I bought a 98 Avenger. Roughly 89k miles on it. I am hoping I can hit 200k. I drive 38 miles ONE WAY to work. Pretty much all highway driving.

Car drives nice, I love the 'peppyness' to it. I really does accelerate pretty da** fast. Do me some semi passing!

Is this car known to have problems? Will last me as long as I stay up with maintance? Noone knew if the timing belt has been changed... any EASY way to find out without taking everything apart? Or should I just take it into the dealership and have them replace it ... to be safe. Noone at the dealership knew or could tell me for sure (The place i bought it from).

Trans seems to be just fine... but odd thing is... going like 70mph i'm hitting about 3k on the RPMS in 5th. Now, I had a mustang V8 Stick and the RPMS where never that high. Is it just because its a 4 cycl? Is this normal?

Gas milage wise... I have a 94 Honda now. almost 200k. Automatic. Trans is starting to give me problems, so I decided to get somethign newer, less miles, that will last I can drive back and forth to work. Plus the avenger has no rust and is nice looking. I get roughly 35mph on the Honda. This car, i'm told and read, I should pick up about 32 or so. How close to that number should I hit? Any special way to drive the stock to achive this number?

I might have problems driving it 'nice'... Its peppy :P fun to drive. I'm shocked how much power that little car has and how quick it gets up there. Its just FUN to drive.

Any tips or anything, let me know. Especially the lights. I need to replace them. Foggy look. Any aftermarket ones that will look good and not do the same thing the 'factory' ones do?

Thanks a bunch and look forward to talking more!

-- Kevin

 

Yes we have commmon problems I thought about creating a post listing them all but kept putting it off. So far its the front tweeters blow out easy, the rotors are from a Eclispe (made for a smaller car) so they warp easy, the Manual trans makes and odd racheting sound, the headlights need to be sanded the dirt is on the outside even though it looks like its coming from within, door handles breakeasy, the wiper bladesscare the windows.umm... well the rest are listed through out the Dodge Avenger forum. Ill have to finish this part later.

As far as the timing belt I would just get it replaced to be on the safe side. I honestly wouldn't take a chance on something like that. If you have the money take it to the dealership I remember a shop trying to charge me $1,000 for tiiming belt ,tension, water pump, and new sprokets gears, and some other stuff that the timing belt it ran along. I took it to a friend payed $500 to replace it and got a new radiator and another $100 for an oil pan cuz the idiots used a jack on it.

The trans needs a 6th gear again its an Mits setup mine does the same thing I thought it was 65MPH@3000RPMS and 80MPH3500RPMS. holds 2.lqts of fluid and you can only get the fluid from the dealership so I just used royal purple.

Gas I read somewhere 29mpg. As far as I know tho keep correct tire pressure, keep up with your sparkplugs and spark plug wires and air filter, replace your fuel filter, get ride of unnecessary weight in or on your vehicle, have your fuel system flushed, and trans fluid changed, keep up with your oil changes.

The lights I think are $400 a piece to replace them. There is a post in the sticky that shows how to fix the foggyness.

P.S If I miss anything I sure Silvecoupe will fill in the blanks.

 

That was covered pretty well Pappi, good job.

One thing to note about older motors is the carbon buildup in the intake manifold, it's not a bad thing to do the Seafoam or MCCC treatment to it.
Having a Chiltons/Haynes manual is always a must. The crank and cam sensors, mainly the crank sensor, do have issues going bad when the weather starts to warm up or even drastic changes in weather.
The Avenger is a heavy car compared to your Honduh and will never get the same gas milage even on it's best day, lol. If you do start getting poor gas milage, you may want to change out the o2 sensor, cat, EGR purge valve, etc.
It's probably good to switch to synthetic or half dino and half synthetic. Some will agree, some will not. The only time it's not good to switch to synthetic is if there are leaks or possible leaks. You won't be able to tell until it happens though. If the motor is running smooth, I would try half dino and half synthetic first. That is just me though, so take that with a grain of salt.
Aside from that, Pappi has some good stuff covered.

 

I am going to call up the Dealership this afternoon about taking it in for a basically an inspection... and ask about the Timing Belt Replacement costs, or if they can cheaply... see if it HAS been replaced. Every 60k miles is the sched replacement right?

So cruising around 70-75mph between 3k and 3500 is ok on the motor? I want to get my 200k miles out of it :P And where is the 'good spot' to get best gas milage? I drive up pretty much country roads the whole way to work. 38 miles.

Where canI pick up a Chiltons manual? I want to pretty much do most of the maintance work myself. I have to save money where I can.

Thanks a bunch guys. I'll probably stick around this forum. I am already on the Ram 1500 one. I have a 2005. Obviously not the vehical of choise to drive 38 miles one way to work (has the hemi). *smile*

- Kevin

 

Chiltons Manuals car be found at your local Autoparts store.

I don't Know about any "Good Spot" while driving I would just try not to change the pedal postion too much and try to keep at one speed.