Faults:

I took the car into the dealer for service at about 55,000 miles, complaining of knocking. The dealer gave it a clean bill of health. Within weeks, it developed a leak in the coolant system and one of the belts slipped off. These were taken care of by an independent service shop. Several weeks later, the knocking became more severe. The gasket and intake manifold needed to be replaced. Now, the belt has either slipped off again or broke.

General Comments:

I purchased this car (my first Chrysler since the 1980s) because of a positive reliability review from a major consumer magazine. In my opinion, this car's reliability is much worse than average, at least compared to Nissan and Honda I've owned in the past. Avoid this car.

Faults:

1) At 45,000 miles the idler pulley & belt tensionner pooped out (had a squealing warning, so I took it in ASAP). Only repair other than routine maintenance, I change the oil myself & generally baby my cars.

2) Rear heater malfunctioned (manufacturing defect), had it fixed under warranty - the shop was great, quick, courteous, etc.

3) Latch for the storage tray under the radio broke, fixed under warranty.

General Comments:

This van was built in Canada, have heard the ones built there are better than the ones from St. Louis. Could be true, my Dodge Intrepid was built in Ontario & I had only the famous brake problem with it.

Love the car, nothing better for 3 kids & long trips. Went cross country twice with over 1200 lbs of stuff, it did great, zipped over the mountains with no problems, plenty of power.

Just be sure to put Chrysler ATF in, it really is different than the other types of ATF!

p.s.- the only reason it scored a 6 on the operating costs is the gas mileage, average is 20 mpg mixed driving.