Chrysler: Pacifica Least of Chrysler's Worries

Nomen Nescio wrote: 

Have you ever seen an official response on any ng from any auto maker?

Matt

"Nomen Nescio" <com> wrote in message
news:com...

Student Mechanic, your beefs have been answered time and again. Your not
kidding
anybody by using a different handle. But just for the newbies to the group,
here we
go again:
 

Newsgroup posts can be forged, you cannot have an "official" response on
Usenet.
See the manufacturer's website for any official response to anything or
write a letter
to Chrysler.
 

Like what? Fiberglass? We already tried that on cars and it's a bust - the
goofball in the grocery store can bang a cart into your fender and crack it.
And there's little industry knowledge about the best way to make plastic
panels, all of them seem to be different, plus you can have paint adhesion
problems
and discoloring, etc. Plus repairing any kind of serious dent means total
panel replacement, you can't just bang them out and fill with Bondo and
paint.

Ford tried plastic intake manifolds on the Crown Vics and they cracked.
There's also been 100% aluminum engines built but reliability is a problem.

There's always a tradeoff between cost and "other gain" with that other
gain being weight or whatever. Well we have had a glut of steel on the
market for years, it's cheap. Plus manufacturing it doesen't create toxic
chemicals and use up precious hydrocarbons. And on top of that there's
never a disposal problem with steel, it's easy to recycle and doesen't end
up in a landfill, nor is burned and create toxic gasses. There's 100 years
of
paint technology to cover it, a tried and proven method called "galvanizing"
to make it rust proof, and it's easy to repair either by welding or
hammering
back into shape. And customers just plain enjoy the solidity of a
car manufactured out of metal.
 

The auto buying public doesen't accept a car if it's too light. They don't
like
the feel of driving it, and they are afraid they will get smooshed in a
crash.
There's a whole raft of deragotory terms, "econobox", "rice burner" etc.
to describe them. The automakers aren't going to make something that
people won't buy. Even the New Beetle was made deliberately heavier than
the original Bug.
 
car -- 

99.9% of the buying public isn't competent to do more than change the oil
in their cars, and with Jiffy Lube coupons in the Sunday paper for $10 oil
changes, few of them even do that much. And today the new car warranties
seem to be getting longer, apparently the people who actually work on cars
for a living know how to fix them cheap enough for the factory to pay them
to do it.
 

By the time most OEM fuel pumps go, the vehicle is getting to end of life,
unless the owners regularly ran the gas tank to empty before adding in fuel,
thus exposing the pump and letting it run hot.
 

Troubleshooting hasn't changed, you take the complex problem and break
it down to simpler problems. The newer vehicles are more complex and have
more components but their systems still break down to simple ones.
 

This is no different than any computer UPS that I've ever replaced
batteries in.
 

Yes, if you are the type that never replaces your battery and never looks
under the hood at the battery terminals. Batteries age. Keeping them in
the car until the car won't start is the old, stupid way to run your vehicle
and it's what keeps AAA in business. Lead acid batteries should always
be replaced on a regular schedule based on number of years in service
and their terminals should be covered with the correct anti-corrosion
electrolytic grease, if this is done they do not spit acid all over the
place
nor do your battery cables corrode into pieces.
 

Only a handful of engine designs have this problem. Most of them the head
gaskets last to 200 thousand miles and beyond. And unlike most car engines,
airplane engines are regularly serviced. If everyone checked their auto
engine
headbolts for correct torque at regular intervals, as part of an overall
preventative
maintainence, most engine head gaskets would last forever.
 

Thus adding greatly to the cost of the vehicle. People aren't going to pay
for
this and they DO use hardened bolts in places where they are required.
Suspensions collapsing isn't a common problem.
 
Use 

In which case the screw threads will get crammed with gunk, making a routine
aligment into a major production.
 

Once again, adding greatly to the cost of the vehicle. And water hoses
burst in
plenty other places than where the clamps are. Furthermore, once again if
people followed the manufaturers recommendations and dumped and replaced
their antifreeze at the recommended intervals, and inspected the water hoses
they wouldn't have these kinds of peoblems.
 

If oil is changed at the conservative 3000 mile mark, and a new copper
washer is
used on the oil drain plug, and the plug is properly torqued, this won't
happen
either. Blame the Amsoil freaks and their extended drain interval for this
problem.
 

Nothing if the driver knows what they are doing. I have had oil pressure
die
on the highway, due to me plumbing in a oil pressure guage and using a brass
rather than steel fitting on the oil pressure sender to tap off the pressure
guage
fitting. The brass tube fractured and the oil pressure dropped from 80 psi
to
nothing in about 10 seconds. In my case I saw the idiot light go red,
identified it
immediately as an oil problem, and simply took my foot off the accellerator
and
let the engine idle and coasted to the side of the road then shut off the
engine
as soon as I was stopped. There was no engine damage of course.

And as for a catastrophic loss of tranny fluid, well what is going to happen
is equally anticlimatic. Simply put the torque converter will freewheel and
the transmission will decouple from the engine, leaving the driver reving
his
engine and no power to the wheels. If the driver simply coasts to a stop
at the side of the road turns off the car, there will be no damage.

Sure, if the low oil pressure red idiot light turns on and the morons
keep driving, then their engine is going to grenade itself in a few miles.
Is driver moronicity a reason to criticize the machine? Is the goal of
automotive design to make a vehicle so moron-proof that 8 year
old children can drive them?
 

Because to properly drain the tranny you supposed to drop the pan
and replace the filter then wipe out all the dust and crud in the bottom
of the pan. If they figured that intelligent people were going to be
draining tranny fluid they probably would have put a courtesy drain
plug in, but they know that shortcut takers like you would just
drain the fluid then add new fluid and tell the customer the tranny
had been "serviced" before asking the customer to bend over so you
can "service the customer"
 

Some do have that. But your still going to end up with the pan full
of sludge unless you drop it.
 

A large, correctly sized fuel filter should last to the 100K mile mark
without needing replacement, if the vehicle is filled with gasoline from
gas stations that are selling clean uncontaminated gas. And with fuel,
it is safest to have a can-style filter that uses thread-on couplers for
the in and out fuel lines.
 

You can cut a seatbelt in half with scissors but people trust their lives
with them. Oh I know, we should get chains for seatbelts. And in
any case, there's still plenty of engines that use metal timing chains
and sprockets. Once again, this is an item that would not be a problem
if correct Preventative Maintainences were done.
 

You seem to know a lot about ex-toilet designers, you must be one yourself.

Ted