plymouth Barracuda and 1973 Dodge Charger, but also have general familiarity with Mopar cars (from owning several others, my immediate family owning many, and my friends all driving them).

The only example that I ever heard of with a torsion bar failing in this manner, was when a friend drove a 1975 Dart out of a barnyard, where it had been sitting mired in the mud for 10 years, and after nearly a year back on the road, the driver's side torsion bar did indeed break out of the rusted sub-frame. Not bad service, I would say.

I also used to hear of the dreaded "black box" failure, or rather the electronic ignition control module. I have owned both of my Mopars for 20 years, and never experienced this, and my previous 1985 Dodge truck also had the original control module up until the time I retired it last year. My father owned a 1976 Plymouth Volare that did experience this when the car was about 10 years old. Nor have I experienced a bad ballast resistor, or heard of this happening.

I was driving these cars as daily drivers since the mid-1980's, precisely because they are so reliable, and obviously in my opinion they were better than the available Ford or Chevy competition of the time (and foreign isn't even worth mentioning). In fact, I still drive the 1973 Charger, although the Barracuda has become too valuable to put on the road on a daily basis.

As a side note, the Slant-6 that I owned averaged 24 mpg on the highway. The Mopars from the mid-1960's to mid-1970's were great cars, and I love them all, and still enjoy seeing them on the road. They had a style that nobody else had.

I bought a brand new 1975 Plymouth Duster V6 and it was always in the shop the first 3 years, at which time I switched to new GMs with no problems. It was hard to diagnose its issues ignition, carb etc and I really suffered with it and sold it. I liked the White with white interior and wind up hardtop sunroof. I regretted I did not order the V8, but was watching my $. It cost $3600 new; a lot of money to me at the time.