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| 1999 Dodge Intrepid Review, Badmovies.org
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2.7L Sedan
| | Model of the car: | 2.7L Sedan | | | General comments: | We purchased this car used. It was a previous 1 year lease vehicle with 33k miles on it. Made sure to get the extended warranty up to 75k miles, but, as you will see, that did little good.
The car currently has 117k miles. However, that is misleading since we are a military family and going home was putting 1500 miles on it per trip. I would say that over half of the miles were highway. The Intrepid always received maintenance on time: oil changes, transmission fluid changes, brakes, and so on.
At about 45k miles (I think), a line carrying fluid from the transmission to the radiator came loose, resulting in me stuck in the middle of nowhere (long trip) at 2:00AM.
Somewhere in here the rear passenger window motor went. Sorry, not covered by warranty - ok, I will live with it until I have a chance to fix it myself.
Next problem was around 600 miles under warranty, when the transmission started failing to shift. Took it in to Dodge and they returned it, saying it was fixed. Following the repair, the transmission had some burps, but they were random and could not be replicated by Dodge.
At something like 400 miles out of warranty the transmission went right back to not shifting out of gear. It was acting EXACTLY like the previous. Took it in and they replaced some parts and also some sensors. When they told me I was responsible to pay the service manager and I had some words. Granted, he took care to get behind the counter, but shaking the worm would not get my car back without payment.
I contacted Dodge customer service, since obviously they had just placed a temporary patch on my problem before. No good. I eventually, after probably 2 hours of arguing, talked to the senior person at the call center. Know what he told me? "We probably didn't fix it right, but you are now out of warranty and we have no legal obligation to fix your car for no charge."
That is possibly the most disgusting thing I have ever heard, especially from the official representative of a company that expects a family to pay $20k for their vehicle. I wrote to the head of Dodge about all this, including names, times, places - everything. The letter that came back was a form letter, stating that they agreed with what I had been told.
Base legal told me that I had a longshot if I sued. So, we ate the cost of repair and went our way.
Next problem was about 85k miles. The engine chugged and required replacement of the timing change, oil pump, sensors, and some other parts. I am betting this was related to sludge build-up. Search online for something like "Dodge 2.7L sludge engine failure" and you will see a horrific story unfold. I have seen numerous complaints from people denied warranty coverage when their engine failed due to sludge! Read around and it becomes clear that the sludge is a design defect and Dodge is sticking people with the cost of their failure.
Anyway, the driver's window is also broken. The clip is held to the rail inside the door with an epoxy! No screw holds that window in. I tried to repair it with JB weld, but I must need a stronger 2-part epoxy. The clip holds for a week or two of use, then the JB weld gives and the window skews and cannot be used.
The latest problem is the death toll for this car, for which I still have to make 3 payments. The transmission suddenly would not shift and also makes a whining sound. The repair shop was able to tell me that something serious has happened, but they do not know the extent without pulling the transmission out - a $400 charge. I now have a large Dodge paperweight parked nearby and a new Honda Accord in the driveway. After lots of research, including the extended warranty Honda gave their Accord and Civic owners when Honda found that the 1999-2001 models had chronic transmission problems, I definitely chose the Honda.
Also found a NJ Department of Transportation study that found 1 Lemon Law complaint for every 392 Dodge vehicles registered. It was a huge gap from the next worst manufacturer. Wish I could find that again, I think it was an Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) file. | | | What things have gone wrong with the car: | Transmission and engine design defects result in early failures, despite careful maintenance.
A warranty from a dishonest company can be worthless.
Expensive to repair.
2.7L engine known to build up sludge.
Adhesive is used to bind windows to top rail.
Window motors often fail.
Headlights fogged with moisture.
Difficult to work on (replacing the battery requires raising passanger wheel off the ground, turning the wheel all the way, then removing battery via the wheelwell). Other fun things like that. | | | Previous car: | 2004 Accord
1999 Towncar
1998 Accord
2002 Intrepid
1996 Lumina
2000 Grand Prix |
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