N/A--Buy my Car!!!

[mpartovi]

I was gonna post this in the Classifieds, but then it would have to be aviation related. so here goes...up for sale:
2001 Dodge Intrepid SE
126,000 miles (Highway miles)
Very Clean
$4999.00 OBO

This cars gotta go...I just bought a new truck!!!

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.jsp?car_id=196337175&dealer_id=57473572&car_year=2001&search_type=both&make=DODGE&distance=10&model=INTRE&address=60544&certified=&advanced=&max_price=5000&bkms=1139239586118&min_price=4000&end_year=2001&start_year=2001&isp=y&lang=&cardist=3

 

[EdFred]

Dodge, you gotta be kidding. I wouldn't own a Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep product again. My rear still hurts from getting raped by them back in the 90s.
In the shop NINE time before it hit 28,000 miles and everyone up the chain told me to go *%&$ myself, it wasn't their problem, and I just had to deal with a lemon.

 

[mpartovi]

No sir...not kidding...Sorry to hear about your misfortune. This ones lasted me quite some time now, and never missed a beat. Oil changes every 3k miles and the works...preventative maintenece is always good.

 

[Ken Ibold]

Dodge, you gotta be kidding. I wouldn't own a Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep product again. My rear still hurts from getting raped by them back in the 90s.
In the shop NINE time before it hit 28,000 miles and everyone up the chain told me to go *%&$ myself, it wasn't their problem, and I just had to deal with a lemon.

My 99 Durango was in the shop 21 times in 49,000 miles. Never, not a single day, from the odometer at 17 when I picked it up until I traded in that hunk of junk, was it free of defects. Multiple fixes to the same components and an endless litany of minor malfunctions show the car suffered from lousy design, crappy workmanship during manufacture, and incompetent technician training at two different dealerships. By contrast, my 04 Honda Pilot -- with basically the same retail price -- had one minor trim issue after about a month in service. No unscheduled maintenance in the 34,000 miles since.

 

[Bill]

My 99 Durango was in the shop 21 times in 49,000 miles. Never, not a single day, from the odometer at 17 when I picked it up until I traded in that hunk of junk, was it free of defects. Multiple fixes to the same components and an endless litany of minor malfunctions show the car suffered from lousy design, crappy workmanship during manufacture, and incompetent technician training at two different dealerships. By contrast, my 04 Honda Pilot -- with basically the same retail price -- had one minor trim issue after about a month in service. No unscheduled maintenance in the 34,000 miles since.

With American cars, it seems more the luck of the draw. My '96 Grand Cherokee was totalled in 2001 with 80kmi on it, and it had only about $800 in unscheduled repairs over 5yrs/80kmi. About mid-pack with the Japanese cars I've owned. It was replaced with an F-150 Supercrew, and after 4.5yrs it has never been back to a dealer or a repair station for anything. I do, however, believe in doing my own service work, as most mechanics are hacks who wreck more than they repair. Likewise, the Ford CV my wife just traded went 5yrs/60k without ever going in for any repairs.

Roll of the dice?

 

[mpartovi]

only time ive ever taken my car to a shop has been to put in new brakes and tires...which was last done 4 months ago.

I agree with the whole luck of the draw deal...lucky me.

 

[imQ]

What engine? 2.7 3.2 or 3.5?

 

[JRitt]

I sold my Dodge Srattus 2 years ago with 130K on it and and did 4 repairs to it (trunk light switch, radio, battery, and timing belt). Its still going and I am friends with the new owner.

 

[mpartovi]

What engine? 2.7 3.2 or 3.5?

Its the 2.7.

 

[mattaxelrod]

I second the rant about American cars. Had a brief foray with a Ford Windstar. Warranty was 3 yr/36K. At about 36,600 (I'm not exaggerating here), the rack and pinion steering went to the tune of $700, and the dealership basically told me to f* off because I didn't get any of my oil changes and stuff there, so they weren't willing to stretch any of their disrectionary maintenance for me.

I paid to have the car fixed and traded it in the next month. All I drive now are Honda's. I've never had to do anything but change the oil and filters and stuff.

Piece of crap.

(BTW, anyone in the Central NJ area, please feel free to ask me what dealership in Watchung on Route 22 West that starts with an L and ends with an I, and I'll be happy to tell you.)

 

[Anthony]

I have a 2003 Jeep Wrangler Sport that I bought new. I now have 45K miles on it and never had a problem (yet). I always wanted a Jeep to go off roading and this Jeep has been great. w00t!

Guess I got lucky.

 

[ScottM]

Dodge, you gotta be kidding. I wouldn't own a Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep product again. My rear still hurts from getting raped by them back in the 90s.
In the shop NINE time before it hit 28,000 miles and everyone up the chain told me to go *%&$ myself, it wasn't their problem, and I just had to deal with a lemon.

I am on my second Dodge product. The Jeep has 145,000 mile son it and it is still going strong with no major work ever. The Omni had before it lasted until 160,000 without any major work.

Well not everyone can bat a hundred but I have done less work on those two cars than the Honda Accord I have with 80,000 miles on it.

 

[Frank Browne]

My last two vehicles were Ford trucks. After almost constant maintenence over the life of them, I bought an '06 Tundra double cab last month.

 

[EdFred]

It wasn't the fact that it was a lemon that turned me off. It was the fact that the dealership, and even the regional manager for dodge told me to pack sand and deal with it. Had they said ok, here's a new one, I'd have been finr with it. (It was in the shop 7 times for the same thing)

 

[SJP]

It wasn't the fact that it was a lemon that turned me off. It was the fact that the dealership, and even the regional manager for dodge told me to pack sand and deal with it. Had they said ok, here's a new one, I'd have been finr with it. (It was in the shop 7 times for the same thing)

'94 Toyota Tercel : 82000 - died when #1 son drove it into a lamppost
'96 Saturn : Broke a crankshaft at 106000 - two weeks after a top end rebuild
'00 Durango : Leased for 3 years - never had a problem with it.
'02 Liberty : 37000, going strong, one recall on some ball joints, otherwise flawless

'86 Jaguar XJS : 52,750 - still making heads turn Too many unscheduled things to think about

 

[imQ]

As a parts guy for a multi carline dealer I feel the pain when someone has an unresolved complaint about their car. Surprisingly Chrysler isn't the carline I have the most problems with, it's Nissan. However D-C could use a lot of help in the "How to apply Customer service" Dept.

 

[Ghery]

1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee. About 168,000 miles on it and running fine. Had a few minor issues when it was new, covered by warrenty. Rear window wiper doesn't work, not about to pay to get it fixed. Front differential makes noise when in 4WD. That happens maybe once a year, so no hurry to get it fixed.

1999 Jeep Wrangler. About 108,000 miles on it. Runs fine. Lost the fuel pump once after it was off warrenty. Otherwise, routine maintenance and away it goes. Windshields are a different subject. State Farm has replaced three and will replace number 4 when I get around to it. A regular rock magnet it is.

Now, you want to know about a car manufacturer who had a reliability engineer who knew his stuff? I bought a new 1974 Subaru when I was in college. 12 month, 12,000 mile warrenty. At 12,3xx miles the rectifier in the alternator went out. No warrenty coverage. Oh, and Japanese quality? Every 50,000 miles or so the head gaskets would blow. Sleeved cylinders on crush washers, so you had to tear the whole engine down just to replace the head gaskets. It was ready for its third rebuild when I finally dumped it (to a Subaru mechanic who should have known better). I understand that by 1976 Subaru figured out how to build that engine so it wouldn't blow those gaskets with great regularity. I MIGHT look at Subaru again some day. Right now I love my Jeeps.

 

[Bill]

Now, you want to know about a car manufacturer who had a reliability engineer who knew his stuff? I bought a new 1974 Subaru when I was in college. 12 month, 12,000 mile warrenty. At 12,3xx miles the rectifier in the alternator went out. No warrenty coverage. Oh, and Japanese quality?

I had a '93 VW Passat VR6 5 speed. Lovely driving car, very nice, 2 year 24000 warranty. At 25000, the alternator blows, $500. The next month, the sunroof slide rails break, with the roof in the open poisition, $800. The next month, the rear windows get stuck down, blown window controller, $250. The next month, the trunk lock breaks, mechanic crawls in thru backseat to fix, this one was cheap, $125. Then, on the highway during rush hour, the plastic end tank blows off the radiator, $500+tow. The car had then 36000. It was traded that week. Junk junk junk.

VW/Audi sucks, will never touch another one.

 

[NC Pilot]

VW/Audi sucks, will never touch another one.

Someday I will be able to talk about the '77 Audi Fox I had. Just can't bring myself to do it yet. Only been 23 years since I sold it. Still too painful.

I've had great cars:
All the Mercedes I have owned. (bought used and cheap)
'65 Corvair - 1st car and very reliable.
Jaguar XKE - 18 months restoring it and drove it when my Toyota Celica was broken.
Jaguar XJ6 - Best road car I ever owned.
Isuzu Trooper II - Abused and abused and never quit. Sold it for $1.00 and it's still running.

and some lousy ones:
Suzuki Samauri - Beach car and wishing an overwash would take it away, far away.
Dodge van - bought it to tow my boat. Should have used the boat to tow the van into the water.
Mom mobile Dodge mini van - Can you spell "transmissions"
Chevy Caprice - Ran OK, but hard to work on.
Audi Fox - So bad I still can't talk about it.

 

[Bill]

I've had great cars:
All the Mercedes I have owned. (bought used and cheap)

My Dad loves Benz cars, one is an '89 300SEL, large several generations old S car with the straight six. What a tank, built back when MB didn't build to a price point. What a nice highway car, and built like a brick ****house. Pothole? What pothole?

Nice car, but he won't sell it to me :-(

 

[Ghery]

I had a '93 VW Passat VR6 5 speed. Lovely driving car, very nice, 2 year 24000 warranty. At 25000, the alternator blows, $500. The next month, the sunroof slide rails break, with the roof in the open poisition, $800. The next month, the rear windows get stuck down, blown window controller, $250. The next month, the trunk lock breaks, mechanic crawls in thru backseat to fix, this one was cheap, $125. Then, on the highway during rush hour, the plastic end tank blows off the radiator, $500+tow. The car had then 36000. It was traded that week. Junk junk junk.

VW/Audi sucks, will never touch another one.

That makes my old Subaru look downright reliable. Yikes! I see why you traded it so quickly.

 

[Henning]

Dodge, you gotta be kidding. I wouldn't own a Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep product again. My rear still hurts from getting raped by them back in the 90s.
In the shop NINE time before it hit 28,000 miles and everyone up the chain told me to go *%&$ myself, it wasn't their problem, and I just had to deal with a lemon.

That's the thing though, I've had cars from nearly everyone throughout the years (remember I grew up in the business) and everyone makes good models, Ok models, and downright crap, and even in the good models you can get a Lemon. I had a 97 Dodge truck I sold running strong with >250,000 miles on it with only one problem and that was a seriously abused and overloaded transmission (when I rebuilt it, it was to higher spec). So we now have one statistical annomaly canceling another. Daimler/Chrysler makes a wide variety of vehicles, and from the indicators I'm seeing, I'm hopeful that the Daimler is bringing up the standard of the Chrysler rather than the other way around.

 

[SCCutler]

I guess I am the odd one out, too.

I had a Jeep I sold with 160,000 miles (and it looked almost new), hated to see it go and the ONLY stranding problem I ever had was self-inflicted. Last I heard, the guy who bought it had it over 240k miles.


I had a Cadillac ('90 Sedan deVille), I drove to 140,000 miles, sold to brother-in-law (made him sign a paper acknowledging that the engine could fall out on the way to Houston, used just those words)
, and he sold it at 263,000 miles (it was pret' near used up, but sold as a running car).

I had two Audis, an '82 4000 which I sold with about 170,000 miles, when I bought my '93 100S. Both were great (although I too was bitten by the plastic radiator end-cap, but that design was used by all the Euro cars). The '93 only had 93,000 miles when full-sized Bronco driven by a teenager with pea-sized brain turned left in front of me, and totalled it. I mourned that one, it was as solid as a bank vault and surely would have been good for another 100k miles.

And I had a Honda Civic that was a poster child for arrested automotive development. Overheated, sometimes just wouldn't start (but dealer could never duplicate), slow, ****-poor mileage. Sometimes, even the perfect guys get it wrong.

===

One last thought: things can get better. If you've forgotten (or are too young to recall), Japanese cars started selling here because, althoug they were not particularly good (and they always smelled like cow dung inside when new...), they were cheap. Then, they got good.

I would not take money to drive most mid-80s American cars (although I did have two Ford LTD company cars that took wretched abuse and never let me down...), but they have gotten so dramatically better that, if I have a good dealer (and that matters so very much), I would not hesitate to drive an American car (whichm I guess, is why I still do, a Caddy).

I try to avoid making any statement starting with, "I'll never..." unless dealing with matters of genuine moral character. Minds are like underwear- they need changing once in a while.

 

[SkyHog]

I have a Dodge Dakota, had about 200,000 miles on it, when I had the engine rebuilt and its still going strong.

Love this Dodge, but probably won't buy another one. I lucked out with this, but I had a 1980 D-50 that cracked heads in the same place every few months, and when I got my Dakota, I found a cracked head in the same place.

My mom has a Chrysler Imperial, and its head cracked in the same place....

 

[tom.]

I've had good luck with cars and trucks by avoiding complicated or very cheap vehicles. My trucks have held up well and are simple to work on. Generally, front wheel drive is VERY expensive to fix and I avoid these cars because they do not hold up in rough use. I see trailers being towed with Windstars and Honda Pilots and I just cringe.

I know it's not what people want to hear, but major components for ALL cars come from all over the world so the generalization that poor quality comes from (pick one, UAW or Non-UAW plant, US or "foreign") doesn't hold water. And electrical problems? NONE of these components are made domestically in at least the last 10 years.

Back to the original poster's intent... There are so many Intrepids coming back off lease that prices have been down lately. If your vehicle is from a rust-free state you might do OK.

When my modern vehicle finally goes to heaven I'm reverting to the old fullsize GMC 6.2 diesel trucks (25 mpg) till my electric Jeep is done .

 

[Henning]

'96 Saturn : Broke a crankshaft at 106000 - two weeks after a top end rebuild

That's why I don't do valve jobs for people unless I slip in a new set of bearings. Usually a worn bottom end won't take the "freshening".

 

[Bill]

I try to avoid making any statement starting with, "I'll never..."

True, I'd love to try one of the VW turbo desiels, but I still have heartburn from that Passat.

 

[imQ]

I have a customer that owns a diesel engine repair business. He bought his wife a VW diesel. said it was as close to bullet-proof as they were going to get. Plus he said it was easier to work on than some of the gas engine stuff he's seen. Oh yeah, she loves the car too.

 

[mpartovi]

so........who wants to buy my car?!?!

 

[etsisk]

Hey, don't forget the mountain car!! (um, Bronco? Jimmy? ...oh, I remember!! Blue!!)

 

[Bill]

I have a customer that owns a diesel engine repair business. He bought his wife a VW diesel. said it was as close to bullet-proof as they were going to get. Plus he said it was easier to work on than some of the gas engine stuff he's seen. Oh yeah, she loves the car too.

Sounds good, maybe I will try one someday. 37city, 45 highway is attractive.