QuestionHello,
Car has been sitting in the yard as a "yard ornament" for a year. WHY!?!?.. Here's the story:
Had not had ANY trouble with the car AT ALL until summer 2009. As I was exiting my driveway one day I noticed delayed acceleration, then when the brake petal was pressed I had to wait about 5 seconds before the car actually STOPPED... Turned around and headed back home (after several FAILED attempts to enter my driveway due to this "stopping issue"). MIL light came on, followed instructions in Manual, but NO success. Towed to Dealer, with "supposedly" chewed O2 sensor wire, which found out later is covered in a S O Y B A S E D plastic!! (Isn't soy a food, hum...) NOT COVERED UNDER warranty!!!! $500 to fix!! Well, while driving (a W E E K later), heard a POP and a burning smell, still drove the car home as MIL had not appeared. It never started again and has been sitting there with ONLY 20k (that's TWENTY THOUSAND, like 20,000) miles since then due to estimations of paying $500/week to keep getting it fixed (and YES, I do have the extended warranty, a lot of good it does, though...), in addition to all the other NORMAL maintenance/payments/insurance/taxes. One would have to be a millionaire to own a Chrysler, it seems... since obviously NOTHING is covered and always deemed by Chrysler as "abuse"!!! Oh, and (of course) now the battery is DEAD, had to use the KEY to unlock instead of pressing a button.. HELP!! Or just maybe Chrysler did sell it to me as "yard-art" after all, they should NOW state that in all their Owners' Manuals...
AnswerHi Jill,
I am not here to defend the Chrysler Corp. but to try and give owners assistance in keeping their cars running economically. If you want to move ahead on dealing with the 'no start' then you do need a functional battery. It is new enough that it can be recharged with a battery charger you could buy. or remove the battery and take it to a shop and have it recharged.
Then you could try the ignition key to see if you might get some indication of the cause of the problem by turning it 'on-off-on-off-on and leave on' doing that in 5 seconds or less elapsed time. Then watch the odometer window to see if the 20,000 disappears and instead any 4-digit numbers preceded by a P appear. Let me know and we can see what they suggest. If not, then a readout of the fault codes by means of a plug-in reader can be done at any reputable shop for $40 or less.
If you have the extended warranty I would encourage you to pursue it and read its provisions to see what sort of choice you have for where it can be serviced under that warranty and what are the specific provisions of the warranty. Does include towing service to a garage? I would believe that almost any cause for a no start would be covered substantially by the warranty. It is however up to you to initiate action if you want to try and remedy the situation. I don't understand the "estimations of paying $500/week to keep getting it fixed". Was that said by warrantor repair shop or ?
I can tell that obviously you are angry and frustrated, but sometimes you have to be persistent to get your rights under warranty provided. Small claims court is another possibility. If you get some technical information such as fault codes from the engine control memory that I can help you with please let me know.
Roland
