I took my 1997 Dodge Caravan AWD to my regular mechanic (who I have had for the last 10 years and had serviced my van since I had bought it.) to have it checked out because I was coming to the end of my warrenty and wanted him to check it out to see what it might need before the warranty ended, they found that we had leaking seals in the differentals both front and rear which were covered under warranty but had a alloted amount of time for doing this repair and he didn't have the correct tools to do it in the alloted time.
So he suggested that we take it to a chrysler dealer that would have the tools so I made an appointment at Allen Mello Dodge in Nashua NH which is where I had purchased the Van (this was in August they replaced the seals charged us the $100.00 deductible and also told us we needed a brake job and then sent us on our way.
When I got on the highway my Van was making a horrible howling noise in the rear end as soon as I got home I called them and told them of this noise they said to bring it back and they would check it out again.
I brought it back again and after having it for two days told me it was my brakes that they could fix for an outragous amount I told them not to fix the brakes I had someone who could do that for me, so I had all new brake pads rotors cables etc put on to prove to them that it couldn't be that because the Van didn't make the noise when it went there and the brakes were the same when it went in the first time as they were when I picked up the Van that night.
Again I got ahold of them and told them I had a complete brake job done and the Van was still making this noise, again they said bring it down and they would check it out (of course charging me each time) this time they said I had the wrong tires on the Van and that was my problem so to appease them and because I needed to put new tires on before winter I had four brand new tires put on the brand etc that they specified. The noise was still there (suprise) by this point I was getting pretty upset so I took it to another Dodge Dealership to get a second opinion they said they thought it was a rear bearing and it was around $400.00 and not covered by warranty.
At this point I no longer trusted the dealship service dept so I took the Van back to my regular mechanic and asked him to replace the bearing which he did and the Van still made the same noise, so again I Allen Mello Dodge and took it down to their service dept and they checked it out and now said it was something else but it was covered under warranty so it would only cost me $100.00 well after about 4 more trips with them charging the warranty company the main amount and me the $100.00 deductible each time the Van was still making the noise so when I called the head of the service dept this time he informed me that they had done all that they could and would do and that the Van had gone over it miles to be covered by the warranty any longer and that our own mechanic who had replaced the bearing was the one who had done something wrong. (even though the Van was making the noise before we even took it back to my own mechanic) and they wouldn't do anything more to correct the problem they had created to begin with..
I went to everyone in the dealership up as far as the general manager and got no where. Also I forgot to mention that one of the times I had to take it down for service I was talking with the mechanic who had been doing all the work on the Van for them and he had told me this was his first All Wheel Drive Caravan he had ever worked on and wasn't really sure what he was doing. The end result was that I finally got so fed up that I went to another more reputible dealer and traded the Van in (in Feb) because when they refused to do anything more it was still making the same noise that it had made the first time I picked it up after they had worked on it.
When I asked my own mechanic to please look at it one more time he said it might cost upwards of $3,000.00 to repair what they had damaged because there were specific bulletines out on my Van that said when replacing the parts ALLEN MELLO DODGE had replaced you had to brace the drive shaft up so it didn't move or it could cause damage to the whole transaxel so he advised me my best bet would be to get rid of it..
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