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2004 CHRYSLER PT CRUISER — Complaint #638200

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NHTSA Complaint about POWER TRAIN:MANUAL TRANSMISSION:LUBRICANT filed September 11, 2007

NHTSA complaint #638200 (ODI reference 10202558) concerns a 2004 CHRYSLER PT CRUISER and was filed on September 11, 2007. The owner reports the failure occurred on March 1, 2007. The vehicle had 30,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to California based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as power train:manual transmission:lubricant, 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 cohort independently describe similar power train:manual transmission:lubricant 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 2004 CHRYSLER PT CRUISER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.

Vehicle
2004 CHRYSLER PT CRUISER
Component
POWER TRAIN:MANUAL TRANSMISSION:LUBRICANT
State
California
Mileage
30,000 mi

Complaint Description

AFTER MY 30,000 MILE MAJOR MAINTENANCE, I NOTICED A LEAK ON THE THE DRIVER SIDE FRONT OF THE CAR. I TOOK IT BACK TO THE DEALER AND THEY SAID IT WAS A TRANSMISSION OIL LEAK. IT WAS UNDER THE $100 DEDUCTIBLE WARRANTY SO I PAID THE $100 AND THEY "FIXED" IT. THE LEAK CONTINUED AFTER 3 OTHER ATTEMPTS TO FIX IT OVER A 6 MONTH PERIOD. IT IS CURRENTLY IN THE DEALER SHOP TO BE FIXED AND THEY SAY THEY CAN'T FIND THE LEAK. THEY NOW THINK IT'S COMING FROM THE "TOP". SINCE I DON'T MONITOR THE TRANSMISSION FLUID LEVEL, MY CONCERN IS THAT I WILL HAVE A MAJOR FAILURE THE MAY CAUSE AN ACCIDENT AND/OR INJURY IF THE TRANSMISSION FAILS. ALSO, THE CAR IS KEPT IN MY GARAGE DURING EXTENDED TIMES WHEN I'M OUT OF TOWN AND THERE IS A CONSIDERABLE PUDDLE WHEN I RETURN. I'M ASSUMING THAT THE TRANSMISSION OIL IS FLAMMABLE SO THERE IS SOME CONCERN THERE. THE DEALER HAS BEEN COOPERATIVE BUT SEEMS TO LACK GUIDANCE AND HOW TO FIX IT. *TR

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 638200
ODI Number 10202558
Date Filed September 11, 2007
Failure Date March 1, 2007

Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.