If you own a 2004 or 2005 Chrysler Pacifica, you might want to get it up on a lift right away and make sure the engine cradle is still intact. According to Chicago’s NBC5 (NBCChicago.com), hundreds of Pacifica owners are complaining to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) about severe corrosion in their vehicle’s engine cradle, or sub-frame. Driver Susan Deneen told NBC5’s reporter:
The whole engine cradle was rusted and corroded. [The mechanic} could put his hand through it, it was so corroded. He told me, basically, if you were my wife you wouldn’t be driving this home.
And Pacifica owner Kurt Collins said:
When I went to pick it up the mechanic was just standing there, shaking his head saying ‘bad news.’ He starts telling me about the rotten sub-frame. It’s corroded away, it’s a dangerous situation, your engine can fall out.
Chrysler responded by sending out a warranty extension letter to owners of Pacificas in the affected years. But later, they rescinded the warranty extension and replaced it with a service bulletin. The service bulletin was restricted to vehicles manufactured in the six-weeks between February 23 and March 31, 2004.
A large segment of the affected Pacificas were now shut out of Chrysler’s solution, including the ones owned by Deneen and Collins. Chrysler told them both they were ineligible for compensation because their vehicles did not come off the line within the specified time period. Fortunately, the carmaker did change its mind and offer partial compensation after they appealed, but only after “numerous phone calls and letters.”
Fixing a rusted-out engine cradle is expensive. The two drivers mentioned in the NBC5 report said the repair cost them $733 and $750, respectively. At least those figures went down significantly from the $2500 estimate one of them initially received. The process is labor-intensive and requires heavy lifting equipment. Here’s how eHow.com explains it:
The subframe on a vehicle supports everything on the vehicle from the engine and transmission, the lower control arms, the rack and pinion and the sway bar. All instructions must be followed with no exceptions to prevent serious accidents. It is not an uncommon procedure, but everything must be supported when the supporting frame is removed.
The NHTSA said it had not found any pattern indicating a safety defect in the more than 300 engine corrosion complaints it had received as of early last year, but that complaints were continuing to come in. Some Pacifica owners and their mechanics, however, are alarmed. Susan Deneen put it this way: “Is it going to take somebody at 65 miles per hour to have their engine collapse and have some catastrophic kind of crash?”
But safety bulletins and recalls work only after the problem has been detected. That means families could be endangered before the problem even comes to anyone’s attention. A good prevention strategy would have prevented Collins and Deneen from having to drive dangerous vehicles in the first place.
Chrysler says the issue stems from “the engine cradle’s coating thickness,” so it stands to reason that if the vehicles had gotten their yearly rustproofing treatments, this dangerous situation never would have happened. Perhaps the real problem – for Pacifica drivers and everyone else on the roads – is a lack of public education. Most vehicle owners are simply unaware of the need.
According to Chicago’s NBC5 (NBCChicago.com), hundreds of Pacifica owners are complaining to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) about severe corrosion in their vehicle’s engine cradle, or sub-frame. Driver Susan Deneen told NBC5’s reporter: