Well I'm back on the road again as of last Friday, July 9/04. It took the local 5 Star Chrysler dealer 3 weeks to fix my car---now I'm $2400.00 lighter in the pocketbook (including taxes). Here's what they fixed/replaced.....timing chain, tensioner, tensioner arm, gasket package, bushing, cylinder hose, valve spring, 6 spark plugs, both heads were resurfaced and reconditioned (outsourced to a local company), approx. 11 hours labour. All work carries 12 month unlimited mileage warranty--parts and labour too. When I gave the dealer the OK to do the repairs 2 1/2 weeks earlier, I told the service manager to put 100% synthetic oil in the motor when it was re-assembled. He advised me that it would be an additional cost--100% synthetic oil is more expensive--and I agreed that it would cost approx. $50 more. So I had the service manager start the car for me so that I could listen to it---it sounded great!! When I got my keys, I doublechecked with the service manager about the synthetic oil request (as the oil on the work order DIDN'T say synthetic).....and he told me "No, we didn't put synthetic oil in the car---our senior mechanic that fixed your car also has one of these cars--and he uses regular oil in his--so he thought it would be best to put regular oil in your car"!! I FREAKED!! I'm sure the service manager would NOT have said anything to me if I hadn't asked--and I would have left there thinking I now had synthetic oil!!
I immediately drove to Canadian Tire (approx. 1/2 mile away) to see about an oil change--but couldn't get in until the next morning. So ANOTHER $65.00 later--but now I KNOW the car has 100% synthetic oil--I specified Mobil 1 10W30.....and I watched the technician put it in!!
I'm glad my car is fixed--it runs great--but I'm thoroughly PISSED that I had to spend this $ at all---when a recommendation from Chrysler/Chrysler dealer to use synthetic oil would have stopped the problem BEFORE it happened!!
