After 20 yrs. must say,BYE, BYE to Chrysler

I would say that your experence is atypical.

Enjoy your honota.

I have one also. 90,000 miles. Original rack, original struts, original alternator. Original transaxle. Sold my '96 with 172,000 miles. Same story. The '89, sad to say, did have transaxle problems until I rebuilt it myself. I put a little over 200,000 on it. Your problems are very most likely either imagined or self-caused.

=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0You

=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 Earl

I would like to ask why you failed to learn how to read and write English.

You are exactly what they are looking for. Excellent matchup.

Well I have a 2000 Grand Caravan with over 160000k and it has cost me 1 water pump and 1 swaybar to Strut link in over 6 years so in my opinion, no I would not spend 4-5000 more to save the $130 those parts cost me. Of course this van has seen regular maintenace costs like oil changes, brakes, tires, transmission fluid changes, acc belt and a new battery. I am sure after buying your Honda or Toyota, you will be found complaining about any issues you have with them also.

"Mike Bowden"

160 million miles in 7 years? Very impressive.

I had a 1988 I got about 310k miles out of, with low maintenance costs - relatively. 1 new tranny at 132k and 2 valve jobs at 80, 125k, the second only because my machine shop botched the first by knurling the guides rather than using the c-clips. These guides were a known thing on the 3.0. Drove the thing pretty hard. Other than stuff like ball joints and rotating tires, I did ALL my own work on this van.

A few years ago I bought a 1994 with about 132k, now dead at 192k after 4 transmissions, a PS rack, pump, tons of under hood electrical problems, and every last fluid in the thing leaking out of multiple locations - all in the

60k I owned it. Most work on this vehicle was done by others - fools, morons, thieves, and imbeciles.

Just replaced the above with a lease return 2003. 47k miles. Appears it's been pretty well driven and maintained. No issues yet. No plans to let others work on the thing.

So it depends. After the above and my own experiences over the past 11 years as a ME working on and designing machines at least as complex as autos, I have to say there's a lot going on. Small mistakes during routine maintenance (or during rebuilding a tranny) can have the "butterfly effect" on the rest of the car 40k miles down the road.

Bottom line for me now is that I think it's very cost effective to get top of the line dealer parts and put the things in myself, stay on top of maintenance, etc.

If someone says they've gone through 4 PS racks on any car, I say that's definitely not a design problem. More likely it's buying the cheap reman shit from Auto Zone and having joe moron install it. Nothing the factory can do to help that.

- Nate

Well, Earl, sounds like you buy lousy auto parts. But I guess that's okay.

Your question about this 4 to 5k dollars is interesting. My answer is, why not buy an entire car for that price, knowing you won't have recurring problems? I only pay $5k for a Chrysler, because they depreciate like crazy (that's good). Like, for instance, you could buy a 99 Concord right now with

60k miles on it for $5k. That's about what they cost. Call me crazy, but I can drive a car like that for about 5 or 10 years and not do much repair at all. In fact I'm looking for one right now. I've got a 94 LHS with 156k on it that needs to go to the junkyard.

Hi Joe...

Can't tell from your headers where in the world you are, but if you're anywhere near me I'd like to buy a couple of parts from you before you ship it off... (I have a just like new 94 lhs)

I'm in Winnipeg, Canada.

Thanks, and take care.

Ken

wow, I bet Dr. Z is sad to lose you, I think I saw his stock go down a point yesterday because of this newsgroup post. Hey but my 87 5th ave is still running strong, only 74k on it though.

messagenews: snipped-for-privacy@v45g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...

sorry to say that all these peplacement parts were installed by the dealer.

If you went thru 3 sets of struts and 2 alternators you will have the same problem with your toyota because where ever you are taking you car to get serviced they are taking you to the cleaners or just selling you cheap aftermarket parts. Chrysler does not have a problem with alternators or struts or shocks. yes, there are issues with leaking power sterring racks on the newer models so hold on to your reciepts with your rice bucket as well.

Glenn Beasley Chrysler Tech

Hey dirty, the lifetime parts you purchase are the ones that continue to fail. They are made cheap, and when they call them reman... all they do is clean, paint and resell. They can afford to give you parts for life because they are so cheap. The customer looses out when he has to pay the labor or even do the labor himself over and over. Something to think about

Glenn

why not spend $1200 more for a long service agreement

I just looked at the Honda CR-V. A very interesting vehicle, a mid sized station Wagon. Very well equipped.

Except bread and butter items on a Honda and Toyota are likely to last 100k miles. Except for those GM alternators Toyota tried.

A few years ago I had my ignition switch fail, fortunately not a complete failure as I was able to get going by lifting up on the steering wheel. Of course mileage is not involved here, simply 10 years of turning it on, starting and turning it off. The dealer gave me back the old part and looking at the part numberS on it was very interesting. I had heard that several other car makers used the same part, my original switch had 3 part numbers on it.

Chryslers part number was obvious, one I couldn't connect with a manufacturer and one was obviously the part number for a well known (European) car manufacturer. It wouldn't surprise me if the third part number was Toyota or Honda.