Buying a new Chrysler van, and the salesman was tauting a new "alloy" that he said Daimler developed. He called it an alloy, but the description seems to indicate a laminate, plastic on steel. I am assuming it is a single layer of each. He said it provides both corrosion resistance and sound deadening.
I have never heard of such a material, though I know that they have been putting a plastic, adhesive backed film on lower external panels for some time. That is not new. Is there something really new now?
If it's a laminate, plastic/steel laminates of various kinds have been used as sound-deadening materials for decades. The first time I encountered it was when I had to write an article about a (then) new Swedish three-layer, steel-and-viscoelastic plastic material called "Antifon." That was in 1978.
I'm unfamiliar with it, but plastics have long been mixed with powdered metal for extra hardness or density, an example being the body of the original Polaroid SX-70 cameras from the early 1970s.
One rule to remember about Chrysler and American cars: They tend to be deficient in the areas touted most by the marketing department.
Get a different van so you won't end up with the Chrysler 4-speed automatic, which still remains one of the least reliable transmissions made, despite all the extensive changes, including 3-4 upgrades to the fluid. Some Chrysler vehicles have a much more reliable Damlier-designed automatic, but I believe it's a 5-speed.
. This level of cluelessness pretty much goes with the rest of the post, though, so I shouldn't be surprised.
Incorrect. It appears to actually be doing considerably better than Toyota and Honda minivan transmissions these days, thanks to years of development.
including 3-4 upgrades to the
ONE fluid change- full-synthetic ATF+4 in place of ATF+3. And its backward-compatible.
The Charger, Magnum, and 300 have a modified Daimler design transmission, built at Chrysler's Kokomo transmission plant- but ONLY behind the 5.7L Hemi. The v6 versions of those cars get a rear-drive version of the Chrysler 42LE that was used in the 300M, Intrepid, and LHS. The jury is still out on whether the 5-speed piece of Teutonic over-complication will even MATCH the Chrysler 4-speed in reliability, let alone exceed it. I wish you could get the Hemi with the same transmission the Ram trucks use.
When mine failed, I found that the "years of development" included changing the name of the transmission twice, while not changing the, what, 5 fatal flaws causing distinct failure modes. When mine failed,
3000 miles out of warranty, it was leaking at the fittings _and_ preparing to grenade the differential pin. Have they actually fixed or replaced the design, or do they keep adding band-aids to the existing flawed transmission?
That's a scary statement. Maybe a Ford next time. After Chrysler stiffed us for the barely-out-of-warranty repair bill (but the dealer made it good), I'll buy from that dealer, but not another Chrysler. Good thing he sells other brands...
OK, if you say so. Question and statement still stands, but I notice you snipped the part where I asked if they've actually fixed those widely known failure modes?
Well, it damn sure won't be Chrysler, after the way they responded when I asked what they were going to do about the known failure mode that caused my tranny to dump. Contrast this with Saab's response when I lost third gear in my 900 Turbo years ago - at 97,000 miles, well well out of warranty. Their response, unsolicited by me, was "We're really sorry, it never should have done that, we'd like to replace that for you so we can analyze the parts to see what went wrong".
Too bad GM screwed _their_ engineering, or the next choice would be obvious. So, who doesn't suck these days?
And what did this gesture that Saab made get them? You bought a Chrysler sometime after that and haven't mentioned Saab in either of your postings about considerations for a new car.
Chrysler sells a vehicle with a warranty. Chrysler sells an extended warranty that covers the vehicle outside of the standard warranty period. If you choose not to buy the extended warranty and your vehicle breaks outside of warranty why would the manufacturer help you out? They are in the business of making money and obviously helping with a failure out of warranty doesn't get them any added customer loyalty.
Personally I agree with you that Chryslers transmissions still aren't where they could be. I see this as more of a sign of the times though. Manufacturers are forced to make things lighter and lighter to meet EPA and public demand for better mileage. Honda and Toyota have had recent transmission problems. The junk yard is full of Ford Tauri with the "biodegradable transmission". GM's 4 speed transmissions give out somewhere in the 150k range and have done so since the mid 80's. On the other hand my '59 Imperial just got a rebuilt cast iron torqueflite after 46 years and only got it now because the rubber seals inside had finally deteriorated to the point of no hope.
That car was an '88 Saab 900 Turbo. I replaced it with a '99 Saab 9-5. What was your point exactly?
If they wanted to sell me another vehicle (see above example) they would have taken care of a known defect when it happened, regardless of the mileage.
On the contrary. It took it from being a "when I replace this, I'll get a new one just like it", to "I'll replace this with anything _but_ a chrysler, but from the dealer who agreed with me and helped pay for the failure". He didn't have to shell out for some of the repair, but he did. He knows that when it's time to replace that vehicle, I'll give him consideration.
You keep not answering my question about the 4-speed chrysler tranny. Have they really fixed the fatal flaws, or redesigned it entirely, or do they just keep adding bandaids?
Sorry, that's a weak excuse. A freaking snapring in a groove to keep the differential pin in place doesn't weigh very much...but it adds probably two dollars to the cost, so I'm guessing that's the real reason. As long as it holds long enough to pass the warranty, they have a _negative_ incentive to perform proper engineering to fix the problem. Short term gain, long term consequences. Educated consumers will avoid makers who do stupid stuff like that.
150 is a _lot_ more than 33. And, they've known about those failure modes for _years_.
The point is you bought a Chrysler in the meantime and are now considering another car and haven't mentioned Saab as one of your cosiderations. If their free fix was such a wonderful thing to do for you as a customer and earned your loyalty why would you be buying other makers cars?
If fixing a problem for free gets one person to buy one car every 11 years I think they would be better off putting that money in savings bond and waiting.If you didn't want to take the risk of the car breaking at 33k miles you could have bought an extended warranty. If you choose not to insure the car and a tree falls on it should the manufacturer fix that for free as well? After all they could have made it with thicker metal and then it might not have dented.
That was a nice gesture by the dealer. Hopefully you will follow through and buy more vehicles from them. I sure hope he sells Saab motor cars.
How can I "keep not answering" when the last post was my only post to this thread? I purposely didn't answer that because I have no idea if they fixed any real or imagined flaws in the product.
I almost agree. If it's a real problem then they ought to fix it. Other side would be what piece of the car could you not make better for an additional $2? If that $2 part caused a high number of trans failures during the warranty period (exteneded or regular) they would fix it.
True but very few Chrysler transmissions fail at 33k. A bunch of GM transmissions (and many other manufacturers as well) are gone by 150k.
"Ultradrive" was a short-lived marketing term, intended to be like "Torqueflite" but it never caught on. The transmission was called the A-604 from the start, but that was a Chrysler internal designation like A-727 or A-518. When the SAE adopted a naming convention, all the carmakers switched to conform. The GM 700R4 derivatives became the
4L80E, the Chrysler A-518 became the 47RH, and the A-604 became the 41TE (transverse applications) and its cousin the 43LE (longitudinal engine front-drive cars- the LH family) appeared.
As for design changes- other folks here have enumerated the hardware and software changes over the years. But most of them really weren't necessary- my first-flight (1993) unmodified 42LE went 150,000 miles because I a) kept the right fluid in it, and b) didn't let anyone rebuild it when a $30 sensor failed (the actual cause of 99% of the the alleged "failures" of the 41TE/42LE family).
OK, I see that as 3 names, which I thought was my original point, but whatever.
Riiiiight, because, dammit, differential pins _should_ be expected to grenade. It's a _feature_, not a problem. I see.
The dealer did all the upkeep on it. So, one would expect that this was the case with mine - and the failed ones of my coworkers.
Can you provide a cite for your 99% figure? It looks to me to be, what's the term? Oh yeah, "pulled out of your ass". A breakdown of the failure modes, since you seem to have the statistics, would be oh ever so welcome.
Are you one of the engineers responsible for this abomination, or why are you defending the heap of shit in question so vehemently, please?
How can the switch from Dexron to ATF+ to ATF+3 (was there an AT+2?) to ATF+4 be considered just one change?
Regarding the reliability of Chrysler, Toyota, and Honda transmissions, here's how Consumer Reports says they've stacked up in 2WD minivans, along with the track record for transmissions in general:
Wow, they sure aren't doing a good job of making them lighter. I think our old '94 van weighs in at around 3500 pounds. We ARE buying the new one- pick it up tomorrow- and it weighs 3900 pounds! Heaviest car I ever will have owned. And this is still the short wheelbase version- we are not moving up to long wheelbase. Handling didn't seem bad- I always liked the way the Mopar minivans handled- but was a bit disappointed to see the wieght increase. I assume much of that is that it now has four doors instead of the three on our old van.
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