Dodge Dodges

Boo, sir. Boo.

History lesson time. Lee Iacocca made his fame pitching Buy American in the 1980s for Dodge. Our family did it before it was cool. My Dad traded in his Oldsmobile Cutlass 442 in 1982 or so for a Dodge Colt. A few years later, we added a Dodge Caravan to the family and a Dodge cargo minivan came later.

Yes, this is Car Week here at GMFM.

Of course, when my great grandmother died, it was me who inherited her 1991 Dodge Sundance (with a moonroof!). That went well enough until my car was destroyed in a car accident in 1995. It wasn't my fault. There was a thick fog and I was rear-ended by a car doing about 40 MPH.

I don't love Milwaukee.

Dad and I spent two glorious weeks looking for a replacement. We quite literally visited every car dealer in the Twin Cities. Then, we went on vacation to glamorous Milwaukee FOR SPRING BREAK — your options are kind of limited for drivable vacations from Minnesota.

We stopped in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and Dad fell in love with a 1994 Plymouth Duster. It was red and had stickers on it. It was the ’90s. Lack of judgment was rampant. Remember the Fly Girls on In Living Color? Rest. Case.

Dad did his usual runaround with the car salesmen before we had ourselves a replacement vehicle. It was red. I made Dad put in an Alpine stereo, to make up for the blue car he didn't get in Roseville a week earlier, and it was a cool enough little car for an 18-year-old in the 1990s. I can't stress that enough. It was the ’90s.

Dodges had a reputation issue in the 1990s, so they came up with a brilliant ploy. They offered a 100,000-mile power train warranty to give consumers a reason to buy their vehicles. They would need those warranties.

I know. Awesome. I often drove my Duster to a gravel pit.

With under 20,000 miles on it, my Duster blew a head gasket. That's an expensive repair, but that's OK. It's under warranty. It was fixed and I was on my way ... to 46,000 miles, when it blew a second head gasket. But that was OK, it was under warranty.

In 2001, just after the Sept. 11 attacks, I was on a roadtrip. Unusual, right? I was driving from New Hampshire to Baltimore (and Washington, to visit Ross K.) to see a U2 show. The Duster had 115,000 miles on it when it blew a piston — it wasn't a head gasket, at least — somewhere along I-91. I nursed it down the road to North Springfield, Mass. I dropped it off with an auto repair shop. I rented a car, saw the show, came back and picked up my "fixed" Dodge. It cost $1,500, but they said it was good to go.

Two hundred miles later, as it was being towed to my apartment in Newport, New Hampshire, I gave up on my Duster. A car with 115,000 miles on it.

A week later, I bought a Toyota Corolla for $15,000. It gets 35 MPG (or slightly better). It now has 175,000 miles on it. It's never blown a head gasket. Nor had anything else really major go wrong. I've put *maybe* $2,000 in repairs into the Corrolla. The Duster with the nice Alpine stereo probably went over $2,000 with the first head gasket. I just didn't have to pay for it.

The Corolla isn't cool. The steering wheel is wearing away. It squeaks when it stops. But it rolls. And it stops. Which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for the old Duster.