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Looking Back: 1981 Chevrolet Chevette LaserDisc Promo

Discussion in 'Other Cars' started by cwerdna, Sep 21, 2013.

  1. cwerdna

    cwerdna Senior Member

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    #1 cwerdna, Sep 21, 2013
    jadziasman likes this.
  2. jadziasman

    jadziasman Prius owner emeritus

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    The 1979 Chevette I owned must have had better quality. I bought a 2 door with the swing out rear windows new in Dec 78 for $3800+tax cash. I put 100K miles on it and sold it to a friend for $500 (wedding present discount) in 1986. He drove it for another 50K miles and sold it to another guy who put another 20K miles on it. It had a gray exterior and a beautiful maroon interior. Not bad for the POS that it was.

    I was only 21 then so not having AC, PS, PB, PW, and PDLs weren't the necessities that they are today.
     
    #2 jadziasman, Sep 21, 2013
  3. cwerdna

    cwerdna Senior Member

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    Maybe so... I wish I could find the quote but it was either a GM or Chrysler exec that said ages ago something along the lines of they could produce x% of cars (coming out of a given factory) w/the quality of Toyota or Honda. The % wasn't very high...

    My dad's Chevette never got to 100K miles before someone smashed the windshield and so he donated it. Perhaps someone didn't like seeing the POS sitting outside?

    I learned to drive on it and it is amongst the worst cars I'd ever driven, hence my comments about it barely stopping, turning and moving. It was noisy and crude. Lots of sound when accelerating but little fury.

    I recall some random problems w/it like it having difficulty passing smog checks due to various issues (I think the mechanic had to play w/some stuff like the idle speed to get it to pass), turn signal relay went bad, broken sun visor mechanism (GM cars we had were all notorious for sun visor problems) and fan blower motor bearings went bad ages ago so my dad lived w/a noisy blower. I'm sure there were more problems besides the fact that the seats looked like hell, probably due to the sun.

    One of my former coworkers had one and felt it was a total POS too. I think he said when he sold it, the shift knob came off in the buyer's hand.
     
    #3 cwerdna, Sep 21, 2013
  4. jadziasman

    jadziasman Prius owner emeritus

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    Yep, the shift knob eventually loosened and came off in my Chevette too. The shifter vibrated continuously which must have eventually worn out the plastic thread on the knob.

    But the car did get me where I wanted to go. It made at least 10 round trips between Chicago and Florida in the late 70s (I was a sailor stationed in Florida then).
     
    #4 jadziasman, Sep 21, 2013
  5. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    I think there is a user on gassavers that still drives one.
     
    #5 Trollbait, Sep 21, 2013
  6. afob3

    afob3 Member

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    Awesome... I learned to drive in one of those. It had a 4speed manual IIRC.
     
    #6 afob3, Sep 21, 2013
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