Oil pan replaced a couple of days after purchased. Dealer took care of it at no cost.
That's it!
The base model features a 2.7-liter V6 that seems a bit challenged by the heavy bulk of this car. From a dead stop the car is a little slow and a little noisy, these minor annoyances had me thinking that I'd better trade up to the ES model. But, after looking at the posts here from ES owners, the vast majority of which are totally negative, I think I made the right choice.
Its mind boggling to hear other people label this car a "lemon." I just do not see it. This car has given me absolutely not one bit of trouble in the past two years since I bought it.
The only issue concerns the oil pan. This car is a former Hertz rental car. I believed it was a good idea to buy a former fleet car because "fleet-maintained" generally translates into "well-maintained." Take oil changes for example. You can bet that the oil was changed regularly at it's manufacturer-recommended intervals. This relates to the only time it's been in for repair: The oil pan drain plug, made of iron, stripped the threads of the oil pan, which could have resulted in a catastrophic loss of oil if the screw were to fall out. It's a safe bet that, if the oil pan threads were stripped at just 27,000 miles when I bought the car, the oil must have been changed quite often.
The dealership was, fortunately for me, very cooperative and replaced the oil pan for me at no charge.
Since that time... so far so good! I'd buy another big cruiser like this any day. The Intrepid is what American cars are all about: Big, spacious living rooms on wheels! Let the Europeans make due with there teeny little lawn mower cars, the Intrepid is what a car should be.
Hey, I posted a review about my 1999 Intepid ES titled great car, but financail nigtmare. I just wanted to point out a few things. First I here that the 2.7L Intrepid's have the worst reputation because the engine is not stong and powerful enough for such a big car. The 3.2L or the 3.5L engines are much better. With that said I know I came off really stong in my review, and I have every right to feel upset about my Intrepid es. The truth is I really love my Intrepid, I love the features, the power the size and the comfort level. I have always taken good care of it, oil changes every 3000 miles regular tune ups,and I keep it looking like new. but its such a dissappointment that no matter how much I take care of it all these unexpeted things keep going wrong. I really do feel that its do to the poor disign which is chryseler's wrong doing. The transmissions are the main things known to give out on all models of the intrepid and of course its twin the chrysler 300M. infact the dealership told me that I must have taken good care of my trasmission because they usely have people coming in to replace them at around 80,000- 90,000 miles and my transmission just started to have issues at 120,000. And of course the expected life of the transmission is supose to be 160,000. Overall if it would of been disigned better so that the parts would have a decent life instead of a sort one, it would truely be the perfect car in my opinon. And of corse they would disscontinue it in 2004 after all the complants I bet. I here they have a new model coming posibbly in 2007, that features a hybrid model. I just hope they worked all the bugs out this time around.
Rental cars are the worst to buy used. You'd think a rental company would keep up on maintanaince, but with hundreds of cars to deal with everyday, they sometimes have to ignore these procedures. Not to mention the way people drive a rental car. From my experience, the first time a customer gets a car that isn't theirs, they drive it like they stole it, which increases the wear substantially. Overall, not a good buy if you want longevity.
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