Vega or Pinto which sucked the worse?

[artificialist]

My dad had a Pinto during the 1970s, and he said it wasn't that bad.
He had plenty of friends that owned Vegas, and each one needed an engine rebuild at 50,000 miles because the Nikasil cylinder bores didn't work as they should have. His friends usually carried several cans of cheap oil in the back of their cars and constantly added some to those cars.

However... My dad did say that his 1979 Toyota Corolla was much better than any of the American car builder's compacts of the time.

He met my mom and was convinced to trade it in on a 1985 Nissan Maxima because she wanted a larger car with automatic transmission. What a mistake that Maxima was.....

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: rszappa1
Tell that to the people that lost there lives in a rear end collision and fire....


Quote:
Ultimately, 27 people were determined to have been killed in rear-end-crash explosions involving Pintos. In one of the few cases brought to trial, a California jury awarded a boy who had been severely burned and disfigured a total of $126 million. The driver of the car had died from her injuries a few days after the accident.


Or you could just be driving a Neon:

Quote:
Driver deaths fatality risks statistics -published by the IIHS- rated the Neon among the "Highest rates of driver deaths", with 161 driver deaths per million registered vehicle deaths. Average for the Neon class (4-door small) was 103 driver deaths per million registered vehicle deaths

 

[Michael Jones]

Apples and Oranges.
Vegas had much better styling, but no rust prevention and a terrible engine design. Probably safer though.
Pintos (and Bobcats)on the other hand proved far more durble. As I recall, their big contribution was their cutting edge technology as one of the first major production vehicles with standard rack and pinion steering, front disc brakes, and McPherson struts.
As for the fire issue of course it was a concern but it really seemed overplayed by the media.

 

[rszappa1]

Tell that to the families that lost someone because of the fires....