CarComplaints.com Notes: The first year of the new Dodge Dart had a rough start, with owners reporting a disproportionate number of engine and transmission problems.
For transmission, the main complaints are transmission failure & rough shifting. So far, average mileage for transmission failure is 25,000 miles. Not good.
For engine problems, it usually starts with the engine light coming on for any number of reasons: bad sensors, ignition coil replacement, bad wiring, faulty gas cap ... dealers are replacing various components with varying degrees of success, or telling owners they can't duplicate the issue.
So we finally passed the engine break-in point with the car and have maybe put around 5K miles on it. Suddenly the car started randomly stalling right after starting. For example, we would pull out of our driveway, get to the stop sign in our development and the car would die. It would restart, but then as soon as we would drive less than 25 mph the car would stall again. We once again return to the dealership. We figured we need an oil change anyways, just get that checked out and the oil change at the same time. Turns out the new engine has a fail safe that occurs once you hit 4900 miles and begins stalling and throws the check engine light on so that you need to bring it in for an oil change. Once the oil change was done the car ran fine again. But it would have been nice to know that was the reason. Cost: an oil change.
I took my Dodge Dart out this afternoon for a run to the store (two blocks away). In a cold start, it almost jerked me out of the car when the turbo tried to engage. After warming up for a few minutes, the hesitation smoothed out. This is clearly a tuning issue and the engineers at Dodge need to fix it. I've recently been in contact with Dodge service and all that was given to me by the Dodge Engineers is, "we are working on it and don't know the cause yet." Somebody get an English speaking American Engineer that knows what their doing!!! I'm getting really tired of the excuses from Dodge. I also talked to Modern Performance who make performance parts for the Dodge and they have yet to get below 50 degrees there in Texas so they haven't had this issue yet. Today, it's 45 degrees and started out at 32. Sent in my Dart to the Dealer three times. Dodge Engineers are still not responding. I'm sick of their customer service at headquarters. I wish they responded as good as their dealers but Dodge is the worst when it comes to solving problems. It's affecting performance, safety driving, and I'm sure it isn't good on the powertrain. Go ahead Dodge, keep ignoring this issue when there are hundreds of people writing on forums about this same problem. There is no excuse for not finding the issue and solving it.
- lukesavage,
Eugene, OR, US
Search CarComplaints.com for these popular complaint phrases...
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
So we finally passed the engine break-in point with the car and have maybe put around 5K miles on it. Suddenly the car started randomly stalling right after starting. For example, we would pull out of our driveway, get to the stop sign in our development and the car would die. It would restart, but then as soon as we would drive less than 25 mph the car would stall again. We once again return to the dealership. We figured we need an oil change anyways, just get that checked out and the oil change at the same time. Turns out the new engine has a fail safe that occurs once you hit 4900 miles and begins stalling and throws the check engine light on so that you need to bring it in for an oil change. Once the oil change was done the car ran fine again. But it would have been nice to know that was the reason. Cost: an oil change.
- Madeline M., Hagerstown, MD, US