PKRWUD - Diagnose THIS!!!
 

Hey Chris. I know this isn't a Ford question, but I need some help with this POS car of my wife's.

The patient: A 97 Dodge Neon:
The symptoms: When you first start it up in the morning or after it's been sitting for awhile it has what sounds like a wrist pin or rod bearing knock. After the car warms up it goes away. The car has 80,000 miles on it and was rebuilt under warranty by a respectable Dodge dealership near me at 35,000 miles after I noticed the exact same noise. They told me it was in fact a rod bearing that time.

The conditions: Oil has been changed by the dealership every 3000 miles and is driven by my wife who rarely sees anything over 55 mph. She does have somewhat of a bad habit of starting the car and putting it in gear before it even hits the first compression stroke, but I'm trying to train her.

What the hell is going on with this d@mn car? Do these Neons have an oiling problem that needs to be fixed? I'm thinking of yanking the engine and sending it to a speed shop and have it built for rice, uh, I mean race so my wife can have a toy too.

If you need any more info let me know.
Thanks.

you didn't get my memo about avoiding Dodge Neons at all costs??? Sorry!

They are junk, and have been plagued with problems. Most notably was a head gasket failure that would allow oil to leak out between the head and block. This was supposedly fixed by '97. Other problems include a very tough to remove balancer, cheap cams & gear, which frequently shear off the key, bending the valves, and timing belt failures. The Majority of them need a new head by the time they hit 60k miles due to weak castings. They are just plain cheap engines. The fact that you got a fairly trouble free 45k miles out of the second engine is actually pretty good.

Sorry.

Next time read my memo!

Take care,
-Chris

I agree, they are just junk. I think it's time to lose the car somehow, get insurance money for it, and buy another stang with a v6 for her. That could be her toy.

That's what I've been telling her ever since we've been together. She had the car before I met her and would never have bought it if I had anything to do with it.

I told her to get rid of it after the first rebuild but she's stubborn and insists that she loves that car. I can understand that, but a lemon is a lemon, no matter how fun it may be to drive.

Anyone have a new Focus that can give her some opinions? She would have to have a front wheel drive so a Mustang is unfortunately out of the question.

Thanks.

would a rod bearing make the oil pressure go down and make the gauge read all messed up??...in other words if i had a bad rod bearing would i notice the oil pressure doing a dance???


thanks

Shoehorn a 5.0 in that unit.:D

You heard what the man said, he wants me to shoehorn a 5.0 in there. I'm all for it, but I don't have the time to make it all the way out there, so you'll have to bring it here.

Incidentally, it's probably piston slap from poor fit. Very common, also on the GM 3.1L engines, which have a standing recall on any 3.1L that slaps longer than 1-2 minutes. :rolleyes: They also say it doesn't "hurt" the engine. Yeah, I can't see how metal hammering away on pistons and cylinder walls could be bad, lol. What basically happens is the piston needs to expand to take up the extra room in the cylinder from poor boring. The Chrysler's also had HUGE problems with the 2.5L and rod bearings. They stock (I'm not joking) a 0.250" under rod bearing at the warehouse. Yep, 0.010, 0.025, 0.050, 0.100, 0.150, 0.250. When your warehouse stocks 6 different undersized rod bearings, you might just have a quality issue there. :rolleyes:

Hmmmmm. A 5.0 in a neon. Now there's an idea.

Well, I'm not really up to something that would take that much work, and besides, my wife wouldn't know what to do with that much horsepower. She has a hard enough time with what she has now. Maybe one of these days I'll let her drive my Stang and see how well she does.

That, and can you imagine the judicious application of the BFH that would be required?