Comment by trollbridge | Hacker News Reader

Comment by trollbridge | Hacker News Reader

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I own a 2002 Grand Cherokee which sometimes will have a 10A+ power drain for no apparent reason. Of course it doesn’t do it when I’ve got my voltmeter on it, except once (when the 10A fuse in my Fluke blew). I resigned myself to unplugging the battery or leaving it plugged in to a high current battery charger at home, and leave it running if I drive it somewhere.

I rented a Jeep Liberty or Compass circa 2018 whose headlights were permanently in DRL mode: couldn’t turn them off or on. Fortunately I didn’t need to drive at night.

In 2017, rented a 300 with 500 miles on it; the infotainment was completely broken, which hosted the controls for the seat heaters and temperature setting. It was well below zero in Minneapolis but we had to drive around with our windows down because the fancy climate system defaulted to max heat blast + max heated seats based on ambient temperature.

Long ago I had a 1996 Neon where the wiring harness started to fail, and the speedometer would stop working. Later on the oil light would come on despite oil pressure being fine. Eventually the entire car just quit running at all at random - nothing but a dim oil light. I sold the car for scrap for $65 since I got tired of being randomly stranded.

So what I’m saying is that it sounds like Chrysler has managed to actually keep doing the same thing for 29 years: electrically unreliable vehicles.

In my personal experience with cars that had strange electrical problems, they tend to be on a bad ground somewhere in the loop. I once took a Chevy S-10 to a place my dad recommended. A guy walked out to ask what the issue was, he nodded, took a step back to look at the truck and asked the year of the truck. He then nodded and said "Yep", and then without looking reached under the dash on the driver's side and tightened a screw by hand. All electrical problems went away. He walked away after politely telling me to have a nice day. I was baffled, and he said it would cost him more in time to write the repair up than he could honestly charge me.

The point is that stable ground connections are notoriously hard on something that by design shakes, rattles, and rolls with all of the vibrating and bouncing on our "modern" streets. It's also a very easy thing to misdiagnose unless you're a mechanic that specializes in automotive electrical systems. It also takes time for new year models to display their warts enough that non-dealer mechanics gain experience repairing them.

Yes ... However. Most car manufacturers manage to deal with this without it becoming too common, with standard engineering controls ( proper fasteners, torque specifications, QC etc).

The neon issue was the engine harness fraying to the PCM and eventually burning out either that pin on the PCM or cable grounded itself.

Back in the day I was buying these, around 2005' or so, for $300-400 non stop and repairing that, the dash that cracked and misc cosmetics.

They were great cars, the R/T model in manual was fantastic in gas, reliability and safety (sadly crashed it.) but boy was 16-20yr old me happy with these neons. Can't believe they sold shy of $9,999 when new (for base of course)

Just reading your post took me back 2 decades, wow.

The dodge Neons had a an issue for over a decade where the bottom trim 4cyl engine would leak oil constantly. They often needed a top up of oil with each tank of gas.

In late 2000s, the problem was finally fixed by Dodge switching to a multi-layer steel head gasket. They had previously used a cheaper option. No more oil leaks.

Gotta love penny pinching.

Absolute dogshit cars. Mine ran better when you first started it up in the dead of winter at -10f because then the tolerances were actually good! Once it warmed back up it ran like shit again.

They handled outright abuse very well though. My sister drove it up state to deliver it to me for 400 miles with zero oil and she does not drive slow. It once threw the alternator belt while I was driving and I couldn't understand why the electrics were acting so weird, at least until I turned off the windshield wipers and headlights and CD player and things worked better. The OEM belt we bought to replace it basically did not fit and we had to move the alternator to the absolute extent of its travel to make it work. But work it did. It also never ran on more than 3 cylinders except in the freezing cold.

Probably one of the best "For your young child" cars ever produced. That was before everyone had to armor up little Timmy in a Pershing Tank though, so now we all suffer from worse roads, more expensive cars, and lack of tiny car market. It was weirdly good in the snow, which is funny because the tires were $34 at walmart, but it weighed almost nothing so it didn't need traction.

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