QUOTE (One unhappy Dodge owner!)
I have an 02 Dodge stratus that has been pretty good to me so far so I have been very patiant with this service so far. About a mid to early march of 05 one of my pullies came of my engine and cause a chain reaction of effents in my engine. I called your service number and a tow truck came and picked up the car and took me home down the street, as I was just down the street.
The next day I called Zeiser Motors and they looked at my car. They found out that it messed up a chain reation of events and said that I would just have to pay the deductable . Great, so far this is exactly how it is supposed to work. Well then a a week 5 days go by and my rental contract haas expired. The dealership was kind enough to loan me they nice hunter green mini-van. They kept my car for a little over two weeks fixing it. At this point I am a little upset that it has takin this long but I dont want to rush them. Notice that I am nto supposed to leave the city and cant travel on my job like I am supposed to. This is the point I am getting upset. I am supposed to be able to travel and cant due to my car situation.
They finally call me and say it is done. I go and pick up my car and the Service Engine light is on. I go back into the dealer and talk to Buzz, my service rep. He reflashes the fuel map and tells me that the error code was coded as "engine misfire" from a long time ago. For some reason I let that slide as he has been very helpful. So the light is out now but still has a very rough idle. Hmmm, the next day I travel back and he says that the fuel injectors must be a little dirty and he will put some injector cleaner in and that should help. This time I talked to the mechanic and he suggested this. I thought since he has done this a while i will give this a wirl. They tell me to drive it for a couple of days and call him back next week (this was a friday). I drive it, and it only has problems when at stop lights in drive. I call back that next tuesday and some other guy says that I should give it some more miles as it could take a while for the injectors to get cleaned up.I did not get to drive my car much as I was very busy and it took a while to put on my miles.
I have my hands tied at this point and keep driving. I continue to drive it for another week or two and on April 20th I am driving home at night to get dinner and my car shuts off at a stop light. Crap, It starts right back up but does not want to idle worth a crap. I get it home beraly and park it. I was going to let it sit till morning to take it back to the dealer.
NOTE** I had to call a friend for a ride back to work. Now I am getting furious as I pay good money for this car to run. I wake up early to drive to the dealer and the car wont even go over 20 MPH. Well I turn around and cost back to my apt and call the tow company to come pick it up and take it back to the dealer.
Now the dealer has had my car and this is getting out of hand. NOw the engine has no compression on 2 cylinders and they think it was a bad seal on the head gasket. They order a head gasket and put that on last week. they never called me and I kept missing Buzz to tell me what is the status. I finally call this morning, Monday May 2nd, and Buzz is off and some other person says that it looks like we have a new head coming in tomorrow and we will see from there. Now I am starting to get worried, as I am coming to the end of the warrenty here in maybe 6-7 months , due to the rate of my driving, and am having doubts about a safe daily driver. I am exhausted on calling the dealer just to find out they are replacing more parts. I am beyond mad at this point, and I have no clue what to do but to start going into the shop and start yelling at people. It seems to get the job done but I hate it when people do that to me. Now I understand POOP happens and its just luck of the draw. Hopefully this will be the only major service required but what if its not. What is going to happen to me when I'm at 80k miles and something like this happens again. I know the repairs are not cheap. What then? I am becoming reluctant that my car is safe for my family and myself and would like to know if you can help in anyway.
The next day I called Zeiser Motors and they looked at my car. They found out that it messed up a chain reation of events and said that I would just have to pay the deductable . Great, so far this is exactly how it is supposed to work. Well then a a week 5 days go by and my rental contract haas expired. The dealership was kind enough to loan me they nice hunter green mini-van. They kept my car for a little over two weeks fixing it. At this point I am a little upset that it has takin this long but I dont want to rush them. Notice that I am nto supposed to leave the city and cant travel on my job like I am supposed to. This is the point I am getting upset. I am supposed to be able to travel and cant due to my car situation.
They finally call me and say it is done. I go and pick up my car and the Service Engine light is on. I go back into the dealer and talk to Buzz, my service rep. He reflashes the fuel map and tells me that the error code was coded as "engine misfire" from a long time ago. For some reason I let that slide as he has been very helpful. So the light is out now but still has a very rough idle. Hmmm, the next day I travel back and he says that the fuel injectors must be a little dirty and he will put some injector cleaner in and that should help. This time I talked to the mechanic and he suggested this. I thought since he has done this a while i will give this a wirl. They tell me to drive it for a couple of days and call him back next week (this was a friday). I drive it, and it only has problems when at stop lights in drive. I call back that next tuesday and some other guy says that I should give it some more miles as it could take a while for the injectors to get cleaned up.I did not get to drive my car much as I was very busy and it took a while to put on my miles.
I have my hands tied at this point and keep driving. I continue to drive it for another week or two and on April 20th I am driving home at night to get dinner and my car shuts off at a stop light. Crap, It starts right back up but does not want to idle worth a crap. I get it home beraly and park it. I was going to let it sit till morning to take it back to the dealer.
NOTE** I had to call a friend for a ride back to work. Now I am getting furious as I pay good money for this car to run. I wake up early to drive to the dealer and the car wont even go over 20 MPH. Well I turn around and cost back to my apt and call the tow company to come pick it up and take it back to the dealer.
Now the dealer has had my car and this is getting out of hand. NOw the engine has no compression on 2 cylinders and they think it was a bad seal on the head gasket. They order a head gasket and put that on last week. they never called me and I kept missing Buzz to tell me what is the status. I finally call this morning, Monday May 2nd, and Buzz is off and some other person says that it looks like we have a new head coming in tomorrow and we will see from there. Now I am starting to get worried, as I am coming to the end of the warrenty here in maybe 6-7 months , due to the rate of my driving, and am having doubts about a safe daily driver. I am exhausted on calling the dealer just to find out they are replacing more parts. I am beyond mad at this point, and I have no clue what to do but to start going into the shop and start yelling at people. It seems to get the job done but I hate it when people do that to me. Now I understand POOP happens and its just luck of the draw. Hopefully this will be the only major service required but what if its not. What is going to happen to me when I'm at 80k miles and something like this happens again. I know the repairs are not cheap. What then? I am becoming reluctant that my car is safe for my family and myself and would like to know if you can help in anyway.