Help, they want to keep my Viper for 12 weeks!!!!

[SoCal Rebell]

Thanks to Chris (Y2KGTS) I found out that the reason my snake was burning so much oil was that in the the early 2000 models the piston sleeves were powder coated making them too hard for the rings to seat. Well at least now I know why I am burning a quart every 150 miles. The car is 10 months old with 9,000 miles, Dodge finally acknowledged the problem but said it would take 12 weeks to fix. They have to pull the motor send it to Michigan have them perform the rebuild and ship it back for re-assembly, all this time my car would be sitting outdoors in the repair area parking lot durng winter months.
Has anybody had experience with this? California lemon law states if the car is under 12,000 miles and one year if it is out of service for more the 30 days they must give me a new one, does anybody know of this? Finally I could just watch the oil closely not fix it but would this hurt the car in the long run? This *****,any help out there!!!!!!

Ron (SoCal Rebell)

 

[Venom Lover]

Ron, that does ****. I was peeved when my Z06 had to go back on day 3 of ownership to get the brake booster replaced. But that only took an afternoon. Yikes!

Whatever you do, I would say you have to deal with this problem. Letting the car continue to burn oil will ultimately ruin the motor. I know of a couple of folks who burned a fair amount of oil in their NSX's, and they ended up scoring the cylinder walls. So, whatever you do, the problem needs to be addressed.

You seem to have a really strong running motor, based on your numbers at Palmdale, so it would be a shame to invoke the lemon law, but I must say, 12 weeks seems like an awfully long time. All things considered, if you can invoke the lemon law, I would do it. I have no wisdom as to whether you can or not however.

Good luck!

 

[Ulysses]

Copied from the DMV web site:

Definition of the Lemon Law.

Under California's Lemon Law, a new vehicle which is leased or sold with a manufacturer's written warranty, may be returned to the manufacturer for a refund or a replacement if it cannot be repaired.

Consumers can receive a copy of "Lemon-Aid for New Car Buyers" in English or Spanish by calling (916)323-7239, calling the toll-free number at (800)952-5210, or writing to the Department of Consumer Affairs at:

DCA Publications
401 S Street, Suite 100,
Sacramento, CA 95814.

 

[Janni]

Ron,
There are a couple of things that you will want to consider...

1. Engines rebuilt by Arrow usually come back stronger than when they went in. They take great care in rebuilding the engines.

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2. **Generic Lemon Law Statement - your state may differ*** You have a legit Lemon Law claim if your car has been out of service for more than 30 days, or more than 4 times forthe same problem - AND ITS STILL NOT FIXED... This is a one shot repair and it has a high probablility of solving your problem. Also, your 9K miles would translate into depreciate of about $6500 as the Lemon Law fully depreciates a car over 100K miles, therefore a $72K car gets depreciated at $.72 per mile.

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Your location probably doesn't help - most Viper owners send back their engines for rebuild at the "end of the season" (see Chris's Sad Day Indeed post...) but you have the luxury (curse???) of having year round Viper weather so any downtime is TRUE downtime.

Whatever you decide, good luck.

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[Brad Manhattan Beach]

Ron:

Alaan is right, whatever you do don't leave your car at the dealership for storage, while the engine is out of the car. Mine sat in back of Claude Short and it came back looking like SH*T.

They wanted to send my engine back to Arrow, but I fought hard to have the work done locally. I still had to wait, but it did cut the turnaround time a little bit. I have heard that the engines do come back running very strong (as Janni said), but that doesn't get around the fact that you're sending a brand new engine back for 12 weeks to be re-built. That ***** anyway that you cut it.

Good luck.

 

[Y2K5SRT]

Ron -

Sorry to hear that you had to go the rebuild route. The cylinder sleeves themselves are powdered metallic (not coated) and have had isolated problems. Several early 2000's have performed without a sip of oil. Unfortunately, it appears we have one of the few that didn't fair so well. Nonetheless, I am confident that you will be happy with the results. I researched this to the ends of the earth, with some good help along the way from Woodhouse Dodge and JonB.

Having the car out of service for as long as twelve weeks STINKS. However, I am not too terribly worried about it and didn't consider pursuing the lemon law in Nebraska. Why? I view it like sending that favorite suit in for repairs. Sure, you could buy another suit and maybe even end up with better quality, but it won't feel the same and is not the one you have spent so much time with. In the case of Viper, I think that it will come back that much stronger and with even tighter tolerances. It will be like getting my baby back even stronger than before she went into the hospital. As to care while it is there, I trust Woodhouse implicitly and know it is in the very best hands (and will be indoors the entire time).

If you are still interested in learning more about the lemon law in California, you can read about it here . Simple law, but I would guess that the hassle of pursuing it would be far greater than simply reading these boards for your Viper fix for twelve weeks.

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Keep us posted!

Chris

 

[Will]

Is there anyway of finding out which 2000 cars were powder coated? Is there a VIN range?

Thanks,

-W

 

[Ulysses]

I believe the VINs were arbitrarily shared with the prowlers, but not sure if there was a range they fell under. I recall Jon B saying that the first 200 were powdercoated.

 

[Tom Sessions]

If you can stick it out and wait till spring you should be able to get a turn around of about 5 to 6 weeks.Have your dealer get in touch with arrow to see how busy they are they can usually tell you what's out there and what they have on the way in. If they can't get in touch with arrow send me a e-mail.As said earlier most folks do wait for hibernation time to send there engines back so this is a bad time to do it.Tom