Showing posts with label frustrating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label frustrating. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Dodge Durango 98, frustrating wago

It is so frustrating when school starts but not your car. You get stressed and mad, not knowing what to do to get to school.

Started driving Dodge Durango 98 Model in the year 2006. It is a used one from first owner and I'm the second one. It exploded the first time we took it to a 20 minute drive since we bought the car. That was scary!!!


Dodge Durango 98 has many problems. One repair shop owner even said it is junk. Ouch! Made me feel like idiot buying a Dodge.

Year 2009, while heading to San Francisco Airport to pick a friend, the car started smoking like having barbecue. Something was wrong with it and have to turn back to home and get the other car. My friend waited for more than 2 hours and was fine.

After that, we brought the car to car shop, have it checked and radiator needs change. Well, it turned out that aside from the radiator, other parts need to be replaced as well and total bill was $1700. Ok. I am happy to get my life back, ops, my car back I mean. Days after the expensive repair, the car sensor malfunctioned and all lights are on in front of me. ABS, Brake, and all turns on all the time. Speedometer no longer work. That was a little scary to see the lights on while driving, thinking at all times there is something wrong with the car and ( cross my finger) will leave me stuck in the middle of the road when I do not know. Sure it did a few times cause me to wait for help because the car just won't turn over. It will try but die in a few seconds.

When it was time for DMV renewal, smog did not pass because sensor was not working. This is another car shop time. I found out that there are so many sensor in this car, which if it fails, cause so many problems just because the sensor failed. That doesn't mean something is wrong with the car but nobody can really tell, even the mechanic who is using high tech computers. I wonder if car makers are making it complicated to understand cars? I thought computers are supposed to help speed things up by diagnosing the problem. It doesn't seem to help at all.

Year 2010, the transmission failed? I do not know. This is what happens when the driver is not equipped with knowledge on cars. It makes me helpless and dependent to those who can understand cars. When I turn it on, it turns over but will keep at a low speed. If I try to speed up, the odometer works so hard that it almost gets to the red lines which scares me. This time, we decided to rebuilt the transmission for a total of $2900 including the sensor replaced with a 10,000 mile warranty and all lights in the front no longer stays on. Two weeks later, car won't start. Well, actually it tries to start and just die like the sound of someone dying. This time the tow truck has to come and tow it to the car shop, am hoping they can fix it with no more money to pay. It is a pain to keep paying for this car.

Have this really bad experience with Dodge Durango which the mechanic always tells me, Durango is a junk car. Ouch! What a mistake picking this car...