Anyone need a winter beater?

It is in my town and I can go look at it. Hate to destroy one of the last K-cars in existence in northern Illinois but I bet it runs well... https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1615300862212054/?

LOL. Its a K-car. You think it would make it thru a winter with over 90K on it? I will take my chances with my 315K Toy-letta

You obviously have never driven one, they would do just fine...

Driven? ..I've owned one. Thanks, but no thanks. 90K is pushing your luck. Its not just chance that the auto repair manual is laying on the back seat. I'm sure to someone looking for a hobby for winter or someone who needs exercise walking, it would be fine.

Its not just chance that the auto repair manual is laying on the back seat.


Did you look closely?

Had an Aires K wagon that ran fine up in the 200K range. Guess is must be the driver...

I just figured that was as close as you could find for a manual for a model of car that is mostly relegated to the scrap yards.

As long as it's a FI 2.5L it should be reliable. I think the 2.6 Mitsubishi with the carb was only for the minivans by that time...

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Why don't you just admit your mistake, and say you didn't bother to look at what repair manual, was lying there?
Or, instead of bashing the sellers car firsthand, before you have any facts about it, call the guy, and ask details about the car, then come here, and express your disdain afterwards. Seller stated car runs great BTW.

Not brand new, but found a Haynes manual pretty easily, and under $10 too. (I've always preferred Haynes over Chilton).


K-Car Repair Manual linky

I'd drive it as a Winter beater.

On the + side - It has a 2.2 or 2.5, two of the best 4-bangers ever made and incredibly reliable. Decent mileage, easy to work on, but not a powerhouse. Cheap, decent transportation.

On the - side - Needs a windshield. The interior wasn't cleaned before pictures taken, so assume no preventive maintenance. Figure a timing belt at the least. The bottom of the front of the rear wheelwell is rotted, so you'd have to get under the car to see how bad the front of the rear suspension is. As in, is it rotted badly.

I'm a little curious about the cut/snapped belt lying on the passenger floor. Belt to the AC?

$800 car tops. First thing to check when buying a used car is the interior. If it's dirty, stained, full of garbage, etc...hard pass because it's a near certain indicator of how the car was maintained. It doesn't appear to be a terrible car, but $3,250?

Agree with the 2.2/ 2.5 comment. I have put hundreds of thousands of miles on those in various vehicles I have owned without issue at all. Have seen others do the same. Extremely reliable.

Sheesh...its a K-car. Not exactly known for incrdible reliability. I'm not bashing the guys car. I owned one. It was a pathetic piece of trash, in my humble opinion.

Running driving cars that are least somewhat presentable. Don't exist at $800 price point

Exactly right!
Running driving cars are $1500 to $2000.
The days of running driving cars under $1000 are loooong gone.

Sorry, the build quality and reliability of the "80s Ks and Ls was far superior to the '60s and '70s cars that we build monuments to.
I can see how people would think otherwise if they don't remember the '70s or don't do their own mechanic work.

Even the much berated 2.6 Mitsubishi was stone cold reliable up until about 150K (if you kept the oil changed).
Change the timing chains and guides and you could get another 150K.

I still have a "90 Dakota, 2.5 Chrysler with 225K on it that gets borrowed and abused every weekend.

With the newer stuff you do have to understand that with an aluminum head on a cast iron block, coolant level is actually more important than oil level.

I was a Chrysler Tech at a Chrysler / Plymouth dealership in 86 and 87.

The K cars were the cheapest base model cars on the market at the time. They were pushing the "All American built K Car America and the Horizon/Omni American" as the cheapest 5 passenger cars that you could buy in the entire country at the time, and those cheap cars came with a 7 year, 75,000 drive train warranty. Most of those cars made it through that warranty with flying colors. We had very few drive train issues, for the number of cars that dealership sold, pass through our service department under warranty.

Those K cars were very good basic transportation. Not fancy, which really showed up as the cars aged, Resale value is part of the reason for the collective "poor quality" opinions. They were Ok for the original buyers, but looked pretty rough around the edges after 4-5 years. That cheap cost has to come from something being short changed, Chrysler chose interior and trim to cut the corners on. Most 5 year old K cars were pretty rough looking but mechanically sound. For a bit more money you could have bought better quality and better optioned cars with much better interior and trim at those Dodge and Chrysler/Plymouth dealerships. Those higher level cars had better resales prices. The people that thought it was a great idea to add the options onto the basic K car found out that wasn't a good plan. Those people that came in to buy the "cheapest car in America" all thought the sales people that told them the interiors were really crap and the other cars were much better quality, all thought the salesmen were just trying to rip them off.

Its interesting that today so many people want to compare the "cheapest car you could buy in the USA" in 1986, to other cars costing $500 more from the same time frame. I see that hasn't changed. Those K cars were good reliable transportation for 85% of the people that bought them new, drove them until they were paid off, then traded them in. Its the people that bought them used and probably didn't take very good care of them that give them the bad reps.

Once you had the early OEM head gasket replaced (by 86 that was mostly solved), they turned out to be pretty good cars for the time. No one was making good cars during that time frame, not even the famed [censored] cars were all that great. The biggest difference between the car companies was their attitude concerning warranty. The Japanese companies made the process easy for the customers, the American companies, not so much. The vehicles were all the same poor quality, but some companies chose to make warranty easy, so their cars got better reputations.

Neglect, crappy interiors, CVC joint torn boots then bad exposed joints, and rust (especially in the rust belt) claimed them before most drive train issues ever caught up with them (pretty much all those issues were industry wide standard issues during that time frame). Resale values across the car industry showed the down turn in the auto industry in the 85-91 time frame. By the early 90s, the industry was in a slight upswing again.

I drove several 84-86 Chrysler front wheel drive cars well into the mid 1990s. Nearly every one made it past 200,000 miles. In the late 80 to mid 90s, you bought a used car based mostly on the car itself. We have once again returned to that time concerning used cars. When the current junk the car companies are producing (and have been for at least 5-6 years) hit 7-8 years old, if you are in the market for a used car, you better be looking at the condition of the car itself. That includes most current used cars on the market today. Would you really expect the line of cars that was the cheapest cars you could buy 7 years ago to be the best car you cold buy today?

Today, there is not a car company that doesn't have some level of issues with their current model year vehicles, but at the same time, there are examples that are going to be pretty much trouble free for hundreds of thousands of miles. The 1980s was the same way.

As far as the one posted, that price tag may be higher then the price the cars sold for new. To me, it doesn't look like one I would have bought used in 1992, but it isn't 1992 anymore either. I would want to look it iover really close.

86 will have the 11mm head bolts which were an upgrade over the 85 and down 10mm versions. Not near as many head gasket issues

Odds are the ac compressor is toast or maybe a ac hose. Easily the 2 most common issues back then . Besides dist pickup plate and reluctor issues

Throw a timing belt and water pump. Ck for torn CV boots and drive the snot out out of it.

If it were close I would take $1500-2000 tops and go look for a DD out here as long as its clean underneath

Well said! Dad (RIP) me and my brother had several of these back then and over the years. Dad always said "They saved Chrysler, that's all they were intended to do"