What to look for when buying a pt?

[Boostedpimp]

What are some of the things I should keep an eye out for when purchasing a pt cruiser.. my wife wants one and I don't really have any experience with the neon plateform cars so sorry about the noob questions and thanks in advance for the help

[Turbodave]

My wife has an 03 PT limited (non-turbo). We've got about 50k miles on it and haven't had too much trouble. Around 35k miles a rear brake pad came apart, and it's on it's 3rd set of plug wires and 4th set of plugs due to a misfire problem that seems to pop up every year.

Otherwise it's been fine, she loves the functionality of it.

[contraption22]

My wife has an 03 PT limited (non-turbo). We've got about 50k miles on it and haven't had too much trouble. Around 35k miles a rear brake pad came apart, and it's on it's 3rd set of plug wires and 4th set of plugs due to a misfire problem that seems to pop up every year.

Otherwise it's been fine, she loves the functionality of it.

Are you upgrading the wires, or just replacing them with Mopars?

[Boostedpimp]

Nice info.. so there isn't any known issues that you need to look out for other then normal odd crap that every model cars eventually has right?

Thanks again

[shadow88]

If you mean really terrible things that are known to go bad on a PT, no, nothing huge and life threatening. I can give you a list of things to look for.

Water pumps and timing belts about every 80,000 miles
Tie rod ends are known to wear
Rear "watts" link known to wear
Lower control arm bushings known to fall away from the sleeve
Regular maint. and a few minor things.
if equipped with rear drum - they're noisey like a gen 1 neon

I think they're a great little car. My girlfriend''s mom has one (new, less than 10,000 miles). I expect this car to be problem free for her for quite some time.

[Boostedpimp]

Thanks alot for your input man

[Turbodave]

Are you upgrading the wires, or just replacing them with Mopars?

First set was a stock set of Mopar wires that the dealer put in (they covered it under warranty). The set that's in there now are Magnecores, so far they've been ok. I've had to put plugs in it twice since then (about 15k miles), both times I used Champion Platinums since they were all I could get locally that fit. It seems to always be pissy about running smooth on cold or damp mornings, when it gets real bad it sets of the check engine light with a misfire code.

[Stevien1]

both times I used Champion Platinums since they were all I could get locally that fit. It seems to always be pissy about running smooth on cold or damp mornings, when it gets real bad it sets of the check engine light with a misfire code.

There's a TSB that came out in 2004 that bumped the spark plug heat range up to prevent low speed fouling on the non-turbo 2.4L. The original plug was RE14MCC5 and the new replacement is RE16MC.

[Turbodave]

There's a TSB that came out in 2004 that bumped the spark plug heat range up to prevent low speed fouling on the non-turbo 2.4L. The original plug was RE14MCC5 and the new replacement is RE16MC.

Good to know, I'll make sure I get the RE16's next time I change them.

[ShelbyZD]

I know I'd look for a turbo.