1996 Dodge Intrepid Highline review from North America

Crusty brake lines needed to be replaced. Expected for an Ohio car.

Replaced steering rack bushings and sub frame bushings at 181,000. I was told by the original owner that these were all original.

A little bit of rust on the underside, nothing major, yet again, expected on an Ohio car.

Car is very nice, rides smooth and handles well, a rare combination, usually cars either drive smooth and have crappy handling, or vice versa. I'd rather have a floor shift with buckets, but I hear the split bench and column shift models are much lighter.

Surprisingly quick car, but could be faster having 214hp, however the song the 24V motor sings at wide open throttle makes up for that.

The transmission is original, only because the owner properly cared for it by flushing the transmission every 20k miles with a new filter and used ONLY Mopar fluid. He had also added a larger cooler 1000 miles after he bought the car new. Transmission shifts very crisp with no problems or hiccups.

However...

Reading on here, I cannot believe the amounts of people having problems with these cars, sounds to me like most of these problems were from blatant abuse or possibly a bad batch of parts. Mine had the ORIGINAL bushings at 181k, and had finally went bad. I really don't understand how someone can buy a car with 150,000 miles, and start to have problems with it, and call it a piece of junk. You have zero knowledge of how that car was treated, what fluids were used, etc.

I know there is the occasional lemon or few, but seeing negative reviews in large numbers is unbelievable to a huge extent. My neighbor had a 1994 New Yorker that was all original and died at 234,000 miles only because it was involved in a accident. My aunt also owned a 1997 Concorde that she took great care of, and sold it with 160,000 miles, she too had no problems.