Where to start. Well My wife and I found a nice 99 Dodge Durango SLT sitting on the lot at LEE AUTO MALL in Westbrook Maine back in November of 99. We had a young child and it offered a lot of room (a lot more than our Corrola, which by the way I now miss dearly).
It would seem that sales people are so in tune with the customers weakness' (or should I say needs). We couldn't afford to buy it so we entered into a dreaded lease since my wife is a stay at home mom, we thought that a lease would suit us well. We got the car to have a stable family vehicle that could make the winter trips and have all the room we needed as a growing family. BOY WERE WE WRONG.
I have been in ownership of this vehicle for nearly 3 years now. We have gotten 1 year of good use from this vehicle where there were no problems. The following is a list of all the problems that we've had and keep in mind the vehicle is only 3 years old.
We have had an electrical issue which would cause the vehicle to completely shut down while being driven (real safe vehicle to transport kids in huh?). Dodge was ready to install a new "brain" in the compter but said that it might not fix the problem and there could be something else. Which it was. After needing to subscribe to AAA because we couldn't trust our vehicle in wet conditions, mind you we lived in Maine and it was wintertime. We burned through our max amount of tows within 2 weeks.
When we leased the vehicle we were told by the dealership that if our Durango ever needed repair (that would take a reasonable amount of time) that we would be supplied with a rental vehicle of equal or greater value. First they tried to stick us with a used car dealers personal mini van, then they tried to stick us with a dodge Neon. Equal or better? Hardly. Finally we had to beg them into an Intrepid Demo, which they had sold and not told us. We had the car for no more than a day when we were told that we had to return it becasue the demo had been sold. We were not given a replacement vehicle after that. Unbelievable.
The dealer finally figured out the problem was a chaffed wire that when getting wet would alert the computer to shut down the vehicle. Oddly enough, the service techs are very friendly and will actually induldge the information that they see this stuff all the time. How can this keep happening if DODGE KNOWS ABOUT IT!!!
We have had the same problems with all 4 of our window motors. At any given time 1 window will decide not to work for maybe an hour or maybe a week. At least the AC still works at this point but I noticed it's not nearly as cold anymore. Again, eveyone I talk to including service techs have seen this problem. Why isn't it a recall?
We have gone through 2 sets of brake pads, 1 set of rotars and 1 set of calipers. Car is 3 years old. Oh and by the way, Dodge and their braintrust have put a plastic part in the piston of the caliper. Why would you put a plastic ring where there is friction? After all friction=heat and heat and plastic don't get along. When you don't feel your brakes letting go all the way, it means that your calipers are dying a slow and painful death which in turn means soon the brake pads will be destroyed followed by the metal on metal destruction of your rotars.
Water pump just died, car is still 3 years old. 3 years old. Techs see this happening all the time, and no recall. That noise that you hear when you think your fan belt is going, yeah well that really just your water pump.
The Durango is made with 2 Oxygen sensors. 1 in front of the Cat. Converter and 1 behind. Yeah, we just got both those replaced as well, twice. The car started to buck at lights followed by the check engine light. After the first intstallation of the O2 sensors, the check engine light comes back on 1 day after. We take it back to the shop and get it plugged into the computer where it says that the sensors are bad. Tech resets the computer for us and a day later same thing. Dodge tells the tech that if you don't replace the sensors at the same time you will chase your tail so to speak for months. Then dodge says that it happens all the time, change both sensors out at the same time and wait a week. See what happens and you will probably need to reset the computer a few times before it takes.???
Now our Ball joints are shot, I mean better than 75% toast. Again, Tech see's it all the time and no recall. I'd be willing to bet that our ball joints were shot when we got the car.
We have talked with the dealership who insists there's nothing they can do about it. Here's what I got to say, what goes around comes around. Sooner or later they will experience a similar displeasure in life, only I won't be there to enjoy it. I am 1 repair away from driving my Durango (if I could free it from the shop for a day) thru the storefront of the dealer and parking it on the desk of the CON (i mean salesman) that leased us the vehicle. At this point I would take total loss just for them to waive my lease.
I'm thinking that I will be making several phone calls and keep just going up the ladder till I talk with that damn Lee Iococa from those stupid commercials.
Dodge should think about sending their techs to the same training that their sales people get, that way they won't be so honest about all the problems.
If anyone has or would like to talk to me about similar misfortunes please post your compliants, maybe we can do something in numbers.
Brian
Saratoga, New York
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