Clockspring problems again on 01 Caravan

Rick, you screwed this one up.

What you should have done is gone to the dealer, bought the clockspring, then pulled the old one out and returned it, complaining it was broken out of the box. Since there was only 20K on it, the clockspring that broke was obviously the exact same design, identical manufacture markings, etc. there would have been no way for them to tell it apart.

You would have got an extra clockspring but so what.

Normally I would never advise this kind of behavior since it's underhanded. But in this case, there is no moral leg a manufacturer can possibly stand on to claim that 25K miles is normal lifespan of a clockspring in normal driving.

The dealer parts people do not give a shit why a part fails. From their point of view that is a factory problem. But the factories of course try to throw procedural problems up with dealerships trying to return defective parts out of the box. Mostly to prevent people from taking a part that has failed in normal usage - say 100K miles on it - and trying to s**nk a free part out of the factory. The dealer parts people cannot return manufacturer defect parts to the factory unless all the paperwork is present. And all the factory does when they get a defect part is send it back to the subassembler that made the part to begin with and make them eat the cost. Which is for in your case is as it should be. If the factory vendor doesen't want to lose money on manufacturer defect returns then they can start analyzing the returns that come back to them to see why they are failing then change their manufacturing processes to correct the problem.

This is one of the areas where the aftermarket is way, way ahead of dealer parts departments. For example just this last weekend I had a wheel bearing fail. From the local Shucks/Checkers the bearing was $17 with a 2 year warranty. (SKF bearing) No way in hell would I buy the same bearing from a dealer parts department even though the bearing I would get from them would most likely be exactly the same manufacturer. Can you imagine trying to get a warranty return on a 2 year old bearing at a dealer parts counter? Of course, naturally, a bearing warranty is pretty safe since when wheel bearings fail they most often self destruct and weld themselves to the axle spindle and you have to cut them off, thus you won't be able to return them for credit. But, the point is that if SKF uses bad steel in a bearing that fails 20 months down the road, they are most likely going to get the failed part back through warranty. By contrast Chrysler isn't going to be seeing these parts nor their vendors.

Ted

Ted,

I do not condone what you are suggesting, but if he had done as you say, then he would never have given the dealership the opportunity to make things right. As it is, although he had to pay for the part, he now clearly knows where they stand on taking responsible and pleasing their customers post-sale. Finding this out and preventing the mistake of making another purchase from them in my opinion was worth the $40 price of the part.

Bob

I do not condone what you are suggesting, but if he had done as you say, then he would never have given the dealership the opportunity to make things right. As it is, although he had to pay for the part, he now clearly knows where they stand on taking responsible and pleasing their customers post-sale. Finding this out and preventing the mistake of making another purchase from them in my opinion was worth the $40 price of the part.

Bob

I agree, Bob. I would have gotten financial satisfaction from the suggested illicit switch, but I have had multiple experiences finding bad/old/damaged/missing items in resealed boxs bought from places like Home Depot and Lowe's. They take anything back and simply put the returned stuff back on the shelf.

Would that the dealer simply hang on to it and pass it on to the next poor sucker that needs a clockspring?

As far as the part numbers, they were slightly different by a digit, yet look identical. I suspect that Chrysler sells a lot of them. Hopefully, I got a newer, improved version! If the part were $400 instead of $40, I would naturally consider another approach to recover my money. Now, on to fixing that drivers side window that quits half way down.

---bye, Rick

I think there was a clockspring recall on the 2000 units. Sounds like the last time you took it in the dealer installed an older clockspring maybe from the same bach of bad ones. Since the part# is different I'd guess you have the redesigned unit in now. The mystery is why you got an older one in, in the first place.

Ted