my house!

We had to make a trip to L.A. yesterday and took the new PT Cruiser, 3 weeks old! We started up the Grapevine (Nasty mountain pass), I-5, and got about 3/4 of the way up and the cruiser bucked, started beeping, and triggered the ckeng light. Got a few miles up the road, pulled over and checked things and everything looked ok. Drove for about 50 miles, came to a stop sign, went to accelerate and it started bucking/surging/loss of power! I'm about 2hrs from home out in the middle of B.F.E. So I'm pretty flustered, car only has 2200 miles on it. Call chrysler roadside, they say they'll only pay $100 bucks to tow it. I tell them I don't care where they tow it or how far cause I aint paying a dime. So they tow it the nearest town, Taft which is oil field country. We get to the dealer and can't find any after hours drop form or drop slot. I finally find a window where the some of the panels have been removed and make shift drop slot, I think. Go into town, get some dinner, talk the local diner out of an envelope. I write a detailed explanation, put the keys in, seal it and drop it in the slot and hope for the best. Dad drives 2 hrs, one way, to pick me, misses and daughter up and take us home. No rental car place in the area.

Get home earlier this morning, see a LARGE puddle under the new truck! I'm too tired to deal with it, go to bed, check out in the morning.

Get up, crawl under truck, puddle is coolant! Call local dealer, advised, told to get in right away so they can take care of it. Cole Chrysler is great, local dealer, they always take care of me!

Call dealer in Taft, advised, they have my keys and envelope. Talked with S.A. (Service advisor) told that the PT has a dirty throttle body and 2 faults for TPS and MAF sensor. She called me a few hours later and said they cleaned the throttle body, but could get the maf or tps to fail. I told its hard to believe that with only 2200 miles the T.B. is dirty, she agreed. So we talked about a rental car while they were working on. She told me chrysler doesn't pay for rental/loaners! She told me to call DC and explain my situation to them. So I hang-up call DC and told them my stories about how I have 2 of there brand new that are both broke down and in the shop! In so many words I was told to pound sand! We had words and she put me on hold and called the Taft dealership while I waited. Taft told her that my cruiser was ready and they couldn't find any problems. I told the DC rep that was a bunch of crap compaired to what they had just told me prior to my call. I called the taft dealership back and started in on them on why they tell me one thing and then tell DC something different. She say's the service manager just made that decision. I asked about all crap she told me about the TB and tps/maf faults. She told me she made a mistake! I started asking technical questions she could answer so she got the service manager on the phone. He told there was only one code and that was for the tps and map sensor. I told him there should of been 2 seperate faults, he said no, there combined. I asked for the fault code, he couldn't provide it because the bonehead tech didn't bother to write it down or print it out. Then all of a sudden he gives me a code. I tell them I'm just going to pick it up tomorrow.

So I researched this code they gave me and the code doesn't event exist!

So my local dealer called and said the truck was fixed, loose hose/clamp on the bypass hose on the passenger side rear of the head. Went and picked up truck, told them about my grief and they say bring it to them and they'll fix it.

Sorry about the long rambling, but, I think the thing that pushed me over the edge was DC lack or NO customer service to be little accommodating! ESPECIALLY SINCE I JUST BOUGHT 2 NEW VEHICLES!



P.S. My local dealer had a rental car reserved for me prior to my arrival with the @ there expense!

 

Wow man, sorry to hear about your bad experience, there is definitely something to be said for sticking with local/regular dealers. I bought my truck 2 hours away in PA, had death wobbleupon getting home, took it back to them to have them fix it , replace a torn tie rod boot (exactly one week after purchase). "Well, there is nothing here that would really fail a state inspection, you are good to go." No work was done, nothing was replaced. I wasted about 5 hours of my day + fuel down there and back for them to tell me that nothing was wrong.