Hello Everyone,

I'm so frustrated and at my WITS end with my 2005 Chrysler 300 2.7 Mean Vanilla. My wife drives this car mainly, it has over 260k miles on it and this summer she was driving when suddenly she heard a loud pop and saw smoke. She pulled over and all the coolant had leaked out of the reservoir and onto the ground. I went to go and check on her, she was in Wal-Mart parking lot, we go and get coolant and drive the car home. I look for any noticeable issues and see nothing standing out (I'm not a mechanic). I notice the top thermostat housing (little thing with a metal nozzle hole up top has a hole in the side of it). I go to O'Reilys and replaced the part myself for about 35 bucks. The car drives fine with no problems on the test drive. The next day my wife drives the car to work with no problems in the morning however on her way home she gets about halfway there (5 miles) and the car is running hot again so she pulls over and lets it cool. She noticed again the coolant is gone, but this time it is leaking on her feet in the floorboard of the car. We take it to the Meineke and the diagnoses were heater core and need to be replaced, we obliged $850 later: :crying::. We get the car back and noticed again still running hot, back to the mechanic we go and he says ok you know it looks like the heater core hoses need to be replaced, so he does. Two days, Boom again running hot and losing coolant, this time I noticed a new issue the red lighting bolt is displaying on the dash with the check engine light, once the red lighting bolt comes on the car drops all the way down to 20 mph with it being the fastest it can go. I called the mechanic yet again and he says oh wow this is troubling, he says bring it in again. We go to him yet again and he checks the fans, fans are fine so he adds coolant to the car and says let it run the car runs and then cuts off after about 5 mins with the red lighting bolt displaying. Now he suggests it's possible the thermostat needs to be replaced. I decided to contact another mechanic and he suggested the same thing, we replaced the thermostat and still same issue. He looks at the red lighting bolt and suggests the alternator may be bad, we change the alternator annddddddddd nothing!!!!! As he is standing there astonished he asked me to start the car up so he can hear it, he runs a scan and it says something about the throttle body. He removes a hose under the hood and ask me to start the car again, he shows me where the throttle body is not fully opening and suggests I need a new one. He says I can install it myself but I will need the dealer to program the PCM once on. I go do as told and go to the dealership HOPING this is finally it. As I start the car I noticed a really HIGH idle and hard rough shake, I called the mechanic he says it's because the PCM needs to be programmed. I go to the dealer and they "program" the PCM for 125 bucks. I get the car back, andddddd same issues. I pull out the dealership and the car stalls, I crank it back up and pull of the car is really hard to brake now because it's idling hard, I noticed the red light has come on but now it's allowing me to drive with out reducing my speed. The car jerks and the tailpipe has rough noise coming but it's driving. The car is still running hot, I can only get about 8 miles or so and when I turn it off I have to add coolant or water to get going again after about 10-15 mins of cool down. I also replace the IAT sensor as well due to a code it was firing. PLEASE HELP it's a lot please!!!!!!

PS THERE WAS ANOTHER MECHANIC WHO RAN A SCAN ON IT AND A CODE ABOUT TORQUE PERFORMANCE OR SOMETHING, HE SUGGESTED THAT I NEEDED TO REPLACE THE GAS PEDAL....??? WTF

 

Two thoughts Nick: New mechanic and at 260k miles this 12 yr old car doesn't owe you anything.
Starting with the mechanic it seems to me that a competent bloke could sort this out in a few days. Good luck. An old friend like your car deserves the benefit of doubt.

 

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