(first posted 4/2/2017) Hello to all CC readers. I’d like to introduce myself as a new contributor to this awesome website. Being a huge fan of CC for quite a number of years, I wanted to share some of my own content I’ve collected over the years. For starters, I have well over 150 old Consumer Reports and R&T magazines that have been slowly scanned into a computer. I chose this one to be my first since sedans and minivans maybe boring as bread and butter but, as a child of the 80’s and 90’s, they surrounded my life every day, so they bring a lot of nostalgia.
The most telling of these four cars is how far ahead Ford was in the competition. The Taurus jellybean exterior design may have not been everyone’s cup of tea but it was a groundbreaking design, thanks to the inspiring efforts of Audi’s 1982 100. Buick’s Century was already aging fast by 1988, and Chrysler’s Lee Iacocca put out another K-car variant, the Dynasty. Iacocca was not a fan of aero styled cars, but he didn’t have much to work either. Chrysler’s Eagle Premier might’ve had a promising future but the company didn’t put much marketing into the product.
Enjoy the reading and I look forward to sharing more articles with you all.
Welcome aboard!
My dad actually owned two of these cars: A first generation Taurus and a Dodge Dynasty. Having driven both, I agree with the results of this test. The Taurus is a far superior car.
I bought a Gen1 (1990) Taurus wagon in 1997. I loved it. I still do, 20 years later. It gets all the attention and maintenance it should get; and it’s so easy to work on, I’ve done all the work except for a transmission rebuild on the 4spd automatic at 183,000 miles in 2015. Never had to open up the Vulcan 3.0L V6. All the options and standard equipment still work as they did the day this car left the Atlanta assembly plant in October 1989.
I’ve not seen any of the other three cars on the road in years.
I think the Ford wins. 🙂
I miss the old Consumers Reports. It was objective, albeit with CR’s standards.
Today, CR is trying to sound like Car & Driver, light on detail and data, with sweeping generalizations.
Maybe they reflect their readership.
I still have a lot of the older Consumer Reports, from the 70’s and 80’s…Still get the new ones, as well.
My dad has been a subscriber since 1977.
CR was my bible, when it came to car reliability.
Out of all those cars, the A body Buick Century, was the only true reliable daily driver.
The Taurus was a POS, with it’s Ford transmission woes, the Dynasty had ignition, head gasket, and sometimes trans problems…And the Eagle Premiere, was a leftover Renault, so it was already junk.
You still see tons of the A body Buick Century and Olds Cutlass Ciera, doing daily duty in New England.
When we were selling cars during the 1990’s at our friend’s repair shop we pretty much observed the same thing selling these cars. The Buick’s were generally the best finds and needed the least amount of work to get front row ready. The Taurus/Sables were very sketchy. The one good thing with those cars was the Vulcan 3.0 which usually was fine. It was everything else that gave problems right down to broken springs, rotted strut towers, ignition and electrical problems and of course the head gasket bottom end failure prone 3.8’s and the garbage transaxles. The Chrysler K-car derivatives were a bit better actually but it was hard to put a 2.2 or 2.5 that was knocking at idle out for sale and actually explain to the customer that it would go a long time like that. Sometimes we found the proverbial little old lady 60K mile special K-car or Dynasty with the 2.5 that didn’t knock and already had the head gasket replaced but that wasn’t often.
I spotted no less than 4 A-body Ciera/Century sedans this past Saturday driving around up North in Watertown and one was a 1989!
+1
It is amazing how many A-bodies I still see here in Rhode Island. Having owned three of them I can attest to the fact that they only got better with time. My 1984 Century with the 3.0 litre V-6 was a total POS. The 1987 Limited ‘T’ with the SFI 3.8 was an incredible car. And even though it was only about a year that I owned it, my ’89 Ciera LS was a great running car and also trouble-free.
Out of all of these tested cars, you never see first gen Tauruses anymore. Forget the Eagles – they were rare when new! And the Dynasty/New Yorkers? Once in a great while I see one chugging around. But for longevity hands down the GM A-bodies win this contest.
There’s a 1985-87 Cutlass Ciera that lives down the street from me. There was another of the same vintage in my old neighborhood (no, not the same car.) And the late-run wagons are still frequently found. So, yes, the A-bodies won the long-term reliability contest, though I don’t think I would have bought one new given the dynamic gap with the competition. I still see 1st-gen Taurii and Dynastys on rare occasions, while I haven’t seen a Premier in years. A shame, as it was probably the best of the bunch judged on its own merits.
It’s also shocking to see how many defects these *new* cars had right out of the box. At least we had moved past the bad old days of stalling and stumbling–the fact that there even was a “starting/running” category seems hard to believe.
I thought the same thing Chris. Buyers today are so spoiled. They have no idea how much improved the cars of today are over the older ones. Fuel injection alone has totally improved cars. No more points, carburetors to worry about and pumping the gas pedal!
I can see why the Japanese cars took over in the late 80’s – A/C failing in a brand new car? On two of the tested cars even!
Welcome!
Having ample experience with three of these four, a few observations:
The Dynasty (my experience is with a whole slew of ’91 to ’93 models) was under-tired from Day One. The seats made a world of difference in comfort and the 3.3 liter V6 was simply a better sounding and more reassuring engine than the 3.0. As I’ve said before, my parents had a ’91 they bought new and, apart from some sensor at about 95k, was flawless for the 135,000 miles they had it.
The Century grew a 3.3 V6 by 1993. The one I owned had electrically reclining seats, eliminating the one concern seen here. I bought mine with 41k and sold it with just under 70k. The two issues I had were self-inflicted. Like they said, this car was great on the interstate but lacked something in other types of roads.
The first generation Taurus is less familiar to me, but my first exposure was as a driver’s education car and I’ve driven a few others. Overall these were okay, but my later Taurus ownership rather taints the nameplate.
The Premier was a better machine in ES guise. MotorWeek liked it, and it even impressed Bob Lutz. He mentions it in his book Icons and Idiots.
Hard to believe that nearly 10 years after this test appeared, GM was still producing the Century….admittedly with updates. And over at Chrysler, 10 years after this test, the 2nd generation of the Dynasty replacement was just hitting showrooms. And in 12 years the whole Eagle brand was gone.
All things being equal, the best car here is somewhat of a toss-up, IMHO. The Buick and Taurus are somewhat evenly matched, and my experience with 2nd and 3rd (?) generation Tauruses makes me think I’d rather have the Taurus. But only if the price was “right” and an extremely comprehensive extended warranty was thrown in. Later Centurys had that intake gasket problem, while Tauruses had fragile transmissions.
Would have liked to have owned an Eagle, mostly because the brand was so offbeat and wouldn’t last another 10-12 years.
About that Buick, give credit where it’s due; GM were really very clever about it. What other company would’ve dared to name a car model after the median age of its purchasers?
That would explain the 88, 98, F-85 etc. 🙂
…Z-24, Z-28, Z-34. It breaks down a little with Type 10 and SS396.
When I got my license in 1998 we had an 87 Taurus LX and my friends family had an 87 Cutlass Ciera base model. So I pretty much got to drive two of these cars One was loaded the other a stripper with ac and cruise as the only options. I liked both of them.
But the solid bench seat in the olds without an adjustable seat back was awful on long drives and the seat did groan just like they said about the century.
Just yesterday a Taurus in very fine condition caught my eye. What a timeless design for a family sedan.
What really catches my eye is the Reliability section near the end. All four of the cars were ill-built, ill-finished junk as delivered. We don’t see lists of “sample defects” like this any more, because generally cars come without them these days.
Also: they recommended the Premier and the Lancer/LeBaron GTS, LOLROFL. I have long held CR’s tests—of cars and everything else—in low regard. This is one of many, many reasons why.
I understand the Premier, but I’m a bit surprised about your feelings towards the Lebaron GTS. I knew an acquaintance who had one back in the day, and it was actually fairly nice (and reliable for her to boot). Maybe a bit expensive for what it was, but I thought it was fairly competent circa 1986.
I will say this, however. My fathers side of the family were die hard Mopar buyers, and my mothers father also bought a Caravelle in the mid 1980’s. I know many people dreaded the potential “quality” of Chrysler products from the late 1960’s on, but not a single one of my Family’s cars (I can think of 7 off the top of my head) suffered from indifference or neglect on the factory’s part (possibly excluding my mom’s ’96 Neon). I guess we hit the Mopar lottery and only ended up with Tuesday morning cars?
I have no animus against ’80s Chrysler products in principle (if I did, I couldn’t’ve written this). But the H-body LeBaron GTS and Lancer were poorly-designed, sloppily-built junk—worse than their K-car forebears and some of the other K-derivatives. Also, they were stupid-lookin’. Also, many legitimate road tests (correctly, IMEAO) found them grossly uncompetitive.
Some turbocharged variants of the H-body were able to accelerate quickly, yip-de-doo.
Fair enough. I thought my friend’s GTS was vastly superior to Grandpa’s Caravelle, but when the bar is low, what do I know? I was firmly a Toyota customer at that point. YMMV *shrugs*
I think today Consumer Reports is a totally different magazine than it once was. Also, cars have improved greatly as well. CR seems to grasp at straws today when they are trying to find an issue with a lot of the new cars. I don’t like the way they review them anymore. Car & Driver they are not.
Cars haven’t improved that much. Car manufacturers’ abilities to handle members of the automotive press have improved greatly. That’s why we’re still hearing that all cars are now reliable enough for consideration, a narrative Detroit started pushing 40 years ago and the Germans started pushing as soon as they stopped leading in quality.
Those suggested Chrysler models tested well as new cars, but hadn’t been around long enough to rate long term reliability.
As it turned out, all of the vehicles tested or mentioned in this article, either tested poorly, or already had a history of reliability issues, or would turn out to be trouble-prone later.
It’s kind of like many years ago, these people I knew asked me to recommend a new fwd sedan.
When I suggested a Toyota Camry, they insisted it had to be an American car.
Based on the cars I’d worked on, at that time the Dodge Dynasty seemed to be the best choice. (Or maybe the best of a bad lot!)
Later, when that car had problems, they complained to me.
But hey! They should’ve bought the Camry!
Happy Motoring, Mark
You could tell them Camrys have been built in Kentucky since 1988 and have a high level of local content (about 75%).
Huh that’s not true exactly. My last two rentals, a 2014.5 Camry SE and the latest 2017 Fusion SE both had defects mainly interior related. The Toyota has an ill fitting passenger plastic A-pillar molding that would come off in your hand if you touched it and the center dash vents would come out if you went over a really sharp road imperfection. The Fusion had a badly misaligned plastic piece on the right side of the opened glove box that I could literally put my finger in the gap! I checked out a few others and one other had the same issue while two didn’t. Also the side chrome window belt molding was misaligned enough that my 78 year old mother noticed and there was a strange noise coming from the passenger door that almost sounded like a bird was trapped in there flapping its wings. The noise came and went as my speed varied.
I loved the first gen Taurus. We had a ’89 LX wagon, unfortunetaly blew the transmission and after that was fixed the 3.8 munched a head gasket… Mom drove us to school in it until it wouldn’t start anymore. They were once so common and you see very few of them left anymore even in Los Angeles.
Taurus sold very well, but hardly anyone bought the Eagle Premier. The Dynasty and Century were pretty mediocre, but still sold well. I guess many people still liked mediocre.
I have driven or owned three of these four cars (all except Premier) and the Taurus was by far the best of the bunch.
LS: thanks for this. Looking forward to further contributions.
I think the Dynasty has the tallest riding seats. That alone would attract me.
All are the right size. Very attractive. On paper. Like many cars of the 80s.
Since I have driven about 600,000 miles since 1988, the smartest thing I could have done was to buy three Centuries and wear one out and start anew with the next. I would have saved myself quite a lot of money considering how many cars I’ve bought since then.
By the way: Welcome here! Could I put in a request for the CR test of the ’85 (?maybe ’83) Chev Caprice in which they issue a scoldy little tsk-tsk to the effect of “You must rotate a medallion to insert the trunk key — a nuisance.”?
Hi Daniel,
I will take a look and see if I have that issue for you. I remember the rotating medallion, I believe even Chrysler did this with the New Yorker.
I have that issue. Or maybe it is another one where Consumer Reports picked that nit (or scratched that itch, or picked their nose?). It was one of their obsessive gripes for a number of years.
Oh, but you should have seen how they blew their stack in the 1960s, bitching and moaning about an ornamental scroll design stamped into the chrome sidewall of a toaster. Blah blah needless frippery blah blah doesn’t offer any extra value to the buyer blahbitty blah. Life of the party, eh?
I wonder what the old CR would think about the cars now that don’t even have an external trunk key? My wife’s Kia suffers from this affliction, as does my ’88 780. Highly annoying if you don’t have the fob (as we’ve lost one of the two for the Kia and I’m too cheap to buy another) or if the car doesn’t have remote locks (stupid move, Volvo).
Got one better than that. In the test of the four highest mpg domestic compacts in 1976 (which the Maverick won) one of CR’s complaints (about the Maverick) was, and I quote, “We could not stop the flow of warm air into the passenger compartment without shutting the heaters airflow off entirely”. Oh I see, if the heater had air flowing thru it, it gave off heat. Well isn’t that bloody well what it is designed to do?
I suspect that what they meant was that the heater-ventilation system didn’t stop blowing warm unless they turned off the airflow to it completely. As in a faulty valve. otherwise it doesn’t exactly make sense, does it? Well, to you it undoubtedly does.
How about you dig that issue up so we can actually read what they said. Your CR-hating memory is not exactly trustworthy.
Tell, just why do you have such a deep-seated hate for them? Because you hate objectivity?
The way I read it is that they got heat unless they shutoff the airflow thru the heater, which to me is just a nit picky complaint for want of anything else to say. I don’t have a deep seated hatred of CR. I guess I just read things differently or interpret them differently than you do. Here’s the pic of the comment.
Thanks for that, and it’s exactly as I guessed. The heater was either poorly designed or the water valve was not functioning properly. CR did the right thing in calling it out; it’s either a design or manufacturing defect.
Where did you find that, BTW?
Mr. Poon has some kind of jihad going against CR. It’s way over the top.
“Tell, just why do you have such a deep-seated hate for them? Because you hate objectivity?” You might ask the same question of D.Stern, see above.
I believe CR was been a pretty good reporter of auto reliability back in the day, their old dot charts were a good format and based on considerable data, based on my ownership of at least 50 cars they had reported on, pre-1990.
Their appliance tests were quite well constructed and reported as well.
“was”.. (scratch “been”, poor editing).
Randerson, if you’d like to ask D. Stern, see here and here for the background and here for the meat of it. If you want more detail, you’ll find it here; here; here; here, and here.
I keep harping on our second-generation 1993 Sable and its woes. The 3.8 V6 put out lots of torque: a plus. But at about 115,000 miles, the dreaded head gasket woes surfaced, and we got rid of the car. Before that, it had gone through three A/C compressors (the first one under factory warranty). By the time we got rid of the car, the power windows were all dying, with unreliable switches. The transmission, though, never had any problems. The car handled and stopped well. It was comfortable and spacious, and gave us a good 18-19 MPG in the city. But how it ate up A/C compressors….
My in-laws had a Buick Century of this generation. What a remarkably “blah” car it turned out to be! Dull as dishwater, and with a jiggly, gelatinous ride to boot. I don’t know what its reliability was; they never talked about it much, except that, as a Buick, it was a disappointment.
A V6, suspension upgrade for 27 bucks and the alloy wheel option cured much of the base Century’s suspension ills and dressed up the exterior a bit and I wouldn’t want one without those things. Its amazing that so many customers and dealers bought them with the base soft ride oriented suspension.
Transformed my ’87 ‘T’ package into a much better handler and overall performer. I think dealers were afraid that it would scare the older buyers away and the younger buyers didn’t buy Centuries in the first place!
All things being equal, if I had to choose one, I would have gone with the Premier. It almost has the space of a full-size car, but still has all the agility of a mid-size. The Taurus would be a close second.
Knowing what we know now, with the benefit of three decades worth of hindsight, I think the Century & Dynasty would have been the safer bets for going the distance.
IMHO, the Premier out-classed all the others in this test, but that French V6 engine had already developed a reputation for trouble back when it was offered in Volvos.
Happy Motoring, Mark
That V6 was a trouble-prone engine. The base Eagle Premier did come with the AMC 2.5 liter four which was reliable but probably provided less than stellar performance. As I recall the 4-speed automatic transmission came from ZF and was basically the same unit used in the Saab 9000 and a few other furrin’ models.
The 1st-gen PRV was a bad engine. The re-engineered 2nd-gen, which this car had, was a *much* better effort, especially past the first year or two of production. Later Volvo/Peugeot 2.8 PRVs and all of the Eagle/Renault 3.0 PRVs can hit 200K trouble-free. The reputation of the 1st gen, unfortunately, followed the whole design around.
I’ve owned three Buick Century wagons in the past, all with the 3300 engine. Very reliable and one of the most practical wagons I’ve owned until I sold them, all with close to 200K on them.
I’m not sure I’d pick the Century as tested here with the 2.8 V6.
1988 was the only year that you could get the fuel injected 3800, which made the Century a very solid car. The 3300 became the optional V6 for the Century from 1989-1993.
It’s surprising they didn’t continue to offer the 3800, at least on wagons.
My friends still has two such wagons. A 1992 light blue with woodgrain sides and a 1995 red with red interior. The read wagon is well over the 170K mark and the 1992 has around 120K. Both the 92 with the 3300 and the 95 with the 3100 were treated to new upgraded intake manifolds last Summer (we did them ourselves for under 100 bucks!) and the normal service items and the rest of the drivetrain is original. We took both wagons on a 160 mile round trip Sunday to clean out a store going out of business and really love these wagons hauling ability and fuel economy. They both still had over 3/4 tank of gas when we got back from the journey and can easily pull around 29 MPG on a trip.
My 1987 Century ‘T’ Limited sedan had the 3.8 SFI engine. It was one of the most reliable cars I ever owned. It was fast (maybe too much engine for that car), rode well and gave me both a sporty feel and luxury at the same time. Mine was special ordered by a neighbor that wanted that same feel for his wife and was totally against Japanese cars because he fought in the war and felt he was a traitor if he bought Japanese. I told him when he sold that car that I wanted it. Well, sure enough timing was right – I needed a car and in 1994 he decided to get another car so we agreed on a price and I bought it. I drove that car from 80k miles right up until it had nearly 200k and my only repairs were changing an alternator and radiator. That was it. I still miss that car!
Interesting to read old tests and pit what they have to say about the cars against what we know of these vehicles from the other end of time, as it were.
Anyone else find the continued use of italics for make and model names made it hard to read?
Not at all. In fact, the Italics drew me in to sections I wanted to focus on.
I MISS this Consumer Reports!! 🙂
Straightforward layout, clearly demarcated sections, not too many distracting colors, overlaps, like the dog’s breakfast that publication turned into since about the late 1990s.
Same goes for any Guiness Book of World Records you pick up nowadays. Too distracting, reads like a cartoon/comic strip. The old black & white ones, with tables clearly listing the superlatives in each category, were the best.
Millennials demand “infotainment”.
…and they demand it in their cars!?
Of the tested cars, The Century (and it’s Oldsmobile equivalent) wins in the long term durability race. I see one or the other just about everyday. I literally just encountered a pre-86 (based on styling.) Century an a local “shop n rob” 20 minutes ago! I encounter a 1st gen Taurus once in a while, I see more Chrysler NYers of this generation than Dynastys (Dynasties?) Perhaps they were more cared for?
The A bodies up here in rust country are quickly disappearing. The bodies become cancerous first, followed by the rear suspension mounts. Seeing more and more of them coming up for sale as parts cars that still run well but are undriveable.
What a sad state of affairs. My family was looking at cars then. We looked at Buick century and Mazda 929. We ended up getting a two year old Volvo 740 turbo. That was the best car of the bunch by a long shot! Rwd and built like a brick. Plus it had rear shoulder belts that I don’t believe were required yet. We kept that car in the family until 2005! The Europeans were really the only decent cars in the 80s.
True, and SAAB’s 900 was the other one to get.
Great write-up LS430! I love these old comparison tests. Looking forward to your future writes.
I have this issue somewhere!
Confession: As a teenager, my dream car was a Buick Century. Really. I was a weird kid, I guess. I really liked the crisp, clean, elegant, purposeful styling, and by the late ’80’s=-early ‘ 90’s these cars had developed a pretty solid reputation for reliability and durability. The early ones had steering rack problems and I know the 3.0 v6 developed an awful reputation, but by 88 they were pretty well put together and would last. If we have younger readers, back in 1988 Buick was thought of as something like you would think of a Lexus today, and although older people did love them, younger people also wanted a Buick. They were luxurious and elegant and not too stuffy then.
I never cared for the Ford jellybean styling. Note that the formal roofline of the Buick and Dodge made for a very large trunk opening, unlike in modern cars which have large trunks but you cannot get anything into it.
The Dynasty never did anything for me but I still preferred the styling over the Ford. However, in loaded up Fifth Avenue form, it was impressive to a teenage passenger with lots of buttons and cushy button tufted leather. It may have driven like a K car but to a 13 year old that is meaningless.
I remember looking at a used Premier many years ago when looking for a car for my younger brother, and it was EXTREMELY impressive. VAST inside, cross your legs back seat comfortable, quiet, and well composed. But it had a few minor issues and the car lot owner flat refused to even consider a discount or fixing it. When we pointed them out, he said take it or leave it. We left it.
Interesting to think that in 1988, all the family sedans and minivans were domestic. The Camry and Accord would not be seen as family sized until the Accord was revised in 1990 and the Camry was revised in 1992.
I do not recall cars being such quality disasters in 1988. We bought a Plymouth Sundance new in 1989 and other than the air conditioner going out in it every year, it had no problems at the outset and went a long time before my brother drove it into a light pole.
“Note that the formal roofline of the Buick and Dodge made for a very large trunk opening, unlike in modern cars which have large trunks but you cannot get anything into it.”
So glad you mentioned it! I can’t even fit a *small* basic office chair(rolls, goes up & down) through the mail slot of my 2015 Elantra – whose trunk is probably bigger than that of a 82-94 Century.
I was shocked, however, at how shallow trunks from the 1990s or earlier seemed to me, after owning two cars from 2008 or later, even though the earlier trunks were probably wider and longer front to back.
Feels almost the opposite way to me. My wife’s Kia (2012) and my “new” Fusion (2013) both have relatively long, shallow trunks. As you mentioned, lots of space, though a relatively small opening to get it through. Several of the older cars I’ve owned had much deeper trunks, mainly due to the spare being located elsewhere than directly under the mat. The Crown Vics and Marauder had particularly deep trunks due to the gas tank being way up near the axle–you could stand up tallish items if the fit into the well.
I spoke of general trends, using spcific vehicles as examples.
I just finished the book TAURUS – The car that saved the Ford Motor company and as a longtime subscriber to Consumer Reports was curious of their review of the Taurus. Thank you for sharing and I look forward to future posts from your vintage Consumer Reports, they are difficult to find on line.
Tim
We had a 1989 Taurus wagon, 3.0L. It was a GL but well-equipped. No issues other than the crappy General tires (three failed), but only had it for about 70,000 miles. Four growing kids and a retriever dictated a minivan (first in a series of five).
I also once had a 1995 SHO (5 speed manual) as a company car. I kept it well beyond the fleet manager’s mileage limit. After 120,000 miles I finally turned it in. No troubles at all.
It is surprising that the cars didn’t have to have proper rear seat belts by 1988. It appears this was a requirement in Australia (inertia reel lap sash) from 1984, however they were common earlier, eg my father’s 1979 Ford had them. Also the fixed rear seatback of the Buick is a bit of an anachronism!
I think despite the transmission reliability issues I’d still have a hard time going past the Taurus. The Premier is not a bad-seeming car either on the surface, but the situation behind its development and Renault base, plus a general stench of AMC death mean it must have been obvious that it wasn’t a good buy even without hindsight.
Outboard rear three-point seatbelts weren’t required in the US until model year 1990. They weren’t required in the middle seat until model year 2008!
I remember this test well since it was part of the evaluation I was using to buy a new car at that time. I knew a number of folks who owned the Taurus and it was generally well regarded. However, I bought a 1989 Premier ES based on the ride,handling and comfort.
The front bucket seats (manual) were among the most comfortable I have ever sat in; issues were undersized brakes as well as fit/finish problems—definitely needed more time to bake in the oven. The PRV V6 was faultless other than the seal on the distributor (ran off the camshaft) which would begin to leak and fill the cap with oil. That was cured when Chrysler sold mid ’91-92 models with a coil pack ignition. I drove the car for 170K miles and scrapped it in 1999.
I have owned two of the 4 in this test…88 Century with a big V6, decent enough, super-boring car…totaled it when I rear-ended a fuselage Chrysler in 1994.
Also had a Dynasty with the 3.3L and 4 speed auto…excellent seats, very nice interior materials and fit & finish. The transmission shot craps at 120k, totaled this one at 180k miles…woman left-turned in front of me and I knocked her into next Tuesday. Heavy enough hit to break the transmission case and left me with a brake pedal that went to the floor…the car only stopped after I rolled down an embankment and hit a sign advertising a new subdivision. Only time I’ve gotten a face full or airbag, and hope it’s the last.
If I had to choose, I’d grab another Buick or Olds A-Body, preferably a wagon.
Off-topic, but the layout of CR screamed early Macintosh desktop publishing. An excellent relic of the era.
Yep, but it’s a bit chicken-and-eggy; that’s what the world looked like at that time.
And it was better then, and that way!
Now, Consumer Reports layout resembles a dog’s breakfast thrown down a flight of stairs and set on fire!
All eye candy, laid out for a new generation that doesn’t read.
Cloudyellers from every generation have scorned all subsequent generations as stupid; lazy; incompetent; feckless; shiftless; weak; useless; unskilled, etc. Has it helped, d’y’reckon?
The thing is, CR had to compete. And if the competition is creating more dynamic layouts, that appeal more to the public, CR must adjust or suffer.
What struck me about the 1988 layout, is it very structured, and formula. A textbook early Mac desktop publishing design. But they evolved quickly, as far too many publications looked exactly like this!
As former designer, it was acceptable early on (’85 to ’88). But this ’88 design is too conservative. And the info could have been better presented, and desktop design matured.
It’s 1988. “Consumer Reports” is an alternate spelling of “Conservative”.
My further comment went to the ‘Spam’ folder. Sorry!
What I find interesting, is this car comparison is placed way back on page 392. Usually, car tests are among the most popular features at CR. I know they likely had other car tests in this issue, but surprised this one is so deep to the back. Given family sedans would be a hot car topic at CR.
I’ll take ‘prognostications that didn’t age well’ for 800, Alex?
I hold a generally dim view of Consumer Reports’ veracity for what I think is a hefty collection of sturdy reasons (links above), many of which have repeatedly confirmed and reinforced themselves over the years. Five years on from last time, I don’t find much to carp about in this particular comparison test; it’s more or less been validated by history (I see in 2017 I scoffed on grounds of long-term undependability at their recommendation of the Premier, which was kind of dumb; they came right out and said there was no data on that score).
I do raise an eyebrow at their calling the Dynasty Chrysler’s first FWD car “wide enough (…) to compete in the modern family-car class”. One of the biggest, most consistent gripes about the K-hole Chrysler went down in the ’80s and ’90s was the resultant constraint on vehicle width, wasn’t it?
Consumer Guide, meanwhile, liked the Premier in many respects, but raised concerns about its association with two manufacturers (AMC and Renault) with a diminished reputation for quality and reliability (or words close to that effect, I’m not sufficiently motivated to dig out my copy right now).
The Premier deserved to fail; Eagle became a 4WD variant of the Concord, nee Hornet, from AMC, nee Rambler, nee Nash/Hudson… the Eagle was a modest success for AMCs ailing car line enough to turn it from AMC Eagle to having the whole car line being the Eagle brand, because the model managed to establish an tangible identity after years on decades of attempts and blunders, and with a drivetrain layout that was on the cutting edge in the 80s with the likes of Subaru and Audi’s Quattro, seemingly most popular in its wagon bodystyle, and the successor they (Renault) came up with as a flagship for the brand was… a FWD sedan?
Chrysler didn’t do jack trying to market this car upon their acquisition, but rightfully so, there wasn’t any point wasting any resources to sell a car they had no skin in the game with in its development to an over saturated FWD 2wd 4 door sedan market, even if it had some merits over the competition.
Sorry, the Premier deserved to fail because…why?
Because it was no different than any other failed attempt by AMC to go head to head with the big three (and nearly everyone else by this point) in the most mainstream of segments. The rub is its brand name was obviously derived from AMCs demised Eagle model for familiarity, yet this shared no styling, packaging or engineering lineage with it. Perhaps if it had a modern AWD system it could have credibly stood out from the competition as a dollar store Audi, and even have a lineage with previous cars bearing the Eagle name, but it was just another 2wd fwd sedan in highly competitive segment.
For Chrysler Jeep was the golden goose in the AMC acquisition, the LH connection to the Premier’s underpinnings was making lemonade from a lemon.
Wasn’t the Premier basically just an Americanized Renault 21? My recollection is that the general reaction to it at the time was positive — a big FWD sedan, yes, but finally a mostly competent one, hampered by a few too many eccentricities and, as Richard notes, the more serious existential problem of being the product of a failed corporate marriage, regarded as an unneeded and mostly unwanted hand-me-down by the new spouse.
Oh. So the car deserved to fail because you disagree with the decision to market it. Got it.
Wait a minute…no, sorry; I thought I had it there for a minute, but I don’t. Is this like that pah-that-electric-4-door-thing-doesn’t-deserve-to-be-a-Mustang thing?
The plan was for the Renault-based car line to be Renault or Renault/AMC, iirc. On the assassination of Renault chairman George Besse, who’d been a champion of the AMC linkup, AMC was hastily sold to Chrysler, with one of the stipulations being Chrysler had to sell the Premier and the Medallion for a time. Chrysler came up with the ‘Eagle’ brand name since they didn’t want to be selling Renaults. These are my recollections of what I read at the time; could be wrong.
I imagine it helped that Eagle was already an established trademark whose ownership Chrysler presumably acquired as part of the assets of AMC.
Chrysler used their ownership of the plant & equipment to come up with the LHS cars. The LHS architecture and size was very similar to the Premier, and was a marked departure from the K variants that had been their only platform until that time.
The first two years of the Eagle Premier were each more successful (with one body style) than the best years of the AMC Eagle 4WD line variant that never exceeded 38,000 sales while being spread over FIVE body styles at the time.
The non-4WD AMC versions took up much of the slack, as 38k total units does not a profitable venture make. So despite Chrysler’s non-efforts, the Premier actually did quite respectably at least at the beginning amongst the Eagle brand’s island of misfit toys persona.
The Premier couldn’t have been all that bad as an idea, seeing as how large chunks of it lived on in the at the time hailed and popular LH cars. In the mid ’80s Subaru was very much a niche car, the Quattro cars even more so, and the money certainly WAS in FWD mid-size sedans, AWD was an oddity in the segment. Faced with one of the four choices reviewed, the Premier still strikes as by far the most interesting vehicle on offer. The review is for the most part quite complimentary on its behalf. The Taurus is interesting mainly due to its breaking the styling mold amongst its peers, the Century was, well, a lower level Buick marketed to upcoming centenarians, and the less said about the Dynasty the better. Chrysler may have had more of a winner than they realized on their hands.
No parts are shared with Renault Premier and Mopar LH cars, just the N-S layout of the FWD engine. Took the idea and created the LH.
Like saying the “Dodge Omni was on the VW Golf platform”, since they are both transverse FWD cars. 😉
A poor choice of words on my part but it goes beyond the only thing the same being the engine orientation. I believe the platforms are related to some extent without taking the time to dig into it in detail. There were multiple other cars with a longitudinal engine and FWD configuration, Audi and Subaru the obvious volume examples and of course some 70’s Cadillac/Olds designs, so no new ground there really.
Your Omni and VW Golf analogy is interesting insofar as the Omni actually did use VW engines initially while being unrelated vehicles.
Unlike the Omni-Horizon, the LH platform was very much bas on the American Motors-developed and Renault-derived Eagle Premier.
From Wikipedia: “According to Bob Lutz, “[t]he Premier had an excellent chassis and drove so damned well that it served as a benchmark for the LH … the spiritual father, the genetic antecedent of the LH is the Premier.”[2] Like the Premier, the LH-cars featured a longitudinally-mounted engine with a front-wheel drive drivetrain, unusual in most U.S. front-wheel drive cars, but a hallmark of Renault’s designs.”
Francois Castaing, who had previously headed up development at AMC (and the Premier) headed up the development of the LH. I’m not going to speculate if any actual parts were shared or not, but there’s no question that there’s some Premier DNA in the LH.
As I’ve often said, it’s much easier, quicker and cheaper to “remodel” than to start with a clean sheet of paper.
The Pacer sold well in its first two years too. That the Premier did better than a mutilated Hornet isn’t saying much, but the 4WD Eagle did at least establish itself as a niche, which is right where AMC had typically found refuge, rather than chasing the mainstream honeypot where they inevitably couldn’t sustain competing in even with some initial success. Oddity or not, it worked for Subaru. That could have been exploited successfully with a better executed followup to match the name.
Misfit toys and the eagle brand is a more accurate description of Eagle under Chryslers direction, although at least the badge engineered Talon had AWD available
If Chrysler hadn’t bought AMC to soften the failure and use its bare bones as a basis for their own later products, where the Premier was instead the only hope for AMCs car line to compete in the most competitive market segment it would be called a deadly sin like the Pacer, only it never sold as much as the Pacer!
I wasn’t claiming that the Premier was a sales success, merely that comparatively the Eagle 4WD offerings were even less popular in terms of sales numbers, today’s rose-tinted fondness for them notwithstanding but I believe you knew that.
Niches don’t usually translate into profits if that’s all one’s got as a large manufacturer and in the event that’s the case there’s perhaps room for one but not two. There’s no denying that the “mutilated Hornet” was well past its sell-by date well before it was put out to pasture, AMC’s car based offerings were dead/dying, the Premier was a last gasp that they developed mostly off of existing Renault designs (25/21) and Chrysler was still looked at with a side-eye from many buyers during this timeframe (perhaps still are to some extent). As others have stated, Eagle was a brand that came with the purchase and probably the best fit for the model, where else would they fit it in? You’ll remember that the Premier was succeeded by the Eagle Vision which was perhaps the best, or at least most “euro-sporting” of the LH cars with the possible exception of the 300M. And the only reason the Talon even existed was in order to flesh out the showroom, the same basic car was already being sold by the other brands as well. A perfect name though, I’ll grant it that.
Different times and I realize you feel strongly about not diluting “brand and name heritage”, but there wasn’t really much strength in the Eagle name, either as a model or a brand, certainly not like Mustang or to a far less extent Eclipse or whatever. An eagle is evocative as a national symbol, sure, making it all the more remarkable that it wasn’t picked up decades earlier by someone.
The Premier just couldn’t catch a break. The company that developed it just wanted to pack up and leave this market, while the company that inherited it via the purchase of AMC didn’t seem to know what to do with it.
Interestingly, Chrysler did offer a badge-engineered version under the Dodge Monaco name from 1990 through 1992. But, again showing its ambivalence, Chrysler never really promoted it. Too bad, as I thought the car deserved better (and probably would have sold better as a Dodge if the corporation had really pushed it).
Yeah I know, I found a Monaco a few years back…those were dark years for Chrysler unless you were looking for a minivan. Some seriously dated stuff until the Intrepid came out – the Monaco that nobody knew about sitting in there with K-cars and leftover unsold Diplomats.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/junkyard/curbside-recycling-1991-dodge-monaco-le-21549-americans-gambled-on-this-one/
Reading this article in hindsight, you see how the Camry and Accord exploded their sales over the next 2 generations. My sister bought a new 1989 Taurus, my mom a lightly used 1991 Sable. Both had horrid reliability, especially with brakes and electrical. That was my mom’s last car, and my sister’s family have been Toyota disciples ever since.
I was about to write the same thing! Once Accords and Camrys grew into fully mid-sized cars with US production bases, it was always going to be tough-sledding for cars sold with a dozen defects and the expectation of reliability issues before all of the payments were made.
I thought it was interesting that the Eagle was marked down for rough downshifts while the Taurus was praised for a smooth transmission. My family rented both a Tempo and a Taurus during the same era that slammed their downshifts in a way that was completely foreign to my Torqueflite family, and a Merkur XR4Ti did the same thing during a test drive. I don’t recall the Renault 25-based Dodge Monaco that I drove for a few weeks sharing the issue.
We bought a 1988 Taurus L around 1995 as a daily driver for my wife, who was driving her 1990 Alfa Spider as a DD (we still have it).
The Taurus drove very nicely, but at 80,000 miles, it leaked coolant, brake fluid, and oil. Add to that the infamous 3.0 A/C system failure (Ford used crap hose clamps and the only way to fix it was to replace all of them) and a mysterious engine control issue that caused the car to accelerate to 45 MPH from a dead stop all on its own.
We finally got it buttoned up and sold it; I was never so glad to see a car leave my driveway.
To this day, my wife will not even consider a Ford product. Since that Taurus left, she’s had a series of Hondas (’97 CR-V, ’07 Pilot, ’17 Pilot) that have been bulletproof. She won’t drive anything else.
Almost forgot…it also had a transmission fluid leak.
I made a boatload of warranty flat rate money R&Ring all the refrigerant lines on the first and second generation Taurus/Sable. It was the only way to “fix” them. If you just replaced the one that was leaking when the car first came in, it would boomerang right back to your bay in less than a month. I did so many I knew exactly what tools to take out, and could have all the lines swapped in less than half an hour. The cars were so popular at the time that I could spend an entire day just repairing A/C. When the ’96 came out they got away from the spring lock couplings and that gravy train ended when the last of the 95s went out of warranty. Of course there were plenty of 3.8 head gaskets left to fill the void.
Anyone who thinks the defects found on these four test cars were bad needs to dig out an issue of the magazine from the 1970s. These cars look a like Lexus compared to some of the vehicles tested by the magazine during that decade (and it was not just the domestic cars that were riddled with defects in those years).
The GM small cars, and early and late 1970s Mopars, were the worst.