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2001 Dodge Intrepid R/t on 2040-cars

Year:2001 Mileage:356889
Location:

United States

United States
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I bought this car on eBay back in 2004 from a dealer in Texas. From papers I found in the car, it looks to have been a Coca-Cola executive car in Denver before that. The mileage is not a typo. The car had about 70,000 miles on it when I got it. It has had synthetic oil since then, with oil and filter changes every 7500 miles. The cooling system and transmission have been power flushed every 100K miles and the timing belt has been changed every 100K miles. The engine has never been opened other than to change the intake manifold gaskets. The transmission has been opened to replace the solenoid pack. The pack may have been good, but the gasket failed so I changed the pack just to be safe. I changed the front struts at around 150K miles and spent extra to put in the correct factory R/T parts. I could not tell any difference. Given that, I put off changing the rear struts. I put that off so long that the original rear struts are still in there and seem to work the same as when I bought the car.

Anyone (including the shop that works on things I can't work on and my brother-in-law) who says Dodge does not build reliable cars, is full of crap.

The paint on the hood, roof and trunk is fried (see pic of trunk). The front of the hood has numerous paint chips with several of those fairly large (see pic). There is a small spot of rust on the lower inside seam of the driver's door (see pic). I meant to fix this in 2004, but never did and it has changed very little since. The right rear quarter had a minor scrape when I bought the car. I had it repaired at Carsmetics but it was not their best work. There are some random sanding scratches and there is flaking around the antenna base. The driver's side hood strut mounting stud at the hinge has broken off. The other strut will hold the hood up - for now. The trunk release does not work due to a wiring or connector problem. I have tried three or four different trunk harnesses and can have either the trunk release or third brake light work, but not both. I opted for the brake light. This issue started a couple of years ago. Two days ago I dropped a torx bit and it zeroed the gap between the driver's side headlight and the radiator support panel. When I pulled the light to retrieve the bit, I found that there is coolant seepage from the radiator tank. The car has not been driven much for the past year or so and I have no idea how long this has been going on. The wheels have a little random curb rash but are decent. Three of the Goodyear tires are good and the other fair. I would guess there is another 20K left in the worst one. The driver's seat has a couple of worn-through spots but is not bad considering age and miles. The seat's front vertical adjuster does not work. The other seats look good and all the power functions on the passenger seat work. The carpet is good as are the OEM mats. There is a small leak somewhere above the driver's foot-well and the carpet gets wet when there is a long duration rain. The dash has a 12" horizontal crack along the faux seam above the a/c vents. The computer has set codes P0700 (transmission control system malfunction) and P1684 (battery disconnected within last fifty starts). The TCM was checked a couple of years ago when the P0700 code first began and reported that the torque converter lock-up has issues. When driven at a consistent 40 to 45mph under light load, you can feel the converter struggling to engage or stay engaged. I changed the battery a week ago so the codes were wiped out. P0455 (emission control system gross leak) is off right now but will come back eventually. This has been up for years but has no noticeable effect on anything and was not worth chasing down. The headlights and fog lights are two or three years old and are clear. The coolant recovery bottle is a year or two old. The window tint on both front doors is failing and has large wrinkles. The spare is fair but the jack and hold-down hardware are missing. The remote key fob works and will go with the car.

The transmission recently quit going into reverse, so the car has lost its role as back-up vehicle (no pun intended). I hate to get rid of the R/T but I picked up a 2000 LHS with 105K miles, so something had to go.  

I have tried to mention everything, good or bad, but may have forgotten something. It is thirteen years old with a zillion miles, so assume accordingly.

The car is for sale locally, so I may end the auction early.

If someone buys the car, I will be unable to respond to messages from 29 to 31 May.

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