Re: Pacifica Least of Chrysler's Worries

Student Mechanic, your beefs have been answered time and again. Your not kidding anybody by using a different handle. But just for the newbies to the group, here we go again:

Newsgroup posts can be forged, you cannot have an "official" response on Usenet. See the manufacturer's website for any official response to anything or write a letter to Chrysler.

Like what? Fiberglass? We already tried that on cars and it's a bust - the goofball in the grocery store can bang a cart into your fender and crack it. And there's little industry knowledge about the best way to make plastic panels, all of them seem to be different, plus you can have paint adhesion problems and discoloring, etc. Plus repairing any kind of serious dent means total panel replacement, you can't just bang them out and fill with Bondo and paint.

Ford tried plastic intake manifolds on the Crown Vics and they cracked. There's also been 100% aluminum engines built but reliability is a problem.

There's always a tradeoff between cost and "other gain" with that other gain being weight or whatever. Well we have had a glut of steel on the market for years, it's cheap. Plus manufacturing it doesen't create toxic chemicals and use up precious hydrocarbons. And on top of that there's never a disposal problem with steel, it's easy to recycle and doesen't end up in a landfill, nor is burned and create toxic gasses. There's 100 years of paint technology to cover it, a tried and proven method called "galvanizing" to make it rust proof, and it's easy to repair either by welding or hammering back into shape. And customers just plain enjoy the solidity of a car manufactured out of metal.

The auto buying public doesen't accept a car if it's too light. They don't like the feel of driving it, and they are afraid they will get smooshed in a crash. There's a whole raft of deragotory terms, "econobox", "rice burner" etc. to describe them. The automakers aren't going to make something that people won't buy. Even the New Beetle was made deliberately heavier than the original Bug.

99.9% of the buying public isn't competent to do more than change the oil in their cars, and with Jiffy Lube coupons in the Sunday paper for $10 oil changes, few of them even do that much. And today the new car warranties seem to be getting longer, apparently the people who actually work on cars for a living know how to fix them cheap enough for the factory to pay them to do it.

By the time most OEM fuel pumps go, the vehicle is getting to end of life, unless the owners regularly ran the gas tank to empty before adding in fuel, thus exposing the pump and letting it run hot.

Troubleshooting hasn't changed, you take the complex problem and break it down to simpler problems. The newer vehicles are more complex and have more components but their systems still break down to simple ones.

This is no different than any computer UPS that I've ever replaced batteries in.

Yes, if you are the type that never replaces your battery and never looks under the hood at the battery terminals. Batteries age. Keeping them in the car until the car won't start is the old, stupid way to run your vehicle and it's what keeps AAA in business. Lead acid batteries should always be replaced on a regular schedule based on number of years in service and their terminals should be covered with the correct anti-corrosion electrolytic grease, if this is done they do not spit acid all over the place nor do your battery cables corrode into pieces.

Only a handful of engine designs have this problem. Most of them the head gaskets last to 200 thousand miles and beyond. And unlike most car engines, airplane engines are regularly serviced. If everyone checked their auto engine headbolts for correct torque at regular intervals, as part of an overall preventative maintainence, most engine head gaskets would last forever.

Thus adding greatly to the cost of the vehicle. People aren't going to pay for this and they DO use hardened bolts in places where they are required. Suspensions collapsing isn't a common problem.

In which case the screw threads will get crammed with gunk, making a routine aligment into a major production.

Once again, adding greatly to the cost of the vehicle. And water hoses burst in plenty other places than where the clamps are. Furthermore, once again if people followed the manufaturers recommendations and dumped and replaced their antifreeze at the recommended intervals, and inspected the water hoses they wouldn't have these kinds of peoblems.

If oil is changed at the conservative 3000 mile mark, and a new copper washer is used on the oil drain plug, and the plug is properly torqued, this won't happen either. Blame the Amsoil freaks and their extended drain interval for this problem.

Nothing if the driver knows what they are doing. I have had oil pressure die on the highway, due to me plumbing in a oil pressure guage and using a brass rather than steel fitting on the oil pressure sender to tap off the pressure guage fitting. The brass tube fractured and the oil pressure dropped from 80 psi to nothing in about 10 seconds. In my case I saw the idiot light go red, identified it immediately as an oil problem, and simply took my foot off the accellerator and let the engine idle and coasted to the side of the road then shut off the engine as soon as I was stopped. There was no engine damage of course.

And as for a catastrophic loss of tranny fluid, well what is going to happen is equally anticlimatic. Simply put the torque converter will freewheel and the transmission will decouple from the engine, leaving the driver reving his engine and no power to the wheels. If the driver simply coasts to a stop at the side of the road turns off the car, there will be no damage.

Sure, if the low oil pressure red idiot light turns on and the morons keep driving, then their engine is going to grenade itself in a few miles. Is driver moronicity a reason to criticize the machine? Is the goal of automotive design to make a vehicle so moron-proof that 8 year old children can drive them?

Because to properly drain the tranny you supposed to drop the pan and replace the filter then wipe out all the dust and crud in the bottom of the pan. If they figured that intelligent people were going to be draining tranny fluid they probably would have put a courtesy drain plug in, but they know that shortcut takers like you would just drain the fluid then add new fluid and tell the customer the tranny had been "serviced" before asking the customer to bend over so you can "service the customer"

Some do have that. But your still going to end up with the pan full of sludge unless you drop it.

A large, correctly sized fuel filter should last to the 100K mile mark without needing replacement, if the vehicle is filled with gasoline from gas stations that are selling clean uncontaminated gas. And with fuel, it is safest to have a can-style filter that uses thread-on couplers for the in and out fuel lines.

You can cut a seatbelt in half with scissors but people trust their lives with them. Oh I know, we should get chains for seatbelts. And in any case, there's still plenty of engines that use metal timing chains and sprockets. Once again, this is an item that would not be a problem if correct Preventative Maintainences were done.

You seem to know a lot about ex-toilet designers, you must be one yourself.

Ted

Yep, there is NO DOUBT who wrote that drivel. The StudentMechanic is back again and again and again and STILL hasn't smartened up yet. A new name does not work with him, you can see right thru the writing.