Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site decwrl.DEC.COM
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-jon!moroney
From: moroney@jon.DEC (Mike Moroney)
Newsgroups: net.auto
Subject: Vegas (not that hellish)
Message-ID: <506@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Date: Thu, 16-Jan-86 22:49:42 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.506
Posted: Thu Jan 16 22:49:42 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 18-Jan-86 08:05:46 EST
Sender: daemon@decwrl.DEC.COM
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 22


  What's all this knocking of Vegas?? They weren't so bad _if you don't abuse
the cooling system_.  They have a "low coolant level" idiot light which will
come on before any trouble.  To show how awful my father thought they were, he
got one as a rent-a-car in 1973, liked it enough to buy one used, and later (in
1977) bought a new one.  It had 80K with no major problems (except a starter)
and no problems with the motor.  My father gave it to my younger sister who
promptly made the "aluminum meltdown motor" live up to its name. So how bad the
Vega is depends on the driver as much as anything else. (My sister is rough on
cars - after she turned the Vega's motor into a pile of slag, she replaced the
motor with a used Iron Duke.  She destroyed that one, too, about 6 months
later, and now is having trouble with the third motor!) 
  I have to agree with another noter that those little cars survive accidents
well, my older sister flipped hers once (thank God for seatbelts!) and it was
fixed, and my younger sister (the one who destroys motors) got in the way of
another car, and again it was quite repairable, even though the insurance
company declared it totalled) 

I know someone who had a Monza with an aluminum Vega motor with some 143K and
no problems (except it devoured motor oil!)

-Mike Moroney