Dodge Omni opinions; decent car or POS

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Sussmad

Sussmad

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There is a mint 85 available 75K miles for $750: 2.2 auto trans. Good, relatively maintenance free, commuter car? Thanks for your responses.
 
Good cars but that one is suspiciously low priced.
 
Good cars? Hardly. They are cheap junk. In my 10 years as a machinist, I never saw a 2.2 head that wasn't cracked.

The only Omni to own would be a GLH or GLHS. My brother has owned a few and I've spent a fair amount of time driving them. They are fun, fast little cars, but I would never rely on one for transportation.

Buy a Honda Civic.
 
My father owned two, a 1980 with a VW engine that was pretty good and an 1986 with a Chrysler engine that was a POS.
 
302 and Magnum heads crack all the time. Are 318s and 360s and everything they came in junk? How many Omnis and Horizons were made? You don't see them now because they rusted to death. The 2.2 platform was as good as any in its day. I've worked on them from the time they were new right along with most everything else from that time period. To say they were junk more than any of the rest is just wrong.
 
Hi,

They were decent little cars built to a price. The little 2.2's are good little engines, I put over 200K on one in an 84 Aries. They are prone to head gasket failures but mine never did. These cars do not bring a lot of money, but I would watch out for a head gasket failure as a reason someone may be dumping it. Also, climb underneath and look for floor pan rust outs.

For $750 even if it needs a head gasket you could wind up with a nice little car.
 
I had two of the Plymouth 2-door versions with 2.2 and automatic. I bought them new and at about 75,000 miles I gave the '82 to my daughter. The '87 was sold to someone else. The only problems I had were broken door handles and a carb problem on the '87. The Mikuni carbs were very expensive. My daughter drove hers until it had nearly 200,000 without major work. I put struts on it for her and she had an issue with alternator grounding. Other than that, it was the usual exhaust system, batteries, belts, etc.

The transmissions were flawless, and in mixed driving both got over 30mpg. Trips got up to 36.

A lot of folks cursed them, but I had a total of three and liked every one, though the 1.7 VW-based engine was tired by 75,000 and would have soon needed a rebuild when I traded it off.
 
The ad says 94k and light damage to right door? Only pic is from the left side.

http://boston.craigslist.org/nos/cto/4937577550.html

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The 2.2 are decent little engines, my mom bought an 83 charger 2.2 5-speed new, it dropped a valve at 190K.
I had a K car and it blew the head gasket once between two cylinders, did not even lose any coolant. Just slapped another head gasket on it and kept running it.
 
Those cars helped pull Chrysler out of demise. They must not have been too bad.
 
My Daytona 2.2 did this in my driveway a couple of weeks ago.

I love it!....great engines in my opinion.
 

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RustyRatRod said:
302 and Magnum heads crack all the time. Are 318s and 360s and everything they came in junk? How many Omnis and Horizons were made? You don't see them now because they rusted to death. The 2.2 platform was as good as any in its day. To say they were junk more than any of the rest is just wrong.
Click to expand...

X2 ! I had a few 2.2 cars, in Omni/Horizon, Turismo/Charger, and a few K cars. All were well used when I got them. The first was an 83 Reliant with 180,000+ on it when I got it. At 29x,*** it was parked due to rust. Then an 82 LeBaron that I bought for $75 with head gasket blown. Was gonna put the Reliant engine in, but decided to just wham a head gasket on and see what happened. About a hundred thousand miles later, left strut came through the hood. Bought an 83 LeBaron with a blown up 2.6 and put the engine and trans from the 29x,*** mile Reliant in it. Two years later frame rust killed that one. You get the idea. Cracked heads? Never had a problem, but maybe I'm just a lucky bastard. Other than the one I bought with barfed head gasket, I never had that problem either. Again, maybe just lucky. Timing belts, yes. Cam followers at 250,000 to 300,000, yes.

If I were in the market for cheap wheels, for $750 I'd be all over that one. If you get three months out of it, it paid for itself versus payments on anything.
 
At that price I would buy it in a heartbeat if it were near me! Good little car IMO :glasses7:
 
had an omni,
Then got a Rampage as a parts chaser

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ran fine, until one day the fuel tank developed a pin hole leak,
got to looking at it and noticed the unibody was splitting
under the rear window/bed area.

So, we put a real frame under it
added a V-8
still got the 2.2 and trans axle

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Those 2.2's are great!
I'm telling ya, if that car was in cincy, you'd be fighting me to buy it!
Those Omni's were fine if you kept them up and I'd say that's the case here.
The only real ***** I had with them was the wrist pin noise they made.
 
I've had a dozen of those and K's with 2.2's in them. Great drivers, and I ran the hell outta them. I just bought another one about 2 months ago.....


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