Plus when you let go of the gas pedal, the car basically freewheels. No engine braking at all, unlike most other domestic, 4 cylinder, and nearly all foreign cars I've seen.But yeah Chavaliers are made of fail.
I drive one of these:
Not my picture or car, but it's the same model and color. Except these wheels are fancier. And my hood is full of orange peel texture.
1999 Saturn SL1
100 HP 1.9L I4
4 speed automatic (doesn't glide.
)2 body trunk at best
Aftermarket Wal-Mart head unit installed by the people I bought it from, so the dash is rattly. (But it has line-in, and I fixed most of the parts with Lowes fasteners, so I'm not complaining.)
It was in an accident at one point so the front bumper cover is broken on the passenger side. The frame's been pulled back to where it belongs.
Custom aluminum muffler bracket (The original rusted away to nothing.)
Passenger side wheel well is full of epoxy and screws to keep said broken front bumper in place
But hey, 35 MPG on the cheap stuff.
Bought it in 2003 for a good deal because "it didn't run well". (The people who had it before probably didn't report the accident.) All it took was a new vacuum tube, PCV valve, and of course a complete belt, fluid, and filter change.
We also have a 1974 Dodge D200 pickup in the yard. It needs a new... well, everything. But the frame's good, some of the body panels are salvageable, and it's got the nearly indestructible combo of the 225 slant-6, Chrysler truck transmission (I forget what it is exactly; the gearing's really deep), and a Dayna 60 with what we think is a 4.1 posi. Even though the engine only makes about 100 horsepower and 200 pound-feet of torque, it was factory rated for 3/4 of a ton. It got 13 MPG back in the 80s, when it was last on the road. (Compare to the new V6 Ram, which gets 12 MPG and is only rated for half a ton.) A 2-barrel carb and complete dual exhaust would really wake it up.
All this with only 85,000 original miles. Want to fix it, but I need cash and time.
Oh yeah, vintage!
