Hi lydiaa. I feel your frustration, and I'm sorry I don't have an answer for you, but I feel so strongly about some of the comments I read, I just had to reply. I don't feel it's appropriate to hog your new thread to air my opinions, so I added them here. Please keep in mind I'm biased toward Chrysler because they are the only company that will still allow me to buy their radio service manuals. I also worked for one of four dealerships that is owned by a real nice family since the 1940s, and I often overheard how concerned they were for their customers when they thought no one was listening.
I have a different take on the bailout issue. Ford will not warranty a leak unless it causes a puddle on the ground. Chrysler will warranty any leak. Ford requires extensive testing including an oil analysis before they will even discuss the possibility of warrantying an engine. Chrysler is satisfied with the mechanic's analysis. Chrysler is much more customer-focused than most other manufacturers except Toyota and Hyundai.
Here's a different plan that you might give some thought to. Chrysler has a district representative who visits every dealership once per month. You can request a meeting with that person. At the dealership I worked for, the sales people were the customer's advocate and both sides worked together to find a solution. That rep has the authority to warranty stuff the dealer can't. The dealer can only follow the rules of the franchise. My district rep. Even offered to warranty the sulfated battery in my ten-year-old Dynasty that hadn't been driven in the last nine years!
Rental car companies take especially good care of their cars, but they buy them at real huge discounts with a lesser warranty because they rarely keep them for more than 15,000 miles. You are also able to buy that almost new car for much less than normal but since the warranty transfers to the new owner, you get that same shorter warranty. Since any warranty has value, you can buy that car at a lower price than any regular trade-in with 15,000 miles. So the issue is not that they don't stand by their products. You will get the same shorter warranty with a Ford or GM product. Admittedly, you have the worst engine they've ever built, but as you said, it's running fine with no symptoms. Put the blame for the Check Engine light where it belongs; our elected idiots who make laws with no regard for the unintended consequences. They demanded highly sensitive systems since 1996 that detect the slightest little hiccup. You have wasted more gas and caused more pollution by running all over trying to fix that glitch than the teaspoon of gas that was lost due to any misfire.
The silly cash-for-clunkers law is another example of how stupid the people are in Washington. First of all, anyone who took advantage of that took a huge hit in the wallet because they only got a fraction of the dollars their old car was worth. They would have done better by just trading it in. Imagine their surprise when they found out at the end of the year that the dollars they got from you and me, the taxpayers, was considered income and they were taxed on it. Got'cha! One of the reasons GM was hurting so badly is they can only rip their customers off so many times before they don't HAVE any more customers, and that's what was happening. They had such a huge backlog of unsold cars and trucks and no way to get rid of them. Everyone knows that the highest pressure salespeople will be found at GM dealerships. If they don't move product, they're out of a job. Once you do buy a GM car, you find out that many dealerships have a one-hour minimum labor charge. In the case of my neighbor, that means being charged 0.8 hours to replace a head light bulb under warranty because GM only reimburses the dealer 0.2 hours for that job. Got'cha! How would you like to pay $82.00 to have a $10.00 light bulb put in for free? I've never heard of this one-hour minimum at any other dealership. Performing warranty work is when you're supposed to build customer confidence and loyalty, not bleed them for a few extra bucks. I had a boss once in the tv repair field who had the same attitude. "I have to rip them off as much as possible the first time because they aren't coming back a second time". Thank goodness he's out of business now. There's only about 100,000 people in my extended community and he ran out of customers too, just like GM did. I also worked for 30 years for a different boss who made a comfortable living for three people repairing tvs in a community of only 2,000 people. He did that by being honest and helpful toward his customers. People like him never make the news.
Many current owners don't realize how many computers are on new cars. Customers demand all kinds of junk that has nothing to do with getting you from one point to another. It isn't really necessary for her to be two degrees warmer than him, after all, it's winter. Expect to be cold. Dual zone heaters means a very unreliable, complicated computer is involved in blowing heated air into the car. I can do that pretty well with a slide lever and push buttons in my '88 model. Some drivers are too stupid to poke a power lock button, so a Body Computer is needed to do it for them at 15 mph. All of these toys add to the complexity of the car and the cost of repair. Imagine being handed an $800.00 estimate to fix the dead horn on your Ford? My van uses a switch to turn on a ten-dollar relay to blow the horn. Ford uses a switch to send a coded signal to the most complicated computer on the car, the instrument cluster. The cluster interprets that signal and sends another coded signal to the FEM, (front electronic module) which interprets that signal, then turns on the horn relay. Two computers involved in honking the horn! Explain how that benefits the owner?
GM got mad that I was repairing a half dozen of their radios each year. To prevent me from putting their repair centers out of business, starting with 2002 models they build the Body Computer into the radio. You can not replace it with an aftermarket radio. If you do, you won't have power windows or cruise control. You MUST have the original radio removed by the dealer ($), shipped by the dealer ($), repaired by the authorized repair center, ($$$$$), reinstalled by the dealer, ($), and reprogrammed to your car, ($). I charge $75.00 to repair Chrysler radios. You will pay over $400.00 to have your GM pile repaired.
GM has a very high failure rate with their computers. To prevent you from buying a used computer module from the salvage yard, new ones must be purchased from the dealer and they must be programmed to your car. From then on they will never work in any other car. Got'cha. GM is going to be a very profitable company for the next few years. There were too many people who said "never again" when asked about their GM vehicles, but there's a whole new crop of owners since the cash-for-clunkers law. All of them will be going back to the dealer for expensive repairs. THAT'S where GM makes their money.
On a related note, most owners aren't aware that mechanics can access every computer on the car with a scanner, and every one of those computers must talk with the Body Computer. If a computer has a different VIN programmed in than what is in the Body Computer, it won't operate. If the mechanic presses the "lock" function on the scanner, all of the up to 47 computers are tied to that Body Computer. You will never know if or when that was done until the day that computer fails. If the Body Computer fails and has to be replaced, ALL of the other computers must also be replaced. Got'cha! Imagine the cost of more than three dozen computer modules and the labor to program each one to the new Body Computer!
Sometimes various computers have to be "reflashed" with new software to address unforeseen problems or glitches. That is less expensive than replacing the computer so GM found a solution for that too. New software from most manufacturers is downloaded and installed over the internet. In an effort to lock out the independent repair shops, GM only makes that information available for three of their computers because the government mandated it. For everything else, you must go back to the dealership. Chrysler and Toyota allow full access to the independent shops for everything except the Security System. Who do you think has the customer's best interest at heart? Of course there's an annual charge to access the web site, and a small charge per download, but it's not much more than you're currently paying for your anti-virus software on your home computer. Hyundai allows full access to their web site to anyone for free including all downloads. Only GM ties everything up to protect their dealers.
The bottom line is I understand your frustration with your car, but boycotting a manufacturer only seems to be mentioned when it's Chrysler. I see the same kinds of problems all the time with ALL brands of cars. No one ever talks about boycotting GM or Ford. Chrysler's business practices toward their dealers and their customers is a whole lot better then GM's and Fords, and it's probably why they aren't as profitable. I could go on about Ford's "killer" cars with steering linkages that fall apart, wheels that can not be aligned so 15,000 miles is the best you will get on a set of tires, (but they ride nice on a test drive, so you buy that car), Got'cha! Or what about all of their safety-related recalls? Have you forgotten about their exploding gas tanks that would have cost them ten bucks per car to fix? How about the exploding tires? Their ignition switches with contacts that are so cheap, they have caused numerous house fires long after the engines were turned off? They're keeping that one pretty quiet. One was caught on a security camera catching fire two hours after the owner arrived at work. Things like these problems always seem to get dismissed by Ford and GM fans when arguing about brand loyalty but they scream the loudest when it's a different manufacturer with a problem. The defect or the poor design isn't what I take issue with; it's the manufacturer's response to the known problem that frustrates me.
The list of problems with newer cars is mind-boggling. Most of it is due to the addition of all of the silly computers and much is due to the greed of the manufacturers. Isn't it funny that little Chrysler has the fewest safety recalls, is one of the most customer-friendly, and is the most picked-on and least profitable company?
Caradiodoc
Monday, January 31st, 2011 AT 1:08 AM
