Consumer Complaint Detail

CHRYSLER / PT CRUISER / 2002

Recalls
0 Injured
Investigations
0 Death
Complaints
No Fire
Components - Details
NHTSA Complaint Number: 005044958 Incident Date: Oct, 29 2005
Consumer's City: SAN JOSE Consumer's State: CA
Vehicle Transmission Type: AUTO Manufacturers Name: Chrysler (FCA US, LLC)
Model Name: PT CRUISER Model Year: 2002
Vehicle Involved in a Crash: No Component's Description: Power train:automatic transmission
Vehicle Involved in a Fire: No Persons Injured: 0
Vehicle's VIN#: Date added to File: May, 23 2021
Date Complaint Received: Nov, 01 2005 Complaint Type: IVOQ
Incident Reported To Police: No Purchase Date: Jun, 30 2002
Was Original Owner: Yes Anti-lock Brakes: Yes
Number of Cylinders: 4 Date of Manufacturer: -
Was Vehicle Towed: - Description of the Complaints: Subject: 2002 pt cruiser brakes / transmission i do not know if you are the proper person to bring up some safety issues with the chrysler pt cruiser but it is my sincere hope that maybe you could direct this to someone who can. about two months ago, i had my brakes services at a local shop that i have been dealing with for 10 years. when i was younger, i used to do much of the work to cars myself, and once in a while i do an audit of the work he does. as always, he does a great job. recently i was driving back from lake tahoe on i80. this is mostly full of mountains with very steep grades and a lot of sheer cliffs. i had a full car load of human and personal property so i would conceder it to be close to the max weight of the car. i placed the automatic transmission from over-drive to the next lowest gear during the steep grades. we did not slow down at all! i discovered to my horror that the next lowest transmission speed was third. so i dropped it down again to the next lower gear and it was first gear. since our speed was 55 miles per hour, it did not engage at all. thank goodness it did not. so i applied the abs front discs and rear drums. by the time we got down from this area, i totally burned out the brakes. i have driven other cars from california to texas to florida with similar loads, but never with a transmission with no second gear. i have never burned new brakes up in a similar fission and required one new disc. i do not think that they ??chrysler?? did enough engineering in stopping this car with steep highway grades with a full load, and the population is at risk for run-away cars in those areas. thank you very much for your valuable time. *nm