Prints Valiant
Member
Have spent a few decades as a printer and am a Plymouth Valiant fan. Prints Valiant seems like an appropriate user name. Have run the wheels off a new '69 Valiant 225 SS (in 20+ years and 220,000+ mi). Just purchased a '73 Valiant 198 SS with 64,000 mi (pics attached). Will be needing occasional help from this group with the initial "punch list" and ongoing maintenance, and that's my main reason for joining today.
The background story for the '73 purchase is worth telling. We took a 2,000 mi trip in our 2017 Kia Optima. When we returned it had somehow lost 4 qts of oil. Two weeks later a diagnostic showed connecting rod and timing chain failures. Had it towed to the Kia shop as it had stopped running. They had 25 warrantied engine replacements ahead of us. Next day our car was ready. They'd done a computer update! Runs fine. (??!) However one of the Kia employees said she had an identical model and that she won't leave town in it.
I had always missed our easy-to-maintain and overhaul '69. I missed its near-total lack of: 1) failure prone gizmos; 2) over-the-top theft-prone emissions controls (eg. catalytic converter); and, 3) inscrutable computerization. I liked the fact that I could open the hood and actually see an extremely reliable engine. So we found the '73 Valiant and traveled 250 nail-biting miles and back in the Kia to purchase it.
Although the '73 is in near showroom condition inside and out, and is in excellent mechanical condition, it will be used for our daily transportation, not for show. As soon as its initial punch list is complete, we'll sell the Kia.
The background story for the '73 purchase is worth telling. We took a 2,000 mi trip in our 2017 Kia Optima. When we returned it had somehow lost 4 qts of oil. Two weeks later a diagnostic showed connecting rod and timing chain failures. Had it towed to the Kia shop as it had stopped running. They had 25 warrantied engine replacements ahead of us. Next day our car was ready. They'd done a computer update! Runs fine. (??!) However one of the Kia employees said she had an identical model and that she won't leave town in it.
I had always missed our easy-to-maintain and overhaul '69. I missed its near-total lack of: 1) failure prone gizmos; 2) over-the-top theft-prone emissions controls (eg. catalytic converter); and, 3) inscrutable computerization. I liked the fact that I could open the hood and actually see an extremely reliable engine. So we found the '73 Valiant and traveled 250 nail-biting miles and back in the Kia to purchase it.
Although the '73 is in near showroom condition inside and out, and is in excellent mechanical condition, it will be used for our daily transportation, not for show. As soon as its initial punch list is complete, we'll sell the Kia.
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