Wife's Neon

My wife left this morning in her '96 Neon (yeah, I know, I know) and called me about two minutes later. She had only gotten to the end of the street. Apparently, she thought she'd blown a tire. She said she heard "a loud noise" as though she'd run over something and the tire'd gone out (she couldn't elaborate as to the type of sound). The car wouldn't go in forward or reverse for her. Five minutes later, she drove in the driveway and asked to take the XJ to work. I took her car for a quick drive and couldn't feel anything wrong. I'll get under it when I can (we've got six inches of snow melting rapidly right now). The car loses about a quart of oil every week or two, but other than that, it runs and sounds great--for a Neon.

Any ideas?

The only major problem I've had with the Chrysler 3sp autos was in my 85 Lebaron when the diff bearings went away and the diff started to walk back and forth in the case moving it into and away from the gear it meshed with, I never noticed a bang, but I usually could tell when it would happen (a sudden revving like it was out of gear, before it would move back over and re-mesh) I'd get off of it just before it went back in place with minimal damage. You can tell if that is the problem by getting the car in the air and wiggling the driveshafts where they go into the trans, there shouldn't be any play in there and will neccesitate a rebuild or replacement of the trans. I'm not too sure though, the trans in that car was different than the A-413 you should have.

I've gone through several neons and I've never heard of the simptoms that you're describing. I would say keep driving it for awhile when it's not important to be anywhere and see if you can figure it out... Those things have alot of gremlins.

Yeah, I've never heard of that one either. My girlfriend has a '98 Neon so I've had to learn a little bit about them recently.

The loosing of oil could be a few things, they are NOTORIOUS for blowing head gaskets, luckily she had hers replaced right before I met her with a newer design thats supposed to be much better. The other common place that they leak is in the spark plug tubes. They are OHC so they have tubes that go down into the head down to the spark plugs and they or the gaskets fail and loose oil and foul the spark plugs. Hers is doing that right now, I just ordered the parts to fix it. It sounds pretty straight forward. I did a quick Google search and found a few forums that have been pretty helpful for me. HTH

www.dodgeforum.com
www.neons.org/forums/

Thanks, guys. We put a new head gasket on it at about 60k (new style) and I just did the spark plugs because of the fouling issue. Her oil pan is rusting in huge flakes, which I've never seen one do before. At any rate, we know she needs a new car; it's a two door and we have a 1 1/2 year old and are hoping for number two soon, so it's time anyway. It's just been nice not having another car payment for so long that I hate the thought of it. I checked the oil a bit ago (the boy was taking a nap) and it was super low. Once my wife gets home, I'll run out and get oil and drive it longer.
Thanks again, and if anyone else has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

She just wanted to drive the XJ.

How about a bad axle shaft?

If you want a screw around street car, I've heard of a 2.4l swap, supposed to get better gas milege as well as improved drivablilty, even has an cast aluminum oil pan! Just don't go jumping it, I gues the oil filter hangs a little lower than on the 2.0l.

Come to think of it, double check the trans fluid too to be on the safe side.

Thanks again. I just read on Allpar about a kickdown band adjustment that could be contributing to the problem. My Haynes suggests that just about all the average home mechanic can do re. the transaxle is check the fluid. Considering how low the car is, and I don't trust the jackstands I have that are small enough to fit under it, I concur. I think I'll just take it in for a fluid change and have the bands adjusted. Then again, I think the wife has decided it's time to get a new car, and I did find a '98 XJ locally for less than 4k. Even if it has high miles, that's a pretty nice short-term solution.

The autos in the Neon are generally pretty good and are alot stronger than the manuals that were offered and thier crappy clutch set ups. If not well maintained, the auto transmissions can slip in and out of gear and cause a shutter or kind of vibration while trying to drive which may feel like a blown tire or as if an engine mount has broken. The odd thing about these is that they may go back to feeling fine for a while. My family has owned several neons in the past and even used to race them in those neon races when they first came out, and I have seen those auto's hold up to so some spankings and also have seen them oddly not work, not go in gear, go in gear and slip out, and then go back to working fine for a while. I would suspect the tranny to be the issue and if so that you unload the car and get something better.