On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 18:32:31 GMT, Steve B wrote:
On 22 Jun 2005 16:57:26 GMT, Dave Hinz wrote:

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".

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.

That car was an '88 Saab 900 Turbo. I replaced it with a '99 Saab 9-5.
What was your point exactly?

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?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

150 is a _lot_ more than 33. And, they've known about those failure
modes for _years_.