Clockspring problems again on 01 Caravan

Back at 51k miles, for $166, my dealer replaced the clockspring to get the
airbag light off. No recalls listed then. Recently, at 75k miles, the same
thing happened, first the airbag light flickered on, then the horn and
cruise functions eventually died. Dealer looked again, still no recalls for
an 01 Caravan clockspring. Must be a routine replacement item.

I decided to replace the $40 clockspring myself this time. There is a
detailed procedure at allpar.com that looked pretty easy. Only "special"
tools is a 21 mm socket and $15 wheel puller. It was easy, an hour's job at
most. I disconnected the battery and waited 30 minutes to be sure the airbag
circuit de-energized. Went together easy and all is well again.

But the wierd thing was the defective clockspring. I disassembled it and
found that the ribbon cable somehow folded back on itself and that fold
cracked the conductors with time. I showed it to my 5 star Dodge service
mgr, suggesting that it might be either originally defective or was
installed wrong by them, and would they at least give me a new one. I had
their original shop repair invoice in hand.

He, of course, gave me an argument and said for me to call Chrysler to get
them to pay for the part instead of the dealer returning it for credit. For
a lousy $40, I laughed at his passing an opportunity to cultivate customer
relations, and walked out after paying them for a new one.
I'm sure if I call them, Chrysler will point to the dealer's repair job, and
the dealer will point at Chrysler.

 

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 skank 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

 

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 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