The check engine light has been coming on in my 2011 Dodge Caravan for awhile now..then it goes out. No code showed up by turning the key for a readout so I finally got around to taking it to AutoZone to have it checked. Came up with a misfire on cylinder #2. I took it to the local country repair shop to see what was up. I suspected a stuck injector or coil pack going bad. They looked it over and told me the 3.6 engine was new that year and there were problems with the left cylinder head. That was the bad news. But they told me there was an extended warranty offered by Chrysler on the vehicle, good for 150,000 miles and they didn't want to take my money if the dealer could fix it for free. NO CHARGE! Even though they worked on it for over an hour! Dropped it off at the local Dodge dealer yesterday and just got the call that they would replace the cylinder head for free! (Misfire only occurs at low RPMs, due to worn valve guides, they redesigned the engine in 2012 and have no more problems...and it only happens on the left side!) It's very refreshing to know that here are still reputable mechanics and auto dealers!
At around 50,000 miles the clutch release broke up on my Audi A6. It turned out that Audi had replaced the phosphor bronze slide with PTFE without testing the design in London traffic, where it heated up and melted, causing the release bearing to tear the teeth off the release mechanism. They fitted a new original design mechanism free of charge and the car was still perfect after 285,000 miles. Not bad for a clutch used in London all day. Audi VW are probably the best engineered cars in the world, but the reliability rating system is crazy. One year they were bottom of the table for warranty claims, all because a windscreen wiper blade was failing. The replacement cost £2 and took less than a minute to fit.
Interesting. I used to go to a garage to get my cars inspected and one day I noticed a VW sitting there with the entire front end ripped off. It needed an alternator or something. The dude said never buy an Audi or VW as they are a pain to work on. Here's how you get to the starter:
Coronavirus: Drivers to get six-month emergency MOT extension UK latest news. Drivers to get six-month emergency MOT extension
That was a problem with a few models in the past, but that famous front end only took about 15 minutes to remove. Provided you looked after the car, most of the items that were inaccessible rarely needed attention. I had a problem once replacing a headlight that had fogged on a golf and when I phoned the mechanic, he told me to remove the small rubber strip on the bumper and use a long screwdriver through a small hole underneath to release the entire assembly. It took less than 5 minutes to swap the headlight, but without that information, I would have ended up removing the entire front end of the car.
