Dodge Intrepid 2.7 liter

That is the first danger! sign for the dealership. The 2.7L engine does NOT have a timing belt. It has a timing chain which does not replacement as a timing belt would.

Yes - unfortunatley that seems to be a typical story. Some late model Toyotas (and I understand Hondas, too) have the same problem (severe engine sludging).

Of course you did say you bought the car used, but I would be interested to know how often you changed the oil since you bought it.

I too own a 2.7L, but read on this newsgroup and others about the problems, and so, knowledge being power, have taken preventive measures with my engine. So far, I am less than 2k miles shy of 100k with no apparent problems.

BTW - you can find a salvage engine for under $1k (which of course is also a risk).

You might consider upgrading to a 3.2 or 3.5, but some computer and wiring changouts would be required. The best answer may be to sell it for what you can get and cut your losses.

Not much comfort for you, I'm sure, but good luck.

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

Not sure, BUT!!!!!!!!!

I believe the dealership (or any service center for that matter) is required to get your agreement to do any job that goes over the original estimate by a certain amount.

I cannot see how they felt it was ok to change what they said they would do without your WRITTEN APPROVAL.

For the money involved an and no transportation, PERHAPS ( and I detest the need) consulting an attorney may be the cheapest way out of this.

Did you save/get paper work stating a timing belt? If there is no belt, perhaps this may be a good starting point to show inept procedures?

I wish you the best of luck with this!

This is a beautiful post, Donya.

If you read the posts on this newsgroup you will see countless people like yourself who are in the same boat. Its all caused by very bad design practices endemic in the automotive industry since its inception. If airplanes were made like cars, a thousand a day would drop out of the sky and crash. I expect any car you buy, new or used, will eventually fall out of the sky so to speak and bomb. So don't feel bad any more, its just natural for cars to let their owners down now and then.

Even girls should take a course in automechanics. One course under your girdle and you would know if your "ticking" was really a "ping" requiring only a simple ignition timing adjustment, a bearing "knock" requiring major engine repairs, or simply accessory noise which could be ignored. My car has a persistant little metal-to-metal light knocking noise I traced to the distributor/oil pump drive gears and have ignored it for 100,000 miles with no consequences whatsoever. On every oil change a few metal particles shine brightly in the oil drain receptacle but there are plenty more where those came from.

On ONE occasion, I had no choice but to have my car serviced by another professional mechanic. It can happen to anybody, including me, because cars are designed to suddenly breakdown on the road, far from my repair shop. But at least I was capable of telling the mechanic EXACTLY what the malfunction was and the exact part to be replaced to restore my car to roadworthiness. In my case, it was the low-tension cyclic interrupter, located in the shielded power module. I did not get any unpleasant surprises although I had to pay a $78 labor charge plus the parts. With a little study, you could have the same level of competence as I, I'm sure.

Car companies sell stuff all the time they know is junk. Chevrolet sold that old "wormgear and sector" steering gear of theirs for 30 years, knowing full well there was four inches of slop in the steering wheel when the car was new and it couldn't be adjusted out. Chevy also sold the early PowerGlide automatics which blew their "O" rings out of the converters and let loose all the transmission oil on the roadway. The mode of failure, incidently was exactly the same as the O rings in the Space Shuttle boosters (Challenger). No flanges used, but a simple slip fit of pump to turbine!! So, if your engine was a dog, they knew about it already and just sold it anyways with the prayer it would last the warranty period. Beyond that, if it pooped out, they don't care. When do you think will Chrysler engineer cars with love in their hearts? Don't hold your breath.

But, don't blame Chrysler solely for your troubles. Chrysler was a Johnny come lately on the automotive scene. Old Man Chrysler didn't even build his first car until 1925. He just copied bad engineering from the other two of the "Big 3". If you study the history of all these companies, you will find most of the "engineers" were fake, either self taught or dropouts. The good engineers all went to the aircraft companies and thank goodness for that because if car companies built your airliners, you would only have a 50-50 chance of getting to your destination alive.