2005 CHRYSLER PT CRUISER CONVERTIBLE — Complaint #598986
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about POWER TRAIN:CLUTCH ASSEMBLY:BELL HOUSING filed October 10, 2006
NHTSA complaint #598986 (ODI reference 10170414) concerns a 2005 CHRYSLER PT CRUISER CONVERTIBLE and was filed on October 10, 2006. The owner reports the failure occurred on August 13, 2005. The vehicle had 21,643 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to South Carolina based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as power train:clutch assembly:bell housing, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. No VIN was supplied by the filer, so this complaint contributes to model-year trend data but cannot be tied to a specific vehicle.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same CHRYSLER PT CRUISER CONVERTIBLE cohort independently describe similar power train:clutch assembly:bell housing failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2005 CHRYSLER PT CRUISER CONVERTIBLE shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
WITH ONLY 21,000 MILES MY 2005 PT CRUISER CONVERTIBLE BASE MODEL EXPERIENCED A FAILURE OF THE MANUAL CLUTCH ASSEMBLY. I HAD DRIVEN ABOUT 100 MILES OF OPEN HIGHWAY AND WAS ENTERING A MORE URBAN SETTING WITH FREQUENT STOPS AND STARTS DUE TO TRAFFIC LIGHTS. AFTER ABOUT THE 5TH OR 6TH LIGHT MY GEAR SHIFT LEVER WOULD MOVE BUT THE CAR WOULD NOT GO INTO ANY GEAR. LUCKILY I HAD ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE AND WAS ABLE TO HAVE THE VEHICLE TOWED TO A CHRYSLER DEALERSHIP IN SAVANNAH GA. IT TOOK 3 DAYS TO COMPLETE THE REPAIRS BECAUSE THE ENTIRE CLUTCH ASSEMBLY AND HOUSING HAD TO BE REPLACED. ALTHOUGH A MANUAL CLUTCH IS CLASSED AS A "CONSUMABLE" PART CHRYSLER AGREED TO SHARING HALF THE REPLACEMENT COST FOR THE PARTS DUE TO A MECHANICAL FAILURE. I DROVE MY FIRST PT CRUISER ( AN EARLY PRODUCTION 2001 MODEL ) OVER 86,000 MILES AND NEVER HAD A CLUTCH PROBLEM. I AM NOW 18,000 MILES INTO THE LIFE OF THE REPLACEMENT CLUTCH WITH NO SIGNS OF ANY PROBLEMS. *JB
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 598986 |
| ODI Number | 10170414 |
| Date Filed | October 10, 2006 |
| Failure Date | August 13, 2005 |
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.