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by jimlongley
Wed Feb 02, 2011 9:51 am
Forum: Off-Topic
Topic: Your First Car
Replies: 66
Views: 7016

Re: Your First Car

UpTheIrons wrote:Once graduation got close, my folks sprung for a 1984 Plymouth K car. I can't say enough about that car, because what I'd say would violate enough rules to get me banned before this post would show up on the page. What a total piece of junk!
My daughter's first car, bought for her by her husband after she got her driver's license (which she did not get until after she got married, she didn't keep her end of the deal when she lived at home) was a K car, and it was a total piece of junk. A friend of mine was the Parts Department Manager at the local Plymouth dealer, and I was able to pull a string or two to get through to people who are normally insulated from contact with the unwashed public ("How did you get this number?") and eventually Plymouth backed down and agreed to replace the car. The car spent more time in the shop in the first four or five months she had it, than it did in her hands, unfortunately never for the same problem three times which would have triggered NY State's Lemon Law. Broken motor mount; bent bracket under the dash, which is where the brake light switch was mounted, wouldn't steer straight or hold alignment, stalling at lights, and other stuff, that's all I remember.

The day before she was to take the car in for replacement, she was rear ended at a red light. The other driver said she didn't have any brake lights, which was true because the brake light switch bracket had broken, but she had been stopped at the light, fully stopped, before he rammed her, and that indicated, since that was his statement to the responding police officer, that he was paying no attention to the traffic light, or her manual signal, her arm out the window, which put him directly at fault.

He drove her into the intersection where she was t-boned, luckily all of the grandkids were properly secured and nobody was hurt, but the car was totalled. Eventually his insurance paid and she got a new car, but what a hassle.
by jimlongley
Fri Jan 21, 2011 3:29 pm
Forum: Off-Topic
Topic: Your First Car
Replies: 66
Views: 7016

Re: Your First Car

1949 Plymouth Wagon, actually a field car, but I did buy it myself with my own money, at 13, and I drove it back and forth to work on a farm not far away. From our barn to theirs I only had to cross 1 public road, about two miles overall depending on "shortcuts" and messing around, and if I took the railroad right of way. My buds and I kept that hunk of junk running for almost a year and then we all lost interest. Used to have to bicycle down to the filling station to get cans of gas to fill it up.

My first real, honest to goodness, on the road, car that I owned myself was a 1966 Ford Custom 500 that was on the dealership floor. A customer ordered it and then changed their mind and bought a wagon, so I got it for a bargain price.

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