Who likes their Neon?

[Bob_Young]

I bought a stick-shift '03 Neon late in 2002 and have 30K miles on it. I was a Ford guy and this was my first Chrysler product. I love the car and, other than fixing it up after hitting a deer, it's given me zero problems, good performance and excellent mileage. Besides that, it's more fun to drive than anything else I've driven.

A friend with a low mileage '02 Neon has been trying to sell it and finds it's worth only a few thousand. The dealers don't want it and say they're a 'dime a dozen'. Chrysler stopped making them and has replaced them with something called the Caliber; which looks bigger yet has a smaller 1.8L engine.

So what's wrong with these cars? Am I living in a fool's paradise? Will it suddenly turn into a pile of junk? I would think people would love an inexpensive, reliable, fun-to-drive car that gets 36-37mpg? What am I missing?
Bob

 

[Thurd Ferguson]

No offense, but it IS a Chrysler product. Not known for their reliability.

 

[dubba]

Well, if the market won't pay for it, I would suggest you keep it. A very successful used car salesman I know says "there is an **** for every seat, sometimes it just takes looking at a lot of ***** to find the right one" He often finds he can tell the type of car a person is looking for when they walk into the showroom. I would suggest your friend should market his car to people like yourself. When advertising use those descriptors.

 

[THS]

Bob,

Actually, the Neon tends to be one of the more reliable cars that Chrysler has put out. About the only thing we see in general with Neons would be noisy brakes, moisture in the headlamps. Pretty easy stuff. The younger crowd seems to love the Neon as it is very easy to find aftermarket "tuner" stuff, and it's a forgiving car. The insurance tends to be higher on this car from what I've been told.

Yes, the Caliber is the direct replacement for the Neon. They are the hottest seller that I can recall since the introduction of the PT Cruiser several years ago. We had one come in last Thursday night, the tires were barely cooled down from the road test done during our new vehicle inspection on Friday morning. I was showing a customer the car, telling her that I could almost GUARANTEE that this car would not be on our lot past the weekend (and I'm not even a salesman). As she was rolling her eyes from my bold statement, an older couple pulled up with their van. They walked up to the car, looked it over, went in and grabbed the salesman and took it for a ride. The lady looked at me like I had orchestrated the whole event as a stunt. Less than one hour later, that older couple was driving out the door with their new Caliber. The latest one we got yesterday morning went out the door today.

Quite a car for such a low price if I must say so myself!

 

[meledward23]

What kind of price is that Caliber?

 

[THS]

I just went outside to check, we have an Atlantic Blue one sitting here, sticker price is $17,760 with the 2.0 DOHC engine with Variable Valve Timing. Gets an estimated 26 city, 30 highway. But the neat thing about it is the CVT transmission. Essentially a snowmobile transmission (belt drive). When you are driving it around town/slower speeds, there is software built-in that will make the transmission "bump" like it is shifting. But there are no gears to "shift". It's all belt drive. When you push it to the floor, the RPM's will go up and stay there, but the speedo climbs and climbs. For a car guy, it sounds very odd to the ear to hear the engine race up and stay there when you mash it to the floor. You keep waiting for it to "shift" to the next gear, but it doesn't. But boy does it accelerate!

So far, we haven't had a single person come back for service with a problem. One customer has 13k miles on already, says she's getting around 31 mpg.

Nice to see the quality improving so dramatically in recent years!

 

[fishman]

Bob,

I can't comment on the newer Neons but we had a '96 for 6 years and put 90 k on it before selling it to my sister. She put another 30 k on it in 2 years then sold it for $1500.

It was a fun little car with a very comfortable interior. We bought the loaded "sport" model with the 2.0 l DOHC motor and a 5 speed. Lots of zip but even with careful highway driving we never saw the 38 mpg it was rated for. More like 32 highway and 27 all around. That was with premium gas too.

At 45k miles the headgasket went out. Thankfully it just started leaking oil everywhere and $900 later it was o.k. That was a COMMON problem with those cars. So common in fact that Chrysler was refunding some folks' repair costs (as I found out too late to do anything about it).

At 58k my wife was hit in the front with a combined speed of about 20 mph. She claims there was a slight delay, then the airbags went off, demolishing every window in the car. I was surprised, but the insurance fixed it instead of totalling it. After that, the windows never sealed right, as they weren't a full-frame window. Later Neons are. So there was quite a bit of road noise intruding in the cab. That was no good.

The AC worked great for the 8 years I know of. No major repairs except the head gasket.

The Trailblazer we replaced our Neon with (LT no less) was WAY less comfortable, specifically the seats. I'm a big guy and the Neon was very comfortable. We finally sold the Trailblazer and replaced it with a used Impala because it was uncomfortable and only got 19 mpg.

Sometimes I wish I had the Neon back. Of course our Impala is great.

My take is this. If you have a good one (so far), take good care of it, watch for problems and catch them early. And don't worry if your car is only worth three or four thousand dollars. Heck, use it to your advantage and forget full coverage insurance.

 

[fishman]

Bob,

I can't comment on the newer Neons but we had a '96 for 6 years and put 90 k on it before selling it to my sister. She put another 30 k on it in 2 years then sold it for $1500.

It was a fun little car with a very comfortable interior. We bought the loaded "sport" model with the 2.0 l DOHC motor and a 5 speed. Lots of zip but even with careful highway driving we never saw the 38 mpg it was rated for. More like 32 highway and 27 all around. That was with premium gas too.

At 45k miles the headgasket went out. Thankfully it just started leaking oil everywhere and $900 later it was o.k. That was a COMMON problem with those cars. So common in fact that Chrysler was refunding some folks' repair costs (as I found out too late to do anything about it).

At 58k my wife was hit in the front with a combined speed of about 20 mph. She claims there was a slight delay, then the airbags went off, demolishing every window in the car. I was surprised, but the insurance fixed it instead of totalling it. After that, the windows never sealed right, as they weren't a full-frame window. Later Neons are. So there was quite a bit of road noise intruding in the cab. That was no good.

The AC worked great for the 8 years I know of. No major repairs except the head gasket.

The Trailblazer we replaced our Neon with (LT no less) was WAY less comfortable, specifically the seats. I'm a big guy and the Neon was very comfortable. We finally sold the Trailblazer and replaced it with a used Impala because it was uncomfortable and only got 19 mpg.

Sometimes I wish I had the Neon back. Of course our Impala is great.

My take is this. If you have a good one (so far), take good care of it, watch for problems and catch them early. And don't worry if your car is only worth three or four thousand dollars. Heck, use it to your advantage and forget full coverage insurance.

 

[Bob_Young]

Yeah, fishman, the car just kinda 'works' for me. Right size, right price, great economy, good performance, very comfortable and it looks nice. Before buying one, I never gave the Neon a second thought. The only people I knew who owned them were chicks, so I thought it was a 'chick car'.

On a business trip in 2002, the only car the rental agency had available was a new Neon and, at first, I wasn't at all happy about being stuck with it. But after driving it a few days, I thought, "This is for me. It's got all I need. Why pay more?".

I have heard about the head gasket problem. In the 2000 models, I understand they attempted to address that. Not sure if the fix was successful. I notice the car does use some kind of special organic (?) antifreeze. That's probably to keep it from degrading the oil in the event of a gasket leakage.

My 37+ mpg mileage is valid. Only got it in warm weather though. I filled the tank right to the lip of the filler neck on refill and would reliably get 37 to nearly 38mpg time and again. Since hitting the deer, I've only gotten 37mpg once. Now it's mostly 35 to 36 mpg. I figure it's because the tires have flat spots on them from the braking. Had to put the front tires on the rear to get a decent ride after that incident.

I'm just sorry they've disappeared from the product line. The Caliber body style does nothing for me and it's large frontal area isn't consistent with the mileage I'm used to. The Caliber mileage figures THS quotes would be a big step backward...and now is not the time for that.

It's hard to see why American car companies are always so eager to abandon practical economy cars in favor of market fads. They should be their bread & butter. The Neon is proof to me that they can build a good low-priced car. Guess they just can't compete with the imports and make money.
Bob

 

[ronjhall]

Bob
Is your Neon a Auto or Stick shift? If it is a stick shift, that may be why they will not give you as much for it. I'm looking for a car to tow behind my motorhome. The Neon and Ford Focus stick shifts are on the top of the list.