Chrysler Reliability?..

My wife and I bought our second PT Cruiser, very highly rated by Consumer Guide/Reports, this one is the convertible. We traded in our 2003 sedan for the 2005. I personally have had: 1964 and 1970 Dodge Darts, bulletproof cars. My Mother had a 1967 Plymouth Fury, great car, 318 V-8, I had a 1973 Fury wagon, great car, 1948 Plymouth, one of the best cars I ever owned, and I currently have a 1949 Chrysler Windsor sedan, all original and runs great! My wife's son has a 2001 Neon with no problems. It just comes down to what you like, how you take care of the car, etc. Any car, even the vaunted Honda and Nissans can be PITA.

Hmm - had a 1975 Dodge B-200 (extended) van that went over 150,000 miles before I replaced the tranny, and 172,000 before replacing the engine. Had a 1990 Dodge Grand Caravan, replaced the water pump (under warrantee) at

2000 miles (there had been a bad run of the bolts Chrysler used to attach the pumps), and the van continued for 179,000 miles before a got rid of it (hit some black ice and bent the frame slamming into a curb sideways at 25 mph).

While there will be an occasional lemon (like any brand), I've found Chrysler to be pretty reliable on the whole.

The 95's had a lot of those problems, probably because it was their first year. Later years did do better, we had a 97 that was fairly trouble free--except the head gasket--which Chrysler fixed. We also had a 97 Stratus, also had the headgasket problem, also was fixed by Chrysler and also was a very dependable car. As far as I've heard, the auto transmissions on the Neons very rarely had problems. We now own 2 PT Cruiser and have very few problems with them.

What you should also be asking, in the GM and other newsgroups, is how are these manufactures doing? Have GM and others had the headgasket, electrical, computer and tranny problems? I remember in the late 80's I had a Plymouth Reliant K car, almost problem free, while a friends Toyota Pickup had blown headgasket etc. BTW, the K car was put to rest after 13 years by a t-bone accident.

SRG

My '85 K car went 213,000 miles before giving up the ghost!

I think it varies just as with any manufacturer. I had pretty good luck with my 89 Acclaim. The biggest problem it had in 143K miles was a cracked torque convertor flex plate (not sure that is the exact part name, but it is close).

My 96 Grand Voyager has been fairly troublesome, but so far all have been pretty much nuisance things, nothing major in the drive train. Although I am now having a serious problem with it stalling at idle when it is put into gear. The dealer thought it was a dirty TBI, but cleaning it didn't help. They then thought last week that it was the coil pack as it missfired when they sprayed a mist of water on it. But replacing that didn't help as I found out yesterday. This is the first problem I've had that has affected its driveability seriously.

I had an 84 Honda Accord that was the most troublesome car I've ever owned. My current pickup, a 94 K1500, got off to a bad start with a valve train failure at 5,200 miles (the ball came off the end of a pushrod and it welded itself to the rocker arm), but has been pretty reliable since then. Just the normal 4WD stuff like replacing a u-joint, but nothing major in the drive train or otherwise. This truck hauls wood and plows snow all winter so it has held up well for 85,000 miles of pretty heavy use.

Personally, I've not found Chryslers to be significantly worse than the GM cars I've owned. I've not owned many Fords so I can't compare them. My Jeep Comanche was one of the most reliable vehicles I ever owned, probably in the same league as the Acclaim. However, I bought it when Jeep was still owned by AMC.

Matt

Been buying Chrysler products since 1987.

Had the head gasket problem also at about 60K on a 1997 Neon Sport (DHOC engine)....which is a known common problem...replaced under 70K extended warranty.

Had AC problems on a 1987 Grand Caravan V6 (1st year for the Grand and the V6)...repaired twice under extended warranty...then gave up again after it was out of warranty at 82K (didn't fix it after that). Started burning a little oil by the time we sold it...but the people we sold it to drove it for several more years and said it was one of their more reliable vehicles they'd ever owned.

Other problems...not many?

1989 Dakota 4x4...Timing chain went at 130K (which is unusual) Went through pittman arms for some reason too. No other problems. 1997 Grand Caravan 3.3...Sticking lifters at 30K...replaced under warranty (I attributed this one to my 4 mile winter commutes and not changing the oil often enough to prevent sludge) 2003 Stratus...Cabin blower fan at 2K...replaced under warranty loose/leaking tranny coolant couplings...dealer tightened. 2004 Sebring...None so far

Other Family Members

Mother in Law...1989 Dodge Aries...still driving it don't know the service details, but she isn't complaining that the car is a problem Son 1996 Dakota V8. Water pump at 85K. Bought it used so don't know what happened to it before 50K Daughter 2000 Neon. Clutch cable problem...nothing else. She has about 80K on it at the moment

Neighbors

1996 Caravan - 190K miles..abuses it as his weekend hauler for home improvement projects. Often comes down the street sitting awfully low from weight. He recently bought a SAAB 9.5 wagon and was going to trade the Caravan... but changed his mind and decided it was too good of a vehicle to get rid of just yet.

So, all-in-all, reliability seems to be quite good if you ask me! I've not seen any of the electrical or transmission problems you have. I think 1995 was the 1st year for the neon...I wouldn't buy a 1st or 2nd year model run from ANY manufacturer...they statistically have the greatest number of problems. I'd stay away from the new 300 for a couple of years...let them work the kinks out The Pacifica? I'd wait one more year before buying that one too.

The paradox is that about the time they have the kinks worked out is about the time they start de-contenting! 8^)

Bill Putney (to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with "x")

We had a '98 Neon and it was a good little car. Never had any trouble with it. We now have two Chrysler minivans ('00 and '02) and both have been relatively trouble free. We did have an issue of a leaking intake manifold gasket and a faulty EGR valve, but both were fixed under warranty years ago.

Go back to them and have them put a co-pilot in the van so you can push a button to record the information whenever this happens. Our '96 T&C LXi was doing this repeatedly, (after supposedly being fixed twice by the local dealer who no longer gets our service) so we went to a different. They put the co-pilot in for us to use for a week as no fault codes were stored (local dealer wouldn't let us do so). When we took it back results indicated the MAP sensor and EGR valve were erratic. Tests determined those items would have to be replaced before further diagnostics could be performed. They replaced them, service manager drove it home overnight, and all worked well. They told me at that point the system was working as designed. That was 5/17/02 with 131,121 miles. It is now 8/29/04, the van has 180,496 miles on it and hasn't acted up since.

RP

I was looking at the Pacifica and saw some of the last 300M's on the lot. The assembly quality was pretty bad. Especially trim around the front and back windshields. I don't think they has lost any features though in the last year and gained hinged side mirrors in 2000 compared to my 99.

Hudson did exactly what you describe in their "Super Six" engines of

1929 to 1954. They had a water manifold bolted to the side of the block below the intake maniford. Inside the manifold was a diverter plate with appropriate holes, squirting water at the various cylinders. However, they didn't use stainless steel for the diverter plate. Eventually, they'd rust out and the engine would overheat, simply requiring a new diverter plate.

BTW, their cylinder bocks weren't simply made of cast iron. The blocks were cast of "chromalloy". A chrome/cast iron alloy.

Also, their piston rings were pinned so they wouldn't rotate. The theory was that they'd seat better and without the possibility of the end gaps lining up.

Believe it or not, these engines were sort of "splash lubricated" with a low pressure oil pump charging an oil gallery that ran longitunally along the bock. The oil dropped thru tubes into smalll pans mounted just above the bottom of the main oil pan. In each oil drip pan was a small device that looked like a "jack-in-the-pulpit" that deflected oil up to the the crankshaft, the rod and the wristpin.

Thus their headgaskets did have a minimal number of holes in it.

I had a 1937 Hudson Terraplane - only sold it about 5 years ago. At 87,000 miles I dropped the oil pan, and plastigauged the main bearings (there were only three main bearings for the 6 cylinder engine but they were MASSIVE bearings). The center (thrust) main was worn to about 5 thousands clearance so I simply pulled out shims to adjust it to a clearance of 1 thousandth. Considering the type of lubrication and the lack of any oil filter, I considered the wear rate to be pretty low. It looked like I could pull shims out of that bearing's shim pack at least two or three more times.

I once pulled a Jeep Wrangler out of a snow drift with that '37 Hudson

- it weighed over two tons. It also out accelerated my friend's 1985 Mazda GLC and the other econobuckets of the day. The Hudson engine had a three inch bore and a FIVE inch stroke, giving it high torque at relatively low speeds. I could leave it in third gear down to 15 miles an hour and then smoothly accelerate to top speed (around 95MPH). It was also kind of neat to drive around in a car that had a Zeppelin as a hood ornament. Hudson sold a lot of them for use as police cars in the 1930's.

There is some tie in to Chrysler here. Hudson and Nash merged in 1954 to create American Motors, bought by Chrysler around 1988.

Ah, those good old days.... :-)

Doug

From 1989 to 1996 I drove a '88 Dodge Daytona Shelby Z. Fast car, passed everything but a repair shop. Broke down a lot. Was leary of another Mopar product but in 2001 I bought a '98 Cirrus. It has been the best car I've ever owned and extremely reliable.

Gene DiGennaro Baltimore, Md.

I'll ask about this. They have said both times I've had it back recently that a code was set indicating "multiple cyliner missfires." It must be a code that doesn't set the MIL, and doesn't get reported with the key sequence trigger. I did the on-off-on-off-on sequence when I got home this evening and got the normal 12 55 code sequence flashed on the light.

Matt

Own a 99 300M. 42k miles. Purchased 11/98. Bought an extended warranty on it but so far haven't used it once. Power windows were a problem first year though and covered under regular warranty. Goodyear tires had to be replaced by Goodyear. When new ones started vibrating I switched to Michelin. So did Chyrsler in later years.

Matt, The EGR valve is very likely causing your intermittent stalling. If the valve sticks open then the engine will stall when coming to a stop.

Bill

Why would shifting into neutral and coasting to a stop prevent the stalling if the EGR is the culprit? Seems like an open EGR would kill the engine whether it was in gear or not.

Matt

Check for torque converter not going out of lockup.......

Bad EGR will kill engine in any gear at idle.