[jd_1138]

My wife's '05 Sunfire was recently totaled by a moron in a Chevy SUV, so we've been shopping for another small car. She fell in love with PT's and bought one a couple of days ago. It's an '06 Limited. I think it has most of the options (power sunroof, power everything including seat, trip computer) except for heated seats and traction control. We bought it at a local Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep dealership. It has 65k miles.

I made the mistake of not test driving it. She did. When I drove it after we got it home, I noticed a vibration when accelerating. It went away after about 10 miles of driving, so perhaps it was a sticky caliper or rotor or something. I hope.

But I did crawl under it before we bought it, and it's clean underneath -- no rust. And the Carfax showed consistent oil changes every 3k-5k miles at a couple of Chrysler/Dodge dealerships.

It's magnesium blue pearlcoat. I like all the cubby bins and such scattered throughout, and it's a cool car and is fun. PT's handle well. There are some twisties on a local road that we drove on last night, and it did well through them.

I am already thinking of getting some aftermarket rims. The stock alloys are kind of ugly. Also, are there any members here who are Chrysler/Dodge/PT mechanics in NE Ohio -- preferably with their own shop?

 

[dana44]

Welcome to the forum. Yes, the PT Cruiser is one of the best cars out there in the class, handle well, and do seem to be very durable. One would think they are top heavy but they aren't, and you will find you can do a little bit to control the gas mileage, too. Drive the car hard or semi-hard and she will get 17-20mpg, drive it like there is an egg under the gas pedal, let the transmission shift well below 3000rpm, she will get 25-28mpg all day long. I can actually tell when someone else drives mine, I tend to be pretty conservative in the city driving for gas mileage, so a heavy foot will definitely give more power, but the conservative and light foot gets you from point A to point B almost as fast. Back in 2002 Chrysler came up with the software to move fuel tables to make this happen and it switches from one to the other in about five minutes to learn the driver's habits.

 

[mr2tim]

I've had my wife's 2001 PT up for 2 front pad replacements in the last 50K miles and noticed that the pass front caliper seems to wear like crazy on the inner pad while the outer has minimal wear.
Also the pass side rear lower control arm bushing is subject to failure as is that pass side goofy engineered engine mount.(personal experience)

If your inquisitive and handy you might want to check this area for trouble.

Background: When I got the car (used from "repudable" dealer) the PO had run the frt inner rt pad completely away, absolutely ruined the rotor and melted the plastic wheel covering as a result. This is what may result if this brake caliper is YOUR problem??

Trust me JD, ignoring a problem and thinking it will go away just is not economically a worthwhile alternative as it may just accelerate other items to fail.

Mr2Tim

 

[jd_1138]

Thanks for the heads up. I will get my mechanic to check it out. I just was hoping it wasn't a transmission issue.