Hello All,

I bought my SXT Magnum in March. I like driving it but should have gotten an R/T. My truck has a hemi and does it run! However the car seems to be having problems. I was wanting to know if anybody had been seeing these symptoms.

On long trips the A/C freezes up and the vents barely blow air. On our first trip to the service department, they ran a diagnostics and found nothing wrong in the computer. I don't think they believed us because this problem is purely intermittent. I can't make it happen.

The second time, my wife was driving up to visit me and it froze up again so I had her take it immediately to the dealership when she got to town. They saw that it froze up and finally recognized there was a problem. This time the dealer actually worked on it. They reprogrammed the computer because the A/C system was not cycling off at 29 degrees. It would just keep cooling until it froze up. You would have to wait 15 minutes for it to unfreeze with the A/C off. Meanwhile your starting a sweatpool in the new leather seats.

Well you would believe how upset I was when it happened again. Now this time we returned to the dealer where the car was purchased. The people at Orange Park Dodge (Jacksonville, Fl) didn't believe us. They supposedly ran a diagnostics and found nothing. They did nothing else but tell me we were operating it improperly... (Is there such a way?)

Anyhow we have a brand new Dodge Magnum with A/C problems and the dealer says we have to live with it.
I wanted to know:
1. If anybody has had or heard of similar problems.
2. A good contact with Dodge manufacturer representative if you know one.
3. Your experience with the lemon law and getting the company to refund or give you a different car.
4. What would you do next?

 

I too am having A/C problems. On long trips the A/C freezes up & almost nothing comes out of the vents. By turning it on & off about every 2 minutes it will work to some extent. I took it into a dealer in North Dakota & they said the compressor had too much head pressure however after checking it out they could find nothing wrong. They supposidly reflashed the computer & said it should work, but that didn't do the trick either. They then supposidly checked for service bulletins & then told me Dodge was aware of the problem & was working on a fix. So far no word on that fix. Mine also acts up in another way. Some times it will just quit period & the only way to get to work again is to shut off the engine for awhile & then restart it. My son also has a magnum R/T & he says he has the same last problem I just mentioned. I will be taking it back to the dealer & will be contacting the factory reps & the factory. Let me know if you find out anything new & I'll let you know if I do. sdolyniuk@***.net

 

Mine froze up coming back from Florida. Froze while on recirc and the fan speed was low. After defrosting the evaporator I switch to normal outside air and adjusted the fan to a higher speed and didn't freeze for the rest of the trip home.

MikeyB

 

Mine will stop distrubuting air after about 90 minutes of runtime. I've tried every combination of settings and it will do it as long as you are wanting cold air to come out. What air that does escape, is nice and cold, it just acts like the computer lost track of where the vanes are that push air to where you've selected it to go.

Heh, I got a chuckle of this one -> "operating it improperly" Give me a break Mr Bonehead Clueless Idiot of a Dodge Service Weenie - you pulled /that/ one right out of your *** - I would have really gotten in his face on that one - there IS no 'wrong' way, the A/C and distribution stuff should work ALL DAY EVERY DAY! I should be able to leave the damn thing running overnight or drive it on a 6K roadtrip and a properly designed functional system would always work. Even on recirc and max cold it shouldn't do anything but freeze you out of the car.

I swear, are all dealers morons?

I had my RT flashed in Colorado Springs when we stopped there, and although they were nice guys and all, they didn't even TRY to replicate the problem, just flash and run. and yup, it still does it, even more frequently than before. It's just a good thing that the 'freeze up" coincided with my SO's bladder capacity, as a 10 minute stop seemed to get it going again, most times.

What ever happened to good service? With 3 out of 4 vehicles in our driveway bearing the 'Dodge' emblem I have witnessed not one decent service event from the local dealer, it's like the don't even know enough to care. I ask each dealer I've been to if they are active in and support the dodge forums on the internet and not once have I gotten a flicker of interest to show up, what's up with that?

Sure, there are a few that post in various forums saying 'buy stuff from me', but are they interested in solving problems? Not a chance, no almighty profit in it for them. Well here is a clue for any Dodge dealership who might ever read this - Good Service brings back repeat customers, Excellent go-out-of-your-way to help fix a global problem will have folks like me driving hours to get service from you. And bad / indifferent service will run your your little car store out of business over time.

Sign me - "truely not happy with DCX service at the moment.'

Mike