How tough are these M bodies ??

M

Master M

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Looked out my door at work today and in pulled this white 5th ave . I don't see many of these cars around here. It was in fair condition but pulled in quietly. Out stepped this large man. I went over to ask him about his car. He said it is a 1988. I could tell the inside was in fair condition. I asked him how long he has had it. He said I bought it new, and have almost 300,000 miles on the original 318 engine and trans ( with no rebuild on either ). He said it is his daily driver and has no plans of selling. He said if anything should go wrong he will have it fixed. I saw him get in, and with one whirr of the starter the 318 fired up quietly and he drove off. Lets talk durability here. I seldom see an 80's car on the road anyway. These cars could win the last car alive game.....
 
All of Chrylser's early engines, the Big blocks, the LAs (and Magnums), and the Slant 6 (to paraphrase the old Jeep commercial, the Slant 6 wrote the book on reliability) are as reliable as can be. No fancy materials (aluminum, plastic (sorry, composite) intake manifolds, etc.). Just solid cast iron, with many years of production and refinement to work out all of the bugs. Same goes for the 3 speed Torqueflites. Of course, some of the current materials are being driven, indirectly, by government mandate/regulation (emissions, fuel economy, safety), and some by customer demand, Also, both transmissions and engine families are much shorter lived than in the past (we don't get engine families lasting decades any more). The other point is that mechanics were mechanics, and the good ones could tune car by ear, or take it for a drive and pretty much know what was wrong with the car by the time they came back. Now, "technicians" read computer codes, and guess at what part needs to be changed. Not directly related to reliability, but the ease of working on pre-computer controlled cars, and the relatively inexpensive repairs allowed people to maintain them at a lower cost, which encouraged upkeep. Now, take a new car to a dealer, and you won't be getting out for much less than $1000. And this doesn't take into account that older cars could be maintained at home far more easily. Example from personal experience: I was talkng to a friend of min about my cars, and said that I needed to get to a lock smith to get spare keys made for my J bodies. He asked how much that was going to cost. I told him I wasn't sure, but probably somewhere around $5-7 each. He said a spare key for his Honda Civic was $100, plus $200 to the dealer to program the key into the security system so that the key could actually be used. $300, FOR ONE KEY. Any wonder he didn't get a spare key?

Kostas
 
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Tough is an understatement.
My Caravelle....I drive it like I stole it. It used to be my daily driver and it never let me down....not once.
Now it's my money pit toy so it's only on Sunday drive duty now but that car earned it's vacation.

My Fifth......
I am constantly blown away by the reliability of this car that I paid $600 for. I've put 40,000 miles on it in the roughly four years I've had it. It has NEVER failed me. Arctic winters, death grade heatwaves....unstoppable.

Insanely easy to work on and generally parts are cheap.
On top of that an absolute joy to drive.
The Starbutts pansies might not like it but I love an old school ride.

Easily the most reliable die-hard ride I've ever owned.
And it ain't like I baby and of these cars when I drive them.
How tough are they?.....unbelievably.

These cars are legendary.....I'm sure nobody ever expected these things to be doing their daily duties 28 years after they were made. Find me any cookie cutter jelly bean shitbox that'll do half of that.....
 
I find that type of brand loyalty to be exceptional. It is amazing what has happened slowly in the automotive industry, to lower quality , and greatly increase expense of ownership. My 1988 Fifth is the second newest car I own. I have no desire for a new car.
I'll try to get a picture of his car next time. Oh by the way his car did not smoke on start up or as he drove off.
 
I have owned my 318 '82 Cordoba since new. It was my daily driver for 17 years, used primarily in stop and go city driving. It's been summer use only since 1999. The engine has just over 480,000 km [300,000miles] on it, and still runs like new. It requires one litre of oil every 5000 km, but at that point it's time to change anyway. No complaints here!
 
Master M said:
I find that type of brand loyalty to be exceptional. It is amazing what has happened slowly in the automotive industry, to lower quality , and greatly increase expense of ownership. My 1988 Fifth is the second newest car I own. I have no desire for a new car.
I'll try to get a picture of his car next time. Oh by the way his car did not smoke on start up or as he drove off.
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Not surprising. If kept maintained these cars run cleaner than many ten year old jelly bean cars I've seen puking smoke.
 
I can't say enough about the reliability of M bodies. I have owned 5 of them over the years. I'd sell one, bowing to pressure of one kind or another and then immediately regret it. Like Captain Caravelle said, I too drive these cars in all conditions and they just take it in stride.

Hey, they're Mopars...if you keep the sheet metal from rotting off it, it'll run forever.
 
I use my grandmothers 88 5th as my rental car when I fly home from Alberta for my week off monthly. It is a little too finicky for her in her old age (81 this year) so it sits for 21 days and then gets driven for 8 straight while I am home. I pick it up from her and then drive about 150km to my home and around for 8 days, it does surprisingly well.

It has definitely seen its better days as maintenance has also reduced with her age as she is driving my uncles 2003 Grand Am because they live together. Last year at this time I gave it the big once over with the ESA/ELB delete and swap to 4 barrel intake/carb. As well as getting a new rear cat and muffler put on it. It could use some bushings in the rear end, or whatever is back there as the rear end is definitely sloppy.

Shes got about 250,000kms on her original everything, trans has a sloppy/slow shift in to third but that is really all that is wrong with it.

I absolutely LOVE driving this car!
 
Around here, unless they were used in summer only, they went to the great salvage yard in the sky long ago. Drivetrains were still fine, interior pretty darn good, body,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,rotted up to the door handles, subframe rails non existent.................stupid road salt.
 
Aspen500 said:
Around here, unless they were used in summer only, they went to the great salvage yard in the sky long ago. Drivetrains were still fine, interior pretty darn good, body,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,rotted up to the door handles, subframe rails non existent.................stupid road salt.
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That's why I drown them in that oil spray.
Makes them a total drag to work on as I've found out numerous times but it saves them from rotting.
 
I don't think anything can prevent rot in Wisconsin. They're salt crazy, and worse yet is that brine solution they spray on the bridges, underpasses, ramps and curves. Hell, oil pans on Chevy trucks (when they had steel pans yet) would rot out and they're filled with oil and leak (you know how Chevys are, lol) so the pan is covered in grease and oil yet,,,,,,,,,,,,,they still rot out and then leak even more oil. Come to think of it, Ford trucks had, and still have, the same problem. Funnily enough, I've never had to replace the oil pan on ANY Mopar because it rusted out, ever in my 30+ years of being an auto tech.
 
Trust me Sir they drop salt nuke bombs here.
You can watch cars here dissolve before your eyes.
The place I get my cars sprayed is a small shop that not a ton of people know about. But around here they're legend. They drown your car in two separate compounds or rather viscosities.
All exposed spots get the thick stuff and all the seams and rockers etc get the creeper stuff.

The stuff they put on in October is still there.
My buddy who did the pitman seal on it was cursing me today.
It's pretty juicy under there. :toothy10:
 
I guess that video answered my question. That is an incredible car chase. Thanks for posting.
 
Aspen500 said:
Funnily enough, I've never had to replace the oil pan on ANY Mopar because it rusted out, ever in my 30+ years of being an auto tech.
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The oil pan on my wife's 2006 Commander (4.7L Dodge engine) rotted out from road salt/brine at around 97,000 miles. We sold it rather than replace the pan. They have to pull the motor to do that job on that particular truck. No thanks.

I'm hoping the same doesn't happen to my originally-Southern 2008 Ram 4.7L that I just got. I'm bringing it to Crown to have it oiled just like the Captain does. I'm hoping that saves it.
 
Prospect62 said:
The oil pan on my wife's 2006 Commander (4.7L Dodge engine) rotted out from road salt/brine at around 97,000 miles. We sold it rather than replace the pan. They have to pull the motor to do that job on that particular truck. No thanks.

I'm hoping the same doesn't happen to my originally-Southern 2008 Ram 4.7L that I just got. I'm bringing it to Crown to have it oiled just like the Captain does. I'm hoping that saves it.
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Good luck with that. You're in Upstate NY, where they haven't seen a mile of road they can't dump a ton of salt on.
 
Prospect62 said:
The oil pan on my wife's 2006 Commander (4.7L Dodge engine) rotted out from road salt/brine at around 97,000 miles. We sold it rather than replace the pan. They have to pull the motor to do that job on that particular truck. No thanks.

I'm hoping the same doesn't happen to my originally-Southern 2008 Ram 4.7L that I just got. I'm bringing it to Crown to have it oiled just like the Captain does. I'm hoping that saves it.
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See if you can bribe them to drown it good. I go to a local shop and they just drown mine. I swearthat's the only thing that's saved it.
 
Captain Caravelle said:
See if you can bribe them to drown it good. I go to a local shop and they just drown mine. I swearthat's the only thing that's saved it.
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I'm hoping it does the trick. I'm not sure if our winters are better, worse or the same as yours Captain. But it's a six month stretch of winter here every year, four of those months feature heavy road salt and brine usage. I can't bear to see this truck rotten like every other vehicle.

Nobody around here really does the oiling thing. It's surprisingly unknown for such a harsh climate. Maybe it'll catch on eventually.
 
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