Chrysler unlikely to last a year

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090108/BUSINESS02/901080377

Perce

 

Nardelli was there, begging bowl in hand, to rip off the taxpayers. How
kind of us to bail out private companies and the UAW.

 

Duff due diligence...

 

Bad news piles on bad news. Their sales are apparently really hard
hit.

I see tons of Chargers, some Challengers and some new 300s on the
streets though. They do have cars that can sell.

I looked at a car lot and the materials quality needs work though.

 

Yes some Chrysler models sell, like those you mentioned plus some Jeeps,
but they lost customers like me who were repeat buyers of their mid
sized FWD cars. The Sebring is the right size, but it has design
problems, such as lack of full sized spare capability and a short life
2.7L V6 engine, and more flawed details.
I considered the Compass, I like the drive train and form, except for
the ugly Jeep like front and the crude interior finishing.
If I were to buy that type of vehicle it would be a Nissan Rogue.

 

We had a Stratus ES, which I suppose had substantially the same engine
as in the 2.7L V6 Sebring. Despite having had the timing belt replaced
at about 65K miles along with a water pump replacement, the thing blew
up at 85K -- broken timing belt; we junked it. A family member junked a
Sebring with transmission failure.

We like our '02 300M, but I don't see any current Chrysler Corp. vehicle
that I'd buy.

Perce

 

Can't be. The 2.7L has a timing *chain* - not something you'd normally
replace until the miles were really up there, and then only because the
water pump is driven off of it.

 

If it had a timing belt, it didn't have an engine even resembling the
2.7.

 

Are the 2.7L's that come in the newer platforms giving problems. I
thought its issues had pretty much been fixed.

I can't imagine them designing it into the new cars if they hadn't been
fixed. Could they be that stupid - umm - cancel that. But seriously -
are the 2.7's that they put in now giving problems?

 

I stand corrected then. I ASS+U+MEd that the 2.7 was simply a
larger-capacity variant of the 2.5.

Perce

 

Ah. The 2.5 V6 was a Mitsubishi engine. That explains *everything*.

 

Possibly, wife has a 2004 Sebring Sedan Limited with the 2.7, done oil
changes at the dealer every 2 to 3K, so far nothing happened with it, knew
a girl who had a 2003 Sebring sedan with the 2.7, had 130K when she traded
it, she had no engine problems, either. Forgot to add, wifes Sebring has
66K on the speedo.

Rog

 

I hope they are actually doing the oil changes. I caught our local
Chrysler dealer with their pants down when they charged my elderly
mother for the very first oil and filter change on her brand new
Concorde and didn't actually do it - oil was exactly same color and
level when she got it back, and - the real smoking gun - the flat black
factory filter with "ORIGINAL FACTORY FILTER" stamped on it was still on it.

That experience and another personal one with a chain oil change place
and the TV expose video on Jiffy Lube have caused me to question if some
of these problems with sludge were as much or more to do with not just
extended, but totally missed oil/filter changes than with sludge-prone
designs. However I also believe that certain engines are much more
sludge prone than others - just that the routine fraud going on with
paid-for oil changes makes it impossible to really assess that - I bet
even the manufacturers realize that they can't assess it for just that
reason - yet they aren't going to raise that issue publicly because it
clouds perception of their own dealers. The old "What the consumer
doesn't know won't hurt them" philosophy.

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

 

Myself and another sales rep got Dodge Intrepid company cars in 2002.
Mine was the ES with a 3.5 and his was the SE with a 2.7. I put more
miles on mine than he did. At 73,000 miles, his engine fried and
required a rebuild. At 98,000, we traded mine in, they were afraid of
the same thing. After that, the company quit buying Chrysler products.

 

If the water pump is still inside the engine oil chamber
I would avoid it.

 

That part is nothing unique to the 2.7 in Chrysler engines. That is
true also of the 3.2 and 3.5 - not sure about other engines they
presently use. Clearly a design point where initial cost and high level
of integration took a back seat to maintainability.

 

Oops - I said it backwards - "...maintainability took a back seat to
initial cost and high level of integration."

 

Bill, did you mean this instead?
Clearly a design point where maintainability took a back seat to initial
cost and high level of integration.

 

Yep!