My wife's Town & Country LXI was making noise and the air condition died. Just got a call from the dealer. 1. The transmission differential pin is loose because of a cracked case. 2. EGR valve is bad. 3. Needs new rear brakes, and 4. Rear coolant tubes need replacement.
Nice vehicle and it got us to 147,000 miles. My previous Chrysler mini-van went through several transmissions. I would not hurt so bad if I had not just put in $900.00 to replace all the suspension pieces and $170 into the front rotors and pads. Donations cheerfully accepted.
Yes because I purchased it there and I still get free oil changes (I give them the Mobil 1, they do the rest). But they did try to charge me $220.00 in diagnosis charges until I told them to do better. They took off one of the three fixed charges.
The only part that sounds expensive is the tranny case. Even then, maybe a used tranny could be swapped in. If the vehicle has been fairly reliable, might still be good economy to fix it and keep driving.
If it's still straight and clean, and you have been running it on Mobil-1, then assuming the trans is non-functional and the AC is busted, you probably won't get more than $1000 for it, if that, if you just put it in the paper right now.
But, if you dropping $1500-$2000 into a transmission swap for a remanufactured transmission, you probably could sell it for roughly in the $5000-$6000 range, even with the mileage it has on it.
In short, this is definitely one of those vehicles that even if you can't stand the sight of it and plan on selling it immediately, your going to make money if you invest in a new transmission. If you really don't want to do so, let us know what state your in, if your anywhere near me I would come buy it from you!
Check the NADA book. It would be a miracle if you could get $5,000 for a 96 with high mileage. I have a 96 with 141,000 that is in great running condition. I just bought an 03, but decided to keep the 96 and drive it till it dies as it is worth only about $3,000, maybe $4,000 if I can find a sucker.
The only part that sounds expensive is the tranny case. Even then, maybe a used tranny could be swapped in. If the vehicle has been fairly reliable, might still be good economy to fix it and keep driving.
My Saab turbo also lost its evaporator. The dealer wanted $1,000 and no airconditioner shop would even look at it. I was able to pull the part in about 5 min, drove to the junk yard and pulled one from a junker in 5 min and $35.00. It took me 5 min to put it in. Total time including the drive to the yard, 2 hr. Total cost, about $60.00 including the can of juice (yes I know, you can't do this yourself any longer). I suspect the part is harder to get at in the Chrysler. The dealer wants over $1,000.00.
What part of the AC died?. Some parts for that year are covered under a known problem covered in a TSB. It's not a recall, so it was a long talk with my dealer with the TSB in hand on the evap problem, but they did it for free. If your having other work done, they should do the AC for free, if it's the evaporator.
Ah, but notice I said "straight and clean" You said your van is in great running condition. Great Running is auto parlance for it runs fine, but the body is kind of beat up.
Check Kelly Blue Book. straight and clean on a 96T&C with his mileage actually shows in the $7K range. I know from experience KBB usually runs a bit on the optimistic side, NADA runs on the pessimistic side. Given that we are talking about a van that's got a tranny with only a few hundred miles on it (because you have to base the value on the van with a rebuilt tranny just installed in it) in terms of value, think optimistic.
The operative word here is how clean and straight it is. If it's got peeling paint or the paint isn't shiny, rust, noticable dents, holes in the carpet, etc. then yes,
3000-4000 is more like it. As a lot of these went into families with kids, the kids tended to trash the vehicles more so, it's harder to find really clean specimens.
Also of course, I'm talking private sale figures. Trade in is a different ballgame, wack $2K off private sale price to get trade in price, is my experience.
Oops, it didn't register that he has a T&C! I read right past that. I have a Grand Voyager so not comparable in value at all. Even more reason to consider repairing it and driving it.
I was thinking trade-in mainly, but yes if you can find a private sucker, you can get much more money! :-)
Heh, yah, everyone forgets that car dealers have a lot more overhead than a guy taking an advert out in the Sunday paper.
I will bet a lunch that if he does a title search on the VIN number of his van a year from now, he's going to find it's in service.
Sounds like he's convinced that it's junk, though. Usually I find that once people have talked themselves into this, they are going to dump the car no matter how logical the argument is to keep it. Sometimes it's fear of the unknown, sometimes it's an unconscious resentment against the machine for failing and costing money, sometimes it's just a mental crutch to use to justify to themselves why they 'need' that new car that they actually only 'want' Only rarely is it based on reasoning on the evidence. In his case I'll bet he hasn't even called around to tranny shops for competitive estimates.
Well Ted; I did call around. A junk yard part would cost over $1,000.00. A rebuild would cost over $1,700.00. Not a bad deal if: It did not also need a new evaporator, new front wheel bearings, new rear heater hoses, new rear brakes, and a new EGR valve, etc. A dealer, on a new 2004 Limited, offered me over $3,000.00 for it in its current condition. The new Limited with DVD monitor, moving pedals, full spare, 6 disk changer and sunroof will cost me just over $28,000.00. I took the deal.
The dealer is going to spend the $1700 for a rebuild tranny, (actually his cost will be more like $1100 because he provides the labor) probably $50 for heater hoses, squirt Stop Leak into the A/C, then put it on the lot for $6500 with a 30 day warranty that excludes wearables and probably get that, or close to it. By the time summer rolls around and the new owner figures out the A/C is busted it's going to be long off warranty. (and who knows, the stop leak might even hold anyway)
Richard, as I've said before in this group I am very happy that folks like you are out there, because otherwise people like me would not have the high quality in used vehicles available to us in the used market, when we go buy our cars. :-)
Seriously, I know that you feel that you got $3K from the dealer, but I assure you, coming from a family with a member that has worked as a used car manager at various dealerships for most of his career, that the pricing that was given to you was fiction. In reality the dealership could have gone down another $2K on the price of the new 2004 Limited, if you had bargained hard enough, and he didn't have to deal with a trade in. Most likely what happened is you either told him you had a trade in up front and he held a bit of reserve on the price so as to give you an inflated trade in value and make you feel good, or if you had really pushed down that extra $2K and sprang the trade in on him at the last minute, he would have only given you $1K for it. If your dealer is pretty high-end, and decides to not even screw around with your van, they are going to wholesale it off and they will get $1K for it.
But of course, since you wouldn't have been able to get more than $1K off the street for it yourself, it's probably easier for you (as it is for most people) to simply give the dealer the used vehicle and try to argue up it's trade in value. After all, it's always harder to come in and say "I want that new car" then try to explain why it's so worthless that your not going to pay what they are asking. And with a $3K trade in allowance for your used van, you ended up at the same place as if you had sold it for $1K, then beaten the price on the new vehicle down another $2K. Your dealer really ended up doing you a favor in this case since now you don't have to dispose of the used van.
If you don't believe any of this, like I said just wait 6 months and do a VIN search at CARFAX. Your going to find that your van was sold, not scrapped.
Like I said previously, if you dropped $1500-$2000 into a transmission swap for a remanufactured transmission, you probably could sell it for roughly in the $5000-$6000 range, even with the mileage it has on it. A dealer is going to do exactly this, unless you live in Arizona, they aren't going to repair the A/C, it's winter right now. They will just hope the buyer doesen't notice the broken A/C and frankly a lot of buyers wouldn't. And the rest of the stuff is piddly and cheap to fix, and a used vehicle buyer is probably not going to notice it. And they are going to make more money on it because their cost to fix the tranny is lower than yours, and with a vehicle like that it's very easy to find some young single mother or young family who has no or bad credit and sell it to them for $7K and finance that.
The main point I was trying to make is that your van is by no means used up and was definitely worth putting money into a rebuilt trans. It's far from RIP. But I do understand that not everyone out there wants to spend the time dealing with a used vehicle, and there is nothing wrong with this as long as you know what's what.
Richard, as I've said before in this group I am very happy that folks like
Here is the test Ted. See if you can purchase a new Limited with a sunroof, DVD LCD monitor, and full size spare for $31,000.00 after current rebates are applied. If you can than I was taken "advantage" of. I did negotiate the best deal without mention of the trade-in.
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