1991Acclaim sedan

91 Acclaim

08-14-2001 addendum; OK, "Current car" is stretching things, as I traded the Acclaim in on the 300M in October of 2000. Gone.. and best forgotten. ;-) Dana now drives the '97 Neon.

This is the car I traded the '90 Horizon in on. My youngest, Dana, sort of inherited it in Nov. of '98, and promptly named it "Gladys". Suits it perfect, too. With the 2.5 L four cylinder and automatic trans, it's a somewhat stodgy, sedate car. Acceleration is leisurely, at best; this is a big car for a four-banger! OTOH, it will cruise at 85 mph all day long, and tops out at 110. It's roomy and comfortable, so it's a great highway car.

It's currently got 140k miles on it, though they've not been totally trouble free. It had a nagging cruise-control problem in the first year, which took 4 trips to the shop and a letter of complaint to the regional Chrysler Consumer Affairs dept. to get straightened out. I had to have a leaking heater-core replaced at 95k, for which my authorized Mopar dealer raped me $600. It had to have a $1200 trans at 112k. And in the last year or so it's started leaking oil at a rate of 1 qt/2000 miles. Perhaps most annoying, the car wears front tires unevenly, with the outside edges going bald while the rest of the tire still has 1/3 tread. And this despite having the alignment checked by two different Mopar dealers. They swear the alignment's perfect, and that it's not a generic problem with the Acclaim/Spirit. But the tires continue to wear uneven.
Still in all, it's been a pretty good car, I reckon. And the a/c still works fine... :-)

 

An addendum as of New Year's Day 2000; Dana got a Pioneer Super Tuner III indash CD deck (model DEH-1000) and 4 new Infinity speakers for Christmas, and she's really proud of it. It is a pretty nice little system. This car needed it badly, too, since the OEM sound system was never what you'd call "high fidelity".. No, that's an understatement. The OEM system was miserable...

 

Acclaim stereo

 

Acclaim interior


December 2000 update: Adios, Acclaim! I traded her in on this one. Talk about a step up! Roling On Floor Laughing My Ass Off!

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