Saw the new '07 Sebring Thursday

Why? What makes your claims "plausible," other than the fact that you said them? Nothing.

Reply to
Steve
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On Sat, 25 Nov 2006 08:45:18 -0600, Steve graced this newsgroup with:

..the fact that you claim to have American cars that have hundreds of thousands of miles on them and look and run like new. THAT isn't plausible. Can happen? Sure, but don't come off trying to make the claim that ALL American cars do this. Because they don't. If you want to ignore every single consumer review by just about every reputable car review source on the planet. Go for it. It's doesn't make your credibility any more plausible.

Actually, I'm just confusing you with facts. MY experience with American cars not only goes back to '79, but spans several vehicles as recent as 2003.

YOUR experience, by your own admission, is isolated to '79, Which, again by your own admission is dated by 27 years. If your entire argument hinges on information that's nearly 30 years old..well, I think your credibility pretty much speaks for itself.

I'm not the one that's implausible here junior.

Reply to
amstaffs

snipped-for-privacy@home.com wrote:

Sorry to disappoint you, but everything I said is a fact.

I think we can all agree on that.

So just don't YOU come off trying to make it sound like all Japanese cars are better than American cars, because we all know THAT isn't true either. The fact of the matter is that today, there's virtually no difference in reliability or longevity between ANY car brands. Any broad-based quality advantage that the Japanese had only existed between maybe 1978 and 1990. Some brands and models are more amenable to long life because they're easier to service (German cars, non-GM American cars). Some have a bit fewer "nuiscance" failures with non-drivetrain components (Toyota). Some have high rates of very specific failures (early 2000s Chevrolet V6 intake manifolds, a couple of sludge-prone Toyota oiling systems, the early Chrysler 2.7L v6 oiling system). But major differences? Forget it. Cars have evolved to be mostly transportation appliances. And that is my beef with most of the Japanese brands. I'd rather have chronic diahrrhea than be subjected to the boredom of driving a Camry or Altima every day. Yes, the same can be said of a Taurus, but at least SOME American and German cars are interesting. About the only Japanese car that I'd give a second look right now is the RX-8. In contrast, there are more American and German models that I find interesting every day. The new Mustang, the Charger, the Magnum, the forthcoming Challenger and next generation Camaro, Viper, Corvette C6, the BMW 5-series, etc. etc. etc.

Reply to
Steve

On Sat, 25 Nov 2006 11:50:49 -0600, Steve graced this newsgroup with:

Actually there *is* a difference in American and Japanese cars when it comes to reliability and since you don't have a CLUE to what the hell you're talking about since YOUR knowledge is nearly 30 years old, I doubt anything you say is worth the bandwidth to argue about.

Here's a (free) clue for you junior, go and read the reviews about American cars. *Especially * the Chrysler made products. Surprise! They suck. The ONLY place they *don't* suck is resale value if you're a buyer. Want to know why? Because used American cars *suck* worse than *new* American cars.

And if you're dumb enough to try and compare a Camry's driving characteristics to that of a Viper, your dumber than even your posts belie.

Reply to
amstaffs

Interesting math that says 2006-19930. But then its no less than I'd expect.

You're clearly a True Believer. Have a good fantasy. I'll keep enjoying good CARS.

I

I suspect I'm about 20 years older than you, but it if makes you feel big to call me "junior," then please do.

The only thing that sucks is the vacuum between your ears. I'd be perfectly willing to have a civilized discussion, but when you wade into a Chrysler enthusiast (Chrysler has those you know, not just mindless drones like the ones who drive Camrys) group slinging this garbage, you get what you deserve.

Reply to
Steve

On Sat, 25 Nov 2006 19:21:51 -0600, Steve graced this newsgroup with:

..I see your reading comprehension skills are about as good as the rest of garbage you spew "junior". Re-read. I'm typing this real slow since it's obvious you can't read too fast.

...uh..you misspelled "crack".

..I doubt that. But then again, you haven't said anything of any value so far...

..OOoooOOOO...snappy comeback. Did you get your keyboard all wet and sticky when you typed that? Junior? Did ya? Come on..you can tell us. I could care less about Chrysler "enthusiasts" or what they have to say and if you have hide behind them to shore you up, knock yourself out...really...

Reply to
amstaffs

Big 3 cars in the 70s were a piece of SH--! That decade was known as the crap period of NA cars. I avoided them. The rentals I had were more than enough.

Right on. That great engine, from the 60s just went on and on. Currently Chryslers 3.3L V6 is in the same high reliability category.

Reply to
who

Hopefully the VW is easy to service because it's well known they've needed lots of it in the last several years.

Reply to
Just Facts

On Sun, 26 Nov 2006 05:43:31 GMT, who graced this newsgroup with:

...80's era wasn't any better.

I think the slant 6 engine was one of the best engines Detroit ever put out. I had an old Dodge Dart with that engine. Everything else around it was falling a part but you couldn't kill that engine with C4.

Reply to
amstaffs

Great engines I have had. In all cases the cars fell apart with the engines still like new

Chrysler Slant 6 - Dodge Dart 1963 Volvo I4 (red block) BF230 - 1985 245 and 1993 945 Ford V8 302 H.O. (5.0L) 1989 Mustang

Can't say they were very efficient engines but they got the job done. Any high tech dependable engines out there?

Howard

Reply to
Howard Nelson

Lots, but I guess that depends a little on what you mean by "high tech."

The Chrysler 3.5 has proven a worthy succesor to the old Slant, both in its original iron-block form and in its 2nd generation aluminum form. I'd call it "mid tech." Its fully computerized EFI, crank-driven oil pump, cross-bolted main bearings, forged crank, shot-peened rods, etc. But its belt-timed, and thats pretty stone-age.

The Chrysler 4.7L v8, by all accounts, is following in the slant-6/318/383 tradition too, and it is chain timed. But for whatever reason, its not being used in cars, just trucks and SUVs. I don't really get that, and never have. It would be the ideal mid-range engine in the LX cars instead of over-working the 3.5. The real high-tech one in the Daimler-Chrysler stable is the 5.7L Hemi v8 with MDS (cylinder deactivation), anti-scuff coated short-skirt eutectic pistons, powdered-metal cracked-cap rods, forged crank, cross-bolted mains, dual spark plugs, precision-cast lightweight iron block, great breathing (quasi) Hemi heads, etc. (the list goes on for pages). So far so good, but 2 years does not a reputation make.

The Cadillac Northstar v8 (and "shortstar" v6 too) is a truly superb piece of engineering and most of them hold up really well, even if the cars wrapped around it tend to look like angry window air-conditioning units. The Nissan/Infiniti v6 always draws high praise, as it should- its an excellent engine (but comparing it to the noisy, growly, manifold-gasket blowing then camshaft breaking Chevrolet-derived GM v6 family is no comparison). The GM "Gen-III" smallblock v8s are performing well, and the old Buick 3800 still goes on forever, but while the engine management systems are very high-tech those engines themselves are pretty basic. The larger Gen-IIIs, for example, still have the too-short connecting rods of the traditional smallblock Chevy which they evolved from. IMO, the little GM "Ecotec" 4 is very overlooked and underrated- its a nice little tech-loaded engine for generic people-movers and should have a long life. BMW makes a lot of excellent performing high-tech engines, but "reliability" really isn't in their dictionary, unfortunately. Same can be said for the offerings from the Benz side of the DaimlerChrysler house.

No one's really mentioned the current crop of Common-Rail diesels, and I'm not overly familiar with the smaller ones. I gather that the VW TDI is an excellent design, but I don't know if its really "bulletproof" or not. Of course the 24-valve Cummins ISB used in the Ram is an engineering tour-de-force (the darn thing is so quiet it doesn't even SOUND like a diesel) but its a bit out of scope since its really a medium truck diesel.

It would probably be easier overall to put together a list of "clunker" engines of today, because MOST of them out there are quite good. I'll gladly point out my own manufacturer-of-choice's faults first: the Chrysler 2.7 v6 is questionable, since the early ones were prone to coking their oil and winding up steaming piles(*). So is the (gone and not missed) 2.0/2.4 inline 4 family (headgasket blowers). Throw on the GM Chevy-based v6s (2.8/3.1/3.4/3.5), the two repeat-offender Toyota oil cokers(*), and just a few others.

(*) For the record- plenty of Chrysler and Toyota apologists will claim that you can make all 3 of those engines last just fine if you use synthetic oil and change it according to the severe-use schedules. But I think that kind of kid-glove treatment disqualifies them all from a list of "reliable" designs. A good design can tolerate a bit of neglect.

Reply to
Steve

On Sun, 26 Nov 2006 12:24:33 -0600, Steve graced this newsgroup with:

....

Unfortunately, I think there isn't a *perfect* engine that's ever been made. Some have come close but for the life of me I can't figure out why any manufacturer would go to all the trouble of making a halfway decent engine then wrapping it around a car that falls apart long before the engine does.

You'd think by now that ANY manufacturer, either foreign or domestic (as if there's really any distinction anymore), could just take all the "good" bits from various cars and put them all in one package.

Hell, I'd even pay more for it if they'd do that.

Reply to
max

. . .

Or MMO. Good highway driving also enters into the equation. My 2.7 ('99 MY) is running great with 172+k miles on it, having had nothing but MMO and non-synth Castrol and an 80 mile commute 5 days a week.

Agreed. As you've acknowledged elsewhere, there were apparent mods that were done to the 2.7 that have put it into the 'reliable' category (else we'd be hearing horror stories all over the internet of problems on DC's later lines that use it as the base engine).

On your comments about timing chains vs. belts, it's unfortunate that, with modern ultra-integration, most of the engines with chains have the water pump in the cam drive train, which would be the limiting factor on reliability and the service interval (not pretty when a water pump locks up on an interference engine). You've seen my rants in the past on what this country needs is good affordable production engines with gear-driven cams (some R&D would be needed, but I'm convinced it could be done if so motivated - should be no more of a technical challenge than the development of an affordable CV joint for consumer vehicles before that was accomplished).

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

Reply to
Bill Putney

And it seems that most of the mods weren't so much to the ENGINE itself as to the PCV system. But then there are the cam chain tensioner problems too. Or was that precipitated by cooked oil? I forget- I just put the 2.7 down on the "not in my lifetime" list when I started hearing about all those things :-/

True, but no not really any dumber than turning the CAMS on an interference engine with a belt, and some carmakers seem to do that on ALL their engines. That was one of my big gripes about the Chrysler

2.0/2.4- they were Chrysler's first rubber-band timed interference engines, and I was bitterly disappointed that they would even go there. OK, so they did a study that showed a failing belt usually jumps a few teeth before failing altogether, so it sets the "service engine soon" light when a cam slip is detected. Oh oh, and let's not forget the valve stems designed to collapse rather than punch holes in the pistons. Big steaming fat deal- that is NOT a solution. I think Chrysler's passenger car engine design group went through some sort of big shakeup in the mid 90s, because that's when all the questionable decisions happened and all the good new engines (4.7, 3.7, 5.7) started coming out of the Jeep/Truck Engineering group.

The old Ford 300 straight-six had a gear driven cam. That was another slant-six like engine, by the way. The downside was that the cam gear was a "fiber" gear (phenolic, or something similar) and it would eventually shed teeth when it got old, worn, and brittle. There've been a number of engines like that over the years. I think the best decision was to just run steel chains on steel gears and tell the consumer to live with the little bit of timing chain chatter, ala the Magnum versions of the 318 and 360. Those never seem to fail.

Reply to
Steve

I think so.

They increased the oil pump flow rate and did something to inprove the drainback from top of engine. No doubt some other things that we don't know about.

I could live with that, *if* the water pump is not integrated into the cam drive. The problem is too much emphasis on tight integration, light weight, and compactness with the result of otherwise simple repairs costing 2 to 4 times what they would be and cars therefore ending up in the junk yard far earlier than necessary. How damaging to the environment is that when it is in large part the result of measures taken to supposedly "save the environment" in the first place?

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

Reply to
Bill Putney

Must be a lot of low IQ types wrapped up in this part of USENET.

How would a post on a POS Chrysler product to a Nissan product discussion group be anything other than a TROLL?

Yet you folks continue to respond and argue with this idiot lowering yourselves to his level.

Are any of you respondents older than twenty?

Reply to
Butch Davis

We are highly insulted that you think we are of low IQ.

Twenty what?

:)

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

Reply to
Bill Putney

I don't know... we're being called "low IQ" by someone who drives the product of company that got *BETTER* when Renault took it over... :-p

Reply to
Steve

Not even close. Heck, I don't know if the 300 ever even got a serpentine belt system before they pulled the plug. Last I looked, the water pump and fan were still driven by a good old V-belt.

The problem is too much emphasis on tight integration, light

Bill, Bill, Bill. You just don't Understand (tm).

Its good for the environment to get rid of all old cars and replace them with new ones every few years. Haven't you seen how all these new cars have SULEV and PZEV stickers in the windows? Your old one doesn't have THOSE, so crushing it down must be good! Besides, disposable cars make for more jobs. ;-)

Reply to
Steve

Problem #1 - You bought a Chevy.

You bought a Chevy.

Problem #2 - you bouught a Dodge

You bought another GM?

You bought cars from the most unreliable of the Big 3....

Reply to
Newsgroup User

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