Okay...I'm going to post the full scoop on the problem I reported earlier, in hopes that somebody recognizes it.
I was driving to work last week (basically cruising at the moment I noticed it), and suddenly I had a major loss of power. Almost like I was driving on 3 cylinders. At a stop, I had to drop into neutral and goose the throttle to keep from stalling.
The engine was VERY bogged, and it seemed to to much better if I got the revs up, but it still ran like crap.
I took it to one mechanic, and he said he heard bad things coming from the lower end/oil pan area, and he refused to touch it.
I then took it to the dealer. They said that one O2 sensor was fouled, and it caused the engine to run rich and foul the plugs. So they changed the plugs and wires.
Oh...and since they also found bad bushings in my steering rack, they replaced those...and they did the fuel rail recall (I had the thing fixed at Chrysler's expense a long time ago, but there was no record of the work against the recall), and they also replaced the injector O-rings.
So I get a call from the dealer, who says that after the $800+ work they did, the real problem is a clogged precat. And he said it would cost almost another $800 to do that.
I told hin where to stick it, and I took it to another place that charged me WAY less to do the precat change. And as I go to drive away from that mechanic, I notice that the car runs like it did (crappy) before I had any work done on it.
Does ANYBODY have any clue where I should tell the mechanic to proceed? I was thinking of a slipped timing belt, or maybe even a head gasket.
Frankly, the amount I've paid for work on this car is getting close to it's value. And it really ticks me off that the mechanics don't care that I'm pissing my hard-earned (and currently very scarce) money away.
I was driving to work last week (basically cruising at the moment I noticed it), and suddenly I had a major loss of power. Almost like I was driving on 3 cylinders. At a stop, I had to drop into neutral and goose the throttle to keep from stalling.
The engine was VERY bogged, and it seemed to to much better if I got the revs up, but it still ran like crap.
I took it to one mechanic, and he said he heard bad things coming from the lower end/oil pan area, and he refused to touch it.
I then took it to the dealer. They said that one O2 sensor was fouled, and it caused the engine to run rich and foul the plugs. So they changed the plugs and wires.
Oh...and since they also found bad bushings in my steering rack, they replaced those...and they did the fuel rail recall (I had the thing fixed at Chrysler's expense a long time ago, but there was no record of the work against the recall), and they also replaced the injector O-rings.
So I get a call from the dealer, who says that after the $800+ work they did, the real problem is a clogged precat. And he said it would cost almost another $800 to do that.
I told hin where to stick it, and I took it to another place that charged me WAY less to do the precat change. And as I go to drive away from that mechanic, I notice that the car runs like it did (crappy) before I had any work done on it.
Does ANYBODY have any clue where I should tell the mechanic to proceed? I was thinking of a slipped timing belt, or maybe even a head gasket.
Frankly, the amount I've paid for work on this car is getting close to it's value. And it really ticks me off that the mechanics don't care that I'm pissing my hard-earned (and currently very scarce) money away.