Saw the new '07 Sebring Thursday

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.

 

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.

 

Interesting math that says 2006-1993=30. 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.

 

...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...

 

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.

 

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

 

....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.

 

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

 

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.

 

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.

 

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')

 

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.

 

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')

 

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?

Butch

 

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')

 

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...

 

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. ;-)

 

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....

 

How come I had an 86 Mustang 2.3 with 175k (original engine and trans)
that would do the same. Too bad the body was shot and it wouldn't pass
emissions anymore as I had ripped everything but the converter off as a
poor college student. Amazing what good maintenance and 3k oil changes
will do.

Or the '87 Escort with 102k that I traded in on a 97 Cobra that was
still running perfectly?

Buy good cars and take care of them.

 

How come I had an 86 Mustang 2.3 with 175k (original engine and trans)
that would do the same. Too bad the body was shot and it wouldn't pass
emissions anymore as I had ripped everything but the converter off as a
poor college student. Amazing what good maintenance and 3k oil changes
will do.

Or the '87 Escort with 102k that I traded in on a 97 Cobra that was
still running perfectly?

Buy good cars and take care of them.