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Dodge/Plymouth Neon

1758 messages, Last post on Sep 22, 2009 at 9:56 PM
You are in the Dodge/Plymouth Neon Forum. Your Hosts are pat & karens
| Reed Brothers Dodge on the pike in Rockville, MD has always treated me well (except their body shop manager, but that's not where your problem is). It's a dealer and you'll pay premium prices but they are literally right next to the Shady Grove station on the Red Line. Carmax is right across the the Metro driveway from them. It's as far out as you can get on the Metro but I've never known them to do unnecessary work. I'll ask around at work when I can. These are pretty hectic days and I've been open-endedly (is that a word?) transferred to second shift. I'll see if I can get any other recommendations for you. | |
| Indeed We have very good experience with them. Their mechanics are very good. | |
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I could blow it in a big way at dollar Bud night at any number of establishments around my office. That reminds me of a funny story about my boss, but back to the car... Thanks for the Reed Brothers advice. It's an amber light that comes and goes and I might give it a few more days to see if it goes away again. If not, I think I'll take it up to Rockville and maybe play some pinball at Jillian's at White Flint on the way back (why is it that there are no dart boards or pinball machines in this entire city? The things I miss about Minnesota......) Thanks again for the help. Open-endedly sounds like a discription of our newest made-for-TV war, "Operation Infinite Justice." |
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| Before you spend any money on fixing an amber light it might be an intermittent problem in a wiring connection. At least eyeball your ground connections and make sure they look good. Pull apart and reconnect as many connectors as you can. There may be a small bit of corrosion in there somewhere. As the temperature of the wires rise so does the resistance. At a certain temp point you may be getting to where there is insufficient current flow through a connector giving a false fault reading. Saved me some money doing this when the temp gauge suddenly started going nuts in my Lancer. | |
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| You know, after going away, the light has come on again twice during pretty long trips, so maybe that's it. I hate to say it, but I have no idea where my ground connections are, where to look for them or what they look like. Is there a resource online--maybe a pictoral tutorial somewhere? | |
| Look for where black wires are connected to the sheetmetal with, appropriately enough, sheetmetal screws. Usually on the back side of the radiator support, inner fenders, firewall and such. See if any look corroded. Or just take all you can find apart, scrape any crud (hate to load you down with this technical jargon) off the eyelets and where they attach and screw it back together. There are probably small ground straps on your motor mounts to maintain electrical continuity from the engine to the rest of the car as the engine is suspended in rubber bushings. These grounds are usually bare braided steel with a clip on each end that is just pushed on. Give those (if you can find them) a wiggle so the steel can bite through any surface rust. As for the rest, as I said, just pull connectors apart and put them back together. Just make sure you check for any tabs that have to be pushed in/pulled out to release them before you just yank on them. Broken wiring connectors are a major pain. You probably don't want to disconnect the grounds from the battery as that will kill your clock and radio presets. | |
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| Thanks for the detailed how-to. I'll give it a shot when it stops raining and report back. | |
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Since this is my first post, I'll just stick to what I know. As the title shows, I own a 2001 Neon ES. 5 speed, of course. Doubt i could have made it with a 3-speed auto. Just over 8000 miles since I bought it on May 23. Anyway, Three problems I've had....One of which I've solved myself. 1. Bolt-on wheel covers make an annoying clicking/rubbing noise when the car is in motion. I believe the wheel covers rub against the wheel itself or the tire. Tightening didn't help in my situation. I solved this with a set of $40 wheel covers from Wal-Mart. Yes, Wal-Mart.... 2. Either the clutch slips or the engine hesitates every now and then. I was very suprised when my dealer couldn't duplicate the problem. I'm suprised they're able to muddle their way through oil changes. I've more or less decided to live with the problem until it does it frequently enough for me to demonstrate it to them myself. I know that if I tried it now, The car would refuse to play along. They seem to be tempermental like that. 3. It seems to like to attempt to stall or, on two occasions, to actually stall. The conditions were different in every instance of the problem. I tried a procedure from neon.org to use the on-board diagnostics to get stored computer error codes, but none had been stored. Interesting. After my previous 3 vehicles, I realize that all vehicles are going to have problems. I'm not one of those who whould sit here and refuse to buy another DC vehicle for the rest of my life for two reasons. The first being it's damned foolish to say, and second of all, I've "lurked" around this board for some time, and I've seen what is said about those who act so foolishly. I look forward to seeing if any of you have had, or have heard about, either of the last two problems. I've checked all recalls and TSB's, and I don't believe there are any concerning these problems. There are, however some things on the NHTSA site posted by owners about the stalling and, in part, the hesitation, clutch. Sorry for the lengthy post. I didn't realize that I'm probably in the contention for a record. |
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| My neon is an SE model, not an ES. I basically have a base neon. No a/c, no cruise, no inside trunk release, only the essentials. The way I see it, there's less to break that way! See Ya Around | |
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From what I have gathered thus far from various research, I think Dodge has screwed up the '02 model line for consumers like me (YOU may be different). Someone please correct me if this info is wrong, but here's what I've ascertained so far: You can no longer get the ES without the spoiler (which is ass-ugly IMHO) or without the less-than-stunning alloy wheels. Also, the color Cinnamon is not available on the ES this year, it is replaced by almond. You CAN get an '02 SE in Cinnamon still (don't ask me why) and if you do go the SE route, you don't have to tolerate the iwannabeastreetracer spoiler on the back. You also get the old ES' standard 5-spoke wheel covers on the new SE (I like those better than the over-styled '02 ES alloys), but then you're stuck with the old base model's rather blase velour interior (and no upmarket diamond weave bezels on the dash or chrome interior door pulls) and the fog lights aren't even an option. So basically...if you want a Neon with an upscale interior now, you have to learn to live with the spoiler and alloys (both of which make the car look a bit too overdone for my conservative J.Crew tastes). Ugh!!! I guess if I really had my heart set on a Neon (I sure used to), I COULD get an ES and have the spoiler removed at a body shop and more attractive aftermarket 5-spokes put on to replace the factory ones, but it just isn't worth the hassle - or the added cost - to me. Personally, I've always felt that the reason for buying new over used was because you could get the car just the way you wanted it (color, transmission, options, etc.). If I didn't care about getting exactly what I wanted, I'd just go out and buy another used car - they certainly make more sense financially. I'd been planning on ordering a new Neon as soon as the Ultradrive on my current car finally crapped out, but I'm rethinking that now. One of the things I used to love so much about the Neon before was the ala carte option menu (e.g., I wouldn't be forced into buying leather or boy-racer plastic Pontiacesque tack-ons to get to options I really want - like the in-dash disc changer and the sunroof). With that gone, the Neon has dropped a couple places on my shopping list (from first to third to be exact). It's still a nice little car, but unfortunately, I can no longer get it done "my way". And that makes all the difference to me. |
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