Help, my car's a piece of excrement

GWashington1732

GWashington1732

Joined
Jun 20, 2009
Messages
13,240
I think my crappy 2006 Dodge Stratus is getting ready to bite it at 95,000 miles. It's been to the shop about 7 times in the past 3 months and they haven't found anything wrong with it, and while it's a comfort to know that the car really just is a a big lump of cow dookie it's on the verge of being dangerous to drive and I need to find out what's wrong with it before it leaves me stranded 10 miles from nowhere in the middle of the night. Here's what it's doing:

1. stalling outright, it's done it three times usually less than a mile after start up. Once after the last time they "fixed the problem"
2. It sounds like a helicopter at speeds over 30, I'm talking about loud thumping in the engine that causes the car to rattle when you slow down. It's been doing this for a while and it's getting worse every week.
3. Not accelerating, it sticks at one speed sometimes as low as 10mph and wont go any faster even with the pedal to the floor, and it roars loudly jumps around if you try to make it speed up. It does this at varying levels frequently, but not all of the time.
4. Metal clinking in the engine when I accelerate quickly it will do it only a few times then stop. It does this every time I drive it.
?. I thought I smelled burning oil at start up at one point but, it was weeks ago and I haven't noticed it since. Although that may just be because of the massive amounts of air freshener I'm using to cover up the smell of the carpet mildew (yeah my car's real classy), from the leak the body shop (owned by the same jokers who tell me that there's nothing wrong with my car) was supposed to have fixed.

Any of you car people have any idea of what I should be looking for? Other than a new car, unfortunately that's not really an option right now. When it is, I'll be careful to avoid anything made by Chrysler, they deserve to go bankrupt at this point. Well, they deserve bubonic plague, but I'll settle for never having to deal with them again.
 
Leaky injector or valve somewhere in there? We had an expedition that leaked coolant in such a way that it ate the seals causing a leak right in one of the cylinders which also allegedly lead to a problem with the alternator (which caused random everything shuts down type of stalls) It caused a lot of the problems youre talking about.

The knocking, burning smell, stalling and loss of acceleration certainly sounds like some sort of problem with gas not igniting on time. It could be as simple as a stuck valve, which can, very rarely, be fixed by putting some techron or fuel injector cleaner in every tank of gas for a ton of miles. You can also see how putting in premium fuel from chevron or shell works.

I assume you check your oil levels regularly and they are fine?

I've heard that premium fuel is a huge scam but im not so sure. I can tell you if i dont put it in my 5 year old car the engine knocks and has since day one.
 
Burning smell, low power ?? Stopped up catalytic converter comes to mind ? smell like rotten eggs?
Low grade gas could cause the knocking sound but I didnt think many fuel injection cars have this problem?
 
I've been checking the oil almost every day after I smelled the burning. I don't think it's leaking, but it does go through it kind of quickly, about a quart every few weeks with around 250 miles a week. No rotten egg smell, the carpet smells like a dirty kitty litter box, but that's a different problem.

I'm reading that a common problem with my car is that somehow sludge builds up in the engine and causes it to destroy itself.

Looked a bit more and found this
http://www.oilsludge.com/

Loss of oil pressure
Poor Gas Mileage
Stalling Engine
Jerky Acceleration
Engine Knocking
Piston Failure

I got four out of six of those and I don't really know about oil pressure.

Hopefully it breaks down before 100,000 miles because it's under warranty until then and since I've had it in there so many times and they either haven't found or haven't looked for a problem, they can't tell me that the car blew up due to neglect.

Edit: I forgot to mention my gas mileage problem, it got 15 miles to the gallon one week, that was $160 in 5 days when I was doing work at the shore.
 
One of my cars is in the shop as we speak. Its a 1996 Nissan Altima, and while driving it one day to school (close to finals last week) it died on the freeway. I got it started again and got up to about 55mph (still on the freeway) and the rpms just dropped from about 2500, I was able to start it up and git a little more distance before it happened again. It happened one more time, but I was able to get it to school.

The engine lite was on, and on that particular model you can turn a screw to get the computer to spit out the code by flashing the engine light x amount of times.

Anyways, the code was camshaft position sensor and some other sensor (I cant remember now, its in the manual in the car), so I called the shop and had it towed after class.

Its a good thing that I sent it to the shop, because the shop owner says "it ended up biting him in the ass"

The shop did a junkyard search (continental) for a used computer, they have put it in along with a new distributor and it died on them again... So that's how it sits at the shop as of yesterday.

I'd try sending it to a different shop, these guys that I found are putting a lot of their own time into it for me (so they say).

Good luck with your car!
 
Honestly it sounds like you need a new car, i know you said its not an option but frankly most of what you are saying sounds pretty bad.

Some of the sounds you are talking about could be either pinging, which is fixed by higher octane gas usually, or rod knock which means your engine is gonna explode. The helicopter sounds and lack of acceleration could also be a timing chain issue.
 
You have problems my friend. That loud thumping doesn't sound like the engine it sounds like a ball joint especially when you say it happens at higher speeds and rattles as you slow down. The jumping and inability to go faster than 10 mph sounds like a transmission problem and it also sounds like there is something going on in your fuel injection system, fuel pump or injectors. I have to be there to really offer you any help. I would say you take it to a Dodge mechanic at a Dodge dealership and be very careful while driving and if the car is still under warranty tell them to keep it until it is fixed.
 
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Just for the heck of it check your spark plugs. I work on an older Plymouth Breeze and the plugs will loosen up after a while. It would surge and stutter, act like it was going to die, and vibrate badly through the shifter. I pulled the transmission pan and changed the filter, no help. Code reader was fine. Went to change plugs and they were not even finger tight. Plus they were coated with oil. My car is a crappy 4 cyl. built in 1998 but may have the same problems. I just re-tighten the plugs every oil change and change the plugs about every other. I won't put more money than that in mine, it was a crappy car when new. Anyway it's cheap to check yourself and some shops won't.
 
i had a 03 intrepid,(i didn't buy it, came home from a contract and there it sat. i did get the honor of paying for it and getting it fixed tho, so that was a plus).
it had a v6, check/change the cam position sensor, my intrepid did that exact same shit. not an expensive job or part. if its not the v6 i got nothing.
good luck.
 
My '02 Stratus died with 130,000 on the odometer. Lots of little metal flakes in the pan that used to be my bearings, crankshaft, etc. Lots of black goop in there, too. Don't spend a dime getting it fixed.

Does it sound like your transmission is shifting? It might be stuck in second; so-called "limp in" mode. Happened to me when my transmission control module took a dump. If you've been running your poor, disposable (but oddly, not replaceable for less than two grand,) engine in second all this time, you might have cooked it.

If it's under warranty, take it out on the freeway and put your foot into it until it detonates (my own experiences might have lent an off color to this advice.)
 
If it's dealer or new vehicle warranty, start harassing chrysler directly. Take a video if you can, describe what it is doing as best you can. unfortunately, dealerships get very screwed on warranty work, so the try to avoid it. From the sounds of it, you have a very good case for a vehicle replacement, but that is no easy task. Your car is dead, it just doesn't know it yet. you could have problems with timing, harmonic balancer, ignition, fuel delivery, every sensor, probably shot bearings, and leaking piston rings. Is your coolant nice and clear looking (green, yellow, orange, whatever) or is it grungy and gunky looking? Is the leaking body a fault of the car, or was it hit?

You may want to contact some consumer reports type people, as they may be able to point you in the right direction to make lemonaid from your lemon.
 
Totally agree with taking the car to the dealer for the warrantee. Make them fix anything that's under the warrantee, and don't let them wiggle out of it like they will try to do. These car makers need to be held responsible for the pieces of dog turds they turn out.

Then when you get it straitened out, sell it for what uyou can get and go get a Honda or Toyota and never look back.
 
Go to the Dealer and ask for a mechanic to go with you on a test drive so that he can hear the sounds and see the problems. Then let them keep the car until it is fixed properly for the warranty. Don't let them off the hook, and don't give them one bit of wiggle room until its done right.
 
After thinking about it, I hope that the previous owner didn't run the engine close to being out of engine oil. The results from spalding and heat induced endeavours could leave you with melted camshaft and crank bearings. I'd say sell it, or get it diagnosed beforehand if your interested still.
 
Update on my car that was in the shop: They got it running, but the airbag light stays on. Talking about almost totaled.
 
It is clearly a power train issue and this is where Dodge should be stepping up and replacing or rebuilding the engine as it is under warranty. personally, I think you are being to nice about the entire ordeal. I had a issue with Ford once over a warranty issue and all it took was for me to walk into the show room and start freaking out in front of customers and my problem was promptly taken care of and I even got a free oil change out of the deal.

If the previous owner never had scheduled oils changes performed than you maybe SOL on the warranty. Did you buy the vehicle from the dealership?
 
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If its toast tell them to get a new engine on the road for you, they can pull and rebuild the tranny while they are waiting.
 
Bufford said:
Go to the Dealer and ask for a mechanic to go with you on a test drive so that he can hear the sounds and see the problems. Then let them keep the car until it is fixed properly for the warranty. Don't let them off the hook, and don't give them one bit of wiggle room until its done right.
Click to expand...

+100

Remember, with a warranty, you signed an agreement, and they signed an agreement. You have nothing to be ashamed of holding them to their half of the bargain.

Take someone with you that has that kind of personality if you want. Sometimes a backup helps. Be kind, and nice, but firm. Stand up for yourself man!
 
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