My brother's crappy luck with his car

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Jim Karr

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SW Michigan..Bangor/Covert area
My older brother bought a 1999 Chrysler Concorde from a dealer who is a close friend of mine. (This is where I feel guilty, recommending the dealer.) The car was equipped with 2.7Liter V6.

Last Saturday, he couldn't get it to start. Thinking it might be gasline freeze, he put in some drygas. No different.

Took it to a mechanic friend who knows cars backwards and forwards. Seems that the 2.7 was the Chrysler self-destruct king. Usually between 80 and 90 thousand miles, the timing chain would break, which is usually not a big deal in an engine. In this car, however, the entire engine would stack up internally, making repairs impossible.

Now he got 147,000 miles out of the car, but a replacement engine is $1500 out of a junkyard if you can find one. Seems these had a 100% failure rate.


Followed the recommended service intervals to a letter............sorry charlie consumer!
 
That sucks, but 147,000 temperate climate miles out of an American V6 is pretty good.

BTW that is called an interference engine. The rotating assembly interferes with the valve assembly if it gets too far out of time. Lots of cars have that, usually with timing belts though (they are cheaper). What a great reason to replace your timing belt at the mfr's recommended intervals! I guess they have to make money somehow, eh?
 
I wouldn't complain about 150k miles, nor would I complain about a $1,500 replacement. Furthermore, I'd be inspecting the timing belt on an interference engine daily :p
 
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