1998 Chrysler Neon LX review from UK and Ireland

When we bought our Neon the gearbox played up a bit even on the drive home, but after a transmission fluid change it was OK. Within the 6 months that we owned it the following things went wrong or were wrong:

Once in a while gearbox would suddenly try to select 2 gears at the same time and sometimes wouldn't pull away faster than 8 or 9 miles an hour while it decided if it wanted 1st or 2nd gear. This was scary if you were pulling out into traffic, never knew if it would work or not.

Also the head gasket started leaking, but we were warned this would probably happen. We were given a quote for £600 to fix it.

The air conditioning unit didn't work when we bought the car, only we didn't know that at the time. Only later did we see that there wasn't even a belt on it. After reading other reviews on-line we realize it was probably a mistake to ever think it would work, as they are known to go wrong as well.

Also, one day the reverse lights gave up and quit working. The fuse was OK, and the bulbs were OK, but no power was getting to the lights, we were told the reverse switch needed replacing. That was only £12 to buy.

Gas mileage wasn't very good either, and in a country where we pay 84p per liter I'd really like better gas mileage.

I loved the look of my purple Neon, but if we'd known about all the common troubles associated with the 1997-1998's I probably wouldn't have given it a second thought. Once bitten, twice shy.