2001 Chrysler Intrepid Reviews - Page 2 of 2

What do you think of the 3.5 liter engine or the 3.3 liter engine?

I will be sending my beautiful, dark gray 2001 Intrepid to the junk yard because of anti-freeze flowing into the oil pan. This is the second engine, and it only has 4,500 miles, and yes, I typed that correctly, four-thousand five hundred miles on it.

The original engine was covered under warranty when I bought the car with 31,000 miles on it in 2002. Due to oil light flickering in 2006, the dealership put in a re-built engine at 39,900 miles, (my cost under warranty $100, yes $100).

The body has 43,500 miles on it now and is in great shape. I changed oil long before the 3,000 mile mark regularly. Called the Chrysler Assistance Center, told my story, called local Chrysler dealership. Played phone tag several times.

My engine is out of the 36,000/3 year warranty. I was going to take it to Chrysler to see if they would do something for me, but after reading many, many comments on the web, and talking to the over-burdened junk yards of Intrepid parts, I decided to forget talking with Chrysler. Nothing will be done anyway.

Thank God the car has been paid for over 2 years. My mechanic, the junk yard owners and Internet comments all said the 2.7 engine is a bad design. I loved that beautiful car, and now I have to say goodbye.

I am now saying goodbye to Chrysler, and will never buy another Chrysler product.

Basically, Chrysler has been bankrupt, near bankrupt or 2 steps away from of being bankrupt since the early seventies. Never mind the Iacocca years, the picture is the same. And a company struggling to survive has to chose cheap solutions. In the eighties they were smart enough to simply purchase a lot of technology and not to try to invent anything themselves, like the small engine strategy fitting the cars with technology from VW, Peugeot (Simca), Mitsubishi, Renault.

The problems starts when Chrysler tries to do something all to themselves. What happens is as following:

1. They make something durable, but which is technologically obsolete before it's even introduced, like their current V6/V8 line of engines. Reliable engines; but noisy, harsh, heavy, thirsty.

2. They fail catastrophically like with the Ultradrive or the LH line of engines, the 2.7L being the worst.

Daimler tried to straighten them out, but failed. Now it's Fiat that's going to get their fingers burned. The government bailed them out in the Iacocca years, but they've never really recovered. Just hanging in there making mediocre or poor cars.

Chrysler made an Intrepid. I have a junk one in my front yard. Bad motor.