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I bought my 2004 Sebring from Maxwell Chrysler dodge jeep in 2006. I bought it used and it had 3600 miles on it. I don't drive it much, I work from home it now has 68000 miles. I get my maintenance done at the dealership and with no problems until the 60,000 mile tune up. A service bay guy tried to convince me to pay 99.00 Just to give me a price on how much to replace a viser clip and replace the tacks for the carpet in the trunk. I got so mad I went to parts and purchased them myself and replaced them myself, took me all of 10 minutes to do. Parts didn't charge me to give me a price, funny how that works.

Anyway...Yesterday my transmission slipped into neutral even though it said it was in drive. I called the manager of service and explained the problem and told him I was not happy about my last visit and he laughed when I told him what happened with one of his service managers. He said no problem he would take care of it just come in. I took it to the dealership and the manager wasn't there like he was suppose to be. But the shady guy was. I hoped he didn't remember me and felt I had very little choice but to leave it, I need my car. The next Chrysler dealership is over 1/2 an hour a way.

8 hours later, shady guy tells me my transmission is dying and I can either pay them 1185.00 to patch it back up and maybe it will last a week or not. Or I can pay 3,000 and have them rebuild the transmission. REALLY? Since when do cars not last 70,000 miles? I have only put 32,000 miles on this car and it's transmission is dying? Is this guy just BS'ing me or is this car really that big a clunker? I had a Vega wagon when I was 16 that lasted over 200,000 miles and THAT car was a piece of junk!

I've owned a vega wagon, a mustang, a Nissan ultima, a Nissan maxima and now this clunker. I'm going to trade it in and buy foreign. I can't afford to buy disposable cars, and so far the most dependable were foreign. My sympathy for American cars died with my transmission.  

there are LOTs of independent transmission shops...    there are dozens of reasons for it to act up... that may or may not require replacement or rebuilding...

the transmission is shifted by a computer ... if anything goes wrong..  the computer may shut down...   usually leaving you with a single forward gear...  second or third...  

i would tow the car quickly to a different mechanic or transmission shop... before the dealer can take it apart...


FYI...  a lot of dealers lost their franchise..  do to shot gun repairs on minor problems.. billing the manufacturer for stuff that was not broken...   now they turn to you ... expecting you to take up the slack....   this is one of the reasons there are independent repair shops...

be sure to post that you received this... there are some great independent transmission techs on this board.. that might guide you ...       if you are not just a single visit flamer...