Comments: 1-15, 16-23
Transmission blew.
Lights had untraceable shorts.
Frame rails collapsed.
Brakes squealed.
Valve guides wore out.
Windows leaked.
Hatch leaked.
Hatch rusted.
Where should I start? I bought the car in March of 2002 with 83920 miles on it. Out of all the Talon/Eclipse cars I drove this one had the least amount of high speed whine. I have never been in a 2G DSM that didn't have it. So, I figured it was like the lifter tick in a 300GT, quirk of that line of cars. The noise got louder as time passed. I took it back to the dealer to have it covered under warranty and was told "The warranty only covers items if they break. No matter the condition of the inside of the tranny, if we take it apart your warranty will only cover items that are broken. Worn and ready to break is not covered. And you will have to pay the bill." 3 days after the warranty ran out the transmission exploded. Driving down the interstate, cruise on, 70mph, flat hwy, and BAM! Tach goes through the roof and I have to coast to the next exit. Cost to repair? Right at $1000 for a used transmission installed. After which I found that the automatic transmission in the N/A 2G DSM's (43TE (4 speeds load level 3 transverse mount electronicly shifted) ) are shared with pretty much every other FWD Chrysler product. And that the question is never if it will break. But how often.
If you are ever in the market for one of these cars. Pay careful attention to the front sub frame rails. Just behind the trailing edge of the front wheel opening, toward the center of the car. Owners and even certified mechanics like to place jackstands and chassis lift pads there. (logically, as it is normally the strongest part of the front of a unibodied car) But not so on 2G DSM's! You will find that most of these cars will have the rails mashed to the floorboard to varying degrees from being suspended from them during maintenance.
At roughly 87000 miles the valve guides had worn enough to allow the engine to smoke slightly upon the first startup of the day.
Never could get the front brakes to stop squealing. Loudest on the passengers front brake. Three sets of pads (both organic, semi-metallic, and full metallic), 3 sets of anti-squeal plates, along with more bottles of brake pad glue than I cared to buy ended with me giving up and just letting them squeal.
Bad grounds in interior and exterior light wiring cause intermittent light malfunction and with regards to the dome light, common failure.
Call this one a fault of the installing company and employees, but, when my car was broken into all the busted glass had to be replaced. Both door windows and both 3/4 windows. Glass company (major chain) never got the door glass aligned correctly. The drivers door window was replaced 3 times and the windows were realigned weekly (serious) for 3 months at two different shops of that chain until I was told that because of the strict manufacturing tolerances of the auto maker they were not able to align the windows as accuratly as they came from the factory. And that they were as good as they were going to get. Even though they leaked when you washed it which they never did before.
That was the last straw. The glass replacement left me with leaky windows and rattling interior panels. The second transmission was beginning to whine. The brakes never would stop squealing. At 99706 miles I had, had enough and I sold the car.
Minor concerns to pay attention to, to prolong the life of you hatch. Water becomes trapped in the rubber seal between the hatch and the hatch glass. When drying your car after washing and with the hatch closed, stick your thumbnail under the rubber window trim on the exterior of the hatch at its lowest points (10 o'clock and 2 o'clock on the glass with the rear center of the glass being 12 o'clock. this will drain the trapped water and keep the hatch from rusting in this area.
I was very excited to buy my car as my previous 1st G Talon was a 100% reliable and fun to drive car. But this last Talon has too many Chrylser parts in it to be anywhere near reliable. But they are nice cars if you don't mind replacing engines and transmissions as your 3000 mile maintenance. call your local import salvage yard for information on the reliablity (and cost) of these parts. And be ready for your Chrysler dealer to tell you to go to a Mitsubishi dealer because they cannot work on talons. At which time the Mitsubishi dealer will tell you that he can fix it, but that it would be cheaper to go to a Chrysler dealer as the car is a Chrysler product. (100% serious)
Just wondering... did you tell the buyer WHY you were selling the car? Or did you advertise it in "excellent condition"? (If you say the latter, I'll never answer another car ad again!)
I have a 97" Esi, with 90,000 miles on it. It's a great car, never had any problems with it since new. If you take car of a car it will run forever!
I totally agree with the previous comment. Any car's reliability will vary from great to horrible depending on the maintenance that has been done on it. I am an owner of a '97 TSi AWD and have a few friends with DSM cars. If taken care of, these cars are bulletproof, otherwise... well, any car can be ruined.
I have a 98 esi and have racked up 119000 miles and nothing has gone, but the alternator and license plates lamp bulbs.
I have a 1997 Eagle Talon Esi. I bought it in '98 at at 33,000, and it's now up to 110K. Until two years ago, the car ran well without needing much beyond general maintenance. But since then, I've had to buy a new driver's side door handle ($200), pay for a host of belts and pulleys ($500), a new head gasket ($1,200) because my car was hemorrhaging oil, and just recently my timing belt and surrounding parts broke down 10K before I was scheduled for maintenance ($700). There are a few other repairs (including electrical stuff) I cannot specifically recall in the past two years that added up to at least $500. So, I really liked my car, until I spent my hard-earned cash to keep it maintained. Mind you, I take good care of my car and do routine maintenance far beyond what most would consider "routine."
Do you ever think about the name of this car; Eagle Talon.
Eagle means, well, Eagle.
Talon means the claw of an Eagle, so Eagle Talon means Eagle Eagle's Claw.
And you thought it was the Dog's whatsits.
How about a Jaguar Jaw
Or a Panther Paw
Maybe not.
I purchased a 97 Eagle Talon. Never again will I buy an Eagle that is the worst car ever!!! I bought the car and it only had 89,000 miles on it. I had it for a couple of months and things went down hill from there!!!
First the brakes started to make loud noises then I got that fixed, but it came back, and then after that my car started to jerk around like it wanted to take off even that it was in park on my feet was on the brakes so I had got a tune up.
After that the car started to over heat so I had to get an thermostat, then it was still running hot, and then I had got a air filter and my oil change, And then when I came to get into the car and try to start it up, it would not start at all, so now I have to get an H2O sensor and also a gas filter because my car is pumping out black smoke and making loud noises.
I wish would have known that these cars were this horrible, because I would have never even spent a dollar on this car, but when I finish paying it off, yes I am going to sell it. It is too much pain and stress.
Oh I forgot; on the driver's side the brake went out twice. I had to replace it, and also my horn does not work - crazy!!!!
Judging by the last comment's grammar alone, I'm not surprised they had the problems they did. I'm the second owner of a '96 Esi, and I'll tell you what, if you baby it, it will baby you. This is the best car that I've ever owned, and I have no plans to ever sell her. In fact I never would have though the day I bought her I would actually WANT to drop another 10 grand into her with upgrades. Have you ever seen the 50 year old guy down the street with that cherry '65 Mustang, that you know he poured blood, sweat, and tears into? That'll be me with my Talon whipping up on all the punk kids running around in their rich daddies sports cars. No car will ever be maintenance free and if you think it will, you are sadly mistaken. It will always require money put into it, but can you think of anything else that doesn't? Oh, and another thing, to all those out there making plans to turn your Talon into a boring old Eclipse, please, do yourself and your car a favor and sell it. The next kid that stays true, drops all of his savings into it and blows past you on the highway will make you smile and say, WOW!
Do yourselves a favor and buy one with a manual transmission. Less headache, less fixin, less replacin, no fluid change, and hey its SOOOOOO much more fun to drive!
You are better off without your talon, so don't feel bad about selling it. I have had two, a 96 TSI AWD, and a 93 ES. The speed, handling, and styling of my TSI AWD was unbelievable, but the repair bills were killing me. I babied it, did many major repairs (rebuilt engine, turbo, clutch, etc) and still continued to let me down though. The main problem with these cars are that the engineering is great, but the parts are cheaply made. On top of that, the prices are astronomical for the parts and repairs for these cars. (costs easily $900 for a new clutch)
As for the transmissions, the manual transmissions are just as bad as the auto transmissions. On my 93 Eagle Talon ES, I have spent $2000 just on repairs for my 5 speed manual, and the car only has 105k. Constantly I fought with problems with the clutch (replaced master and slave cylinder, flywheel, clutch, most of the lines, etc), syncros, etc. Its left me stranded before because of the problems and my tranny still grinds and sometimes does not want to go into gear! It was my daily driver, but now it sits in my drive way dead too.
However, I do have something good to say about all dsm's. They were great years ago when they were new, well taken care of, and were one of the great "poor man's" sports cars of their day. Now that time is passed so now you can only appreciate the ones that are still running out there.
Just bought a 97 talon ESI for 500 bucks, wasnt running, and found out that the previous owner (Obviously a teenager) had installed a K&N Air filter and snorkel on it.. this snorkel would up being about 5 INCHES off the ground, and he ran through a big puddle of water, sucked it into the engine, and broke #1 rod in the middle... I replaed the piston/rod, and honed the cylinders, re-ringed it, and replaced the oil pan... runs like a top showing 150,000 miles on it... Try reworking a cadillac catera engine in youre own garage... talk about a nightmare... anyway back to the talon, as you well know it's a basic carbon copy drivetrain wise to the Eclipse, and Plymouth Laser (Owned a turbo AWD 1993) super fast little car.. sold it cause id be getting in trouble really soon... The Chrysler power plants are bullett proof unless you do something stupid like the kid that owned my Talon..I've read the phrase "if you take care of it itll take care of you" and it is indeed true... anyone can get a lemon, but I submitt that the fact that you see so many eclipses, talons, and lasers still out there is indeed a testament to Chrysler..I'm typically a GM fan myself, but after the cadilac catera I've changed my mind...
I just bought a 1997 Talon ESI a couple weeks ago, for 4 grand I see it still as a decent buy. It has 84,000 miles and looks great. There is one overwhelming problems that is very annoying however. I recently put an after market deck into the car, worked great and sounds nice. Now this could completly be my fault, but as soon as the next night came I noticed I had no dash lights, great, so I ripped it apart and unplugged everything not stock, didn't help a bit. A day after that my tail lights blew a fuse. Fixed that and found that the dimmer switch burned up. I ordered one off ebay, but with the primitiave tests I have done so far I have a bad feeling as soon as I slap it in there its going to burn up again. I read a comment stating problems with grounds... I think I ran into a similar thing, jiggling wires when installing the deck may have created a short to ground that's going to pester me for a long time. (I'm currently using two LED's plugged into the cigarette lighter for my gauges, blue they look cool, but not very effective.)
This EXACT thing happened to me how do I fix it??? the lights went out found the broke fuese, but it in and smoke came out from behind the cd player that was just installed!
I have a 97 Esi. The only problem I have had was jumping belts. I have narrowed that down to the crank pulley which I am replacing. Other than that no problems. I have an after-market deck in mine and so far no light problems.
I had my timing belt replaced by the dealer, but they did not tighten the cranck pulley right and I had the same problem jumping belts just have the pulley tighten right and the problem is solved.