Last week the family and I loaded up the truck with face masks, cases of disinfectant and vats of hand sanitizer and made a pilgrimage to Phoenix, Arizona for a few days, just for a change of scenery. While the family for the most part indulged themselves in the resort’s offerings, I wangled a hall pass to see what the junkyards in Phoenix were like on the second day of our visit. To be blunt, they were hot. Damn hot. 111 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade hot. Which probably explains why everyone there was angry and I was one of very few visitors, no problem keeping 600 feet of separation.
While I did come away with a few nice future Curbside Recycling finds, I came to the realization that Phoenix is the end Terminus for PT Cruisers. It appears to be where they migrate to die, I guess they beach themselves on the junkyard driveway like whales or something on a beach, nobody really knows why. Not that there aren’t dead PTs in other junkyards (there are), but not like this. In the Mopar section of this particular junkyard, there were perhaps 150 assorted Chryslers, Plymouths, and Dodges. But it seemed like about half were PT Cruisers. Some were even arranged like the Rockettes or something, kicking up a hood…
I ended up walking up and down the aisles and just snapping random pictures of them. I even worked up a sweat doing so but that might have just been due to the heat. Did I mention it was hot? And then I found myself turning around and realizing I missed one on the left when I was snapping one on the right and so on and then thought perhaps they were watching me. And moving around when I turned my back. Just astounding. In any case, here they are for your viewing pleasure, at the rate these are dying out, there won’t be any left when they reach the unofficial CC status rolling age cutoff next year.
In the meantime, if you have a PT Cruiser and are in need of a part, it’s in Phoenix. Boy, is it ever.
After the mass groupings above, here’s one that looks more retro than most with the two-tone paint job. There was in fact a rare version in 2010 (the PT’s last year) named the Couture edition supposedly limited to 500 examples but this one just seems to be an homage to it as the roof should be black and there should be chrome accents on the lower sides and the grille. Nice try though, they got the red pinstripe correct! This one was across from the Rockettes, trying to sneak a peek under the hoods…
This silver one was probably very bad, it has to face the wall. It says it’s a Limited Edition but I gave up trying to figure out what’s what, there were so many different packages and versions of the PT over the ten years it was built. Over a million were sold in the US between 2001 and 2010 and it sometimes seems like no two are exactly alike after you look at them for a few minutes.
A red and a gray ganging up on a Cirrus. There was one redesign, occurring for the 2006 model year, so halfway through the run, the tell on the rear is that the taillights got a white center instead of amber and when viewed from the front, the later cars no longer had the grille extending below the bumper. There were other minor changes but those seem the most obvious, on the outside at least.
I don’t know that I’ve ever noticed one with a roof rack before. It fits but should be chrome. Or at least painted silver. Wait long enough and I suppose the back plastic will fade to a silvery gray as it waits for someone, anyone to come and take a part off it. But nobody’s coming. It’s too hot.
Lose the fender, bumper, and grille and it looks almost like anything else. No need to be so blue about it though. You could also get the PT Cruiser in Europe, Asia, Africa as well as Japan. While ours were all built in Toluca, Mexico, every other continent had theirs built in Graz, Austria. In addition to the million plus sold in North America, another quarter million or so were sold abroad, including 10,000 in Japan which has to make it one of the most successful American cars sold there, no? (although theirs were also produced in Austria, so I have no idea how they perceived the car.)
This one with the cataracts is talking to us, wondering what we want.
Ooh, a woody! Also with a rack, maybe it’s just me that never noticed them before. Interesting and a bit unfortunate how the “wood” bisects the fuel filler lid, kind of gives the game away. A car that is supposed to sort of look old with a modern fake interpretation of wood on top of the most modern color there is. I don’t know if that IS the joke or if I’m trying to read too much into it.
Two PT’s in a starting contest. And holding their breath. The one on the left is losing so bad a pimple popped on the back of it.
Clearly a transplant from somewhere with salt. Just a flesh wound. The tinted rear window breaking though, that’s grounds enough to drop it here though.
And one with a touch of the skin cancer, probably a local since birth. Barely old enough to drink gasoline and now here.
The Barney Edition! “I love you, you love me, yada yada yada”, try to get that out of your head now…. Purple needs to come back in a big way. Not sure on what exactly though. Maybe one of the big SUVs could carry a deep shade well enough. Or a pickup truck! Yeah, a pickup! Why not?
Blue did seem to be popular with the PT crowd, there were multiple hues of it over the years. That hatch is quite large, I suppose the body is pretty tall and it sits pretty low rather than riding high to start with. Could this be one of the tallest rear hatch openings out there this side of a Minivan?
A convertible! We saw several other random convertibles out and about during our stay in Phoenix but none had the top down in the heat. Perhaps after dark. In mid-December. With the AC on then too.
No, I didn’t forget about the red one with the shiner. I wonder how long that duct tape did the job on the taillight?
Graphite and Champagne. Like Crockett and Tubbs. Together at last, fighting crime, taking down one junkyarder trying to shoplift junkyard relays in their pockets at a time.
Yeah, I rounded the corner, the convertibles are worthy of another shot of the front. Nobody was there to stop me.
Blue with skin cancer. And looking a little down at the rear because of it. A bog standard early car. This one there might be another one just like it…
Ooh, a Turbo GT! And right next to another convertible too. Shame about the color though.
I’ll round the corner on these too. The turbo engine is gone, no surprise, it was pretty hot and had a lot in common with the Neon SRT4, generating either 215 or 230hp depending on if it was a pre- or post-refresh car. Most of the other PTs here still had their engines though. The world is awash in 2.4l I-4’s.
I desperately needed some shade by this point so let’s finish here with a view of the backseat of the convertible. I realized I had never looked back here and this doesn’t look as uncomfortable as the rear seat of most convertibles. I don’t think I’ve ever ridden in any PT come think of it, convertible or not, and the rate at which these seem to be dropping, that might not change. So if you see one on the road tomorrow, take a good look, the memory might have to last you a while. Cruise on, my friends, this bus is heading straight to the Phoenix Terminus!
Can confirm that the PTs are thick on the ground in Indy as well. I grabbed the lifters out of one for my 2.0L DOHC neon circle track build as a nice cheap junkyard upgrade (together with cam followers out of a 2.7L V6).
My one experience with riding in one of these was a later year (06) rental to drive to JFK International from Ithaca. Full load of passengers and luggage. It did the job, but gruffly and with a kind of gimmicky/nasty interior. I like the basic package: removable rear seats leave a nice big cube of space. Less crazy about the compromised underhood access.
Phoenix is a popular city to retire to, and the PT Cruiser was immensely popular with retirees. Ease of entry/exit is easy on the ol’ hips, and the buy-in was pretty reasonable (after the initial price gouging).
Last time I visited a retirement community, they’d all been replaced by KIA Souls, for the exact same reasons.
This is exactly the first thing I thought of. Obviously, the popularity of the PT Cruiser among the geezer set would mean that many would end up in the boneyards of the same areas where the geriatric set congregate. Undoubtedly, there are plenty of PTs in Florida salvage yards, too.
I wonder what the mechanical malady might have been that forced these PTs to their graves. None of the carcasses seem to be even mildly banged up. I don’t recall the Cruiser as having any specific terminal mechanical gremlins. Could it have been someting as ontoward as seniors constantly bouncing over curbs doing a number on the front suspension that made them not worth repairing?
I’d guess that a good number of them are “last cars” where perhaps non-local family couldn’t or didn’t want to take a PTC for whatever reason (including having to add another car to the insurance policy) and it was easier to just junk it or donate it to someplace rather than try to sell it from afar. Sadly I wonder if there may be a Covid related uptick over the last six months to this kind of thing especially with it being harder to travel and businesses being shut down for periods of time. Most junkyards tend to turn over their inventory every three months or so on average so that would fit. However, there were no more Kia Souls or Scion XBs junked here (less if anything) than there were back home so while those are newer, maybe they are also more in demand.
My bet is on electrical issues (did these use a TIPM?) and a smattering of random catastrophic mechanical failures from Cerebrus era built cars. The 2.4s are generally a solid engine but ones built during this era could randomly blow up.
My first thought was the TIPM, yes they had it and like all of them they eventually start to act up and accessories stop working. Electrical issues are what finally made my MIL get rid of her low low mile turbo convertible. It didn’t go to the JY at least directly because it was low mile and in immaculate condition it was snapped up quickly.
Good call on many of these PTCs being ‘estate sale’ cars that got sold off for cheap, ran into the ground, and discarded. I’d be willing to bet that, eventually, the yards will be awash in Souls for the same reason.
The PTC ran from 2001-2010, and the Soul started in 2008. So, likely as not, soon enough, there’ll be as many Souls as PTCs in these retirement locale salvage yards.
When Grandma finally stopped driving, she gave her PT Cruiser to my teenage sons. They always called it the PT Loser. Lasted ’em through high school without breaking though. The last one to leave the nest sold it when he went to college.
It doesn’t have to be much for the balance to tip. If the used market is flooded with cheap ones, and you have a couple of “delayed maintenance” issues that crop up at the same time (common with cars of this age), the bill can easily come close to the car’s value. And part of the equation is thinking “well I can fix these, but it’s an old car and there’s probably going to be another hefty bill next month”. And it’s a short trip from there to the scrapyard.
Lack of room in the engine room makes routine maintenance difficult. Any cooling system issues quickly turn into a blown cylinder head gasket, the need to pull the head, and likely internal engine damage (the cars can soldier on for a while, as they destroy themselves).
Hi Jim: Thanks for visiting yards in PHX. I’d like to hear your comments about any particular places.
I am intrigued by DVAP up north; there used to be a cable TV show about the place. Also I am curious about the “foreign” car lots in south Phoenix – for Mercedes parts, tools and stuff. Those are in a rather unsavory neighborhood.
Where’s you go?
This particular yard was the U-Pull-And-Pay, which is similar to the two in the Denver area but a bit smaller than either. There are two Pull N Save’s (South and North), almost next door to each other, I stopped by the North one and it was very large but mostly later model (i.e. 10-12yrs old on average with little interesting stuff but more American than Import iron, and mostly very mainstream brands) and then lastly U-Pull&Pay on Buckeye which was very small but had a couple of interesting finds to snap pix of but otherwise not worth paying the $3 to get in.
There are tons of specific marque (or genre) full serve yards in Phoenix, I must have passed fifty of them on W.Buckeye where they seem to be concentrated, but I don’t think you can go in to them yourself (wasn’t ever possible back in my college days in California). Yes the neighborhood didn’t look great, but I didn’t feel particularly unsafe either, reminded me of a lot of certain SoCal areas (the East San Fernando Valley especially and parts of south LA). Poorer people trying to get by for the most part and not looking for trouble, at least in the daytime.
Jim – It is good the snakes stayed away.
Often I am in Cave Creek (about 30 miles north of downtown PHX). One really has to be alert walking anywhere there in the Arizona summer.
Pull-N-Save was Ecology Auto Parts in 2008, the Red Water Tower is a local feature. I worked there my First Summer in 2008 pulling Engines and Transmissions. Talk about, earning $9.00/Hour the HARD way. Pro Tip: Do not leave Tools exposed to the Sun, while working on Cars!
Still see PT Cruisers in Southeastern Ontario. There’s a convertible parked on my street right now. I’ve never seen one with serious body rust here. In spite of all the salt, they generally still look very good. Like old LeBarons, Sebrings, Shadows, and Sundances, convertibles represent a high percentage of Kijiji examples.
This one looks near new:
https://tinyurl.com/y8upfhmj
Most of these are rust-free and undamaged – what’s going on ? Too good to scrap. Did they have a glass differential or something ?
Always had a soft spot for these, but the face-lift did them no favours.
In that timeframe, Chrysler products rusted less because early on, Chrysler Engineering convinced Lee Iacocca that single-sided galvanized steel should be fully adopted companywide in body construction. Actually, Iacocca wasn’t convinced from an engineering viewpoint but as a marketer, he saw it as a way to introduce a rust-through warranty. So Chrysler went with the galvanized metal. The other makers didn’t follow for a long time, maybe some of them still haven’t.
The front clip makes access tight for a lot of mechanical repairs. Repair prices tend to reflect that. More book hours to change a timing belt than a Neon, for example. A lot of these are 15-20 years old, and if you’re a senior and paying for repairs, sometimes it makes more sense to move on.
I’ve been going to self service junkyards for 15 years, I’d venture maybe 1/3rd of cars I’ve ever seen had accident damage or a costly mechanical issue that put them there. Most of the cars came from auctions, seizures, impounds etc. not many people want 20 year old cars regardless of condition for the social stigma alone, or the thought that age alone makes the car somehow unreliable transportation.
I think it’s super wasteful in rust free climates(which despite big snows, the Denver area basically is too).
Hmm, maybe I should chronicle an entire row or about 50 cars to try to determine it, that might be an interesting post. Offhand I’d say about 5% have some kind of tow/impound sticker on them, another 5% have major accident damage, 25% have what looks like relatively minor damage but enough to total them at this point, another 10% seem to have been stored in a barn or in a back lot for a decade or so, I’d have to guess about 30% at least had something major go wrong just based on the number of 200k or so mileage cars there are and the balance may well be emissions fail related along with some or all of the above including donation type stuff which of course we’ll never really know. Oh, and maybe 1% around here have bullet holes or a biohazard sticker. Unfortunately sometimes both.
I mean, the car you yourself drive around in is quite nice because you’ve taken good care of it and are an enthusiast to whom it’s much more than just transportation, but at this point I would guess that the vast majority of its model year mates have already seen the innards of the junkyard due to one or more of the above and virtually none of those would be worth saving when looked at from a financial outlay viewpoint. I’m far more likely to see a ’90’s Cougar in the junkyard (and do) than walking through a mall parking lot with the same number of cars. Most cars in the junkyard were not owned by enthusiast owners.
If someone can’t wrench (or doesn’t have the time or location to) on their own car and the tranny goes out or it won’t pass emissions and the car is worth $2500 or less it seems to often make more sense to cut your losses and start over with that as a down payment and lease or buy something with a monthly that fits the budget rather than pay through the nose to a mechanic, who let’s be frank, is not necessarily looking out for the best interests of the customer. And then perhaps face the next issue a month later. But the whole point of the junkyard is to help reduce the waste by allowing them to be available to whoever needs to find a part that they either can’t afford new or simply doesn’t exist any longer.
Well never cared for the pts to boring. But people junk them because of repairs then they buy another used car and realize oh wait dam repairs again. It’s a cycle get rid of one car to repair another unless your buying a Toyota. Some people don’t have common sense. Any Chrysler made any year since the beginning of time just pure junk. I’m lucky to have a machanic who’s been my close friend for years and hang out with time to time charges me next to nothing
Actually Gregg ;
Chry. Co. products tended to have very good engineering but were often let down by the lack of quality control in the initial assembly .
My personal bias is towards GM but no one who seriously knows thinks ChevyII’s are anywhere near as good cars as ‘A’ body MoPars ~ they look funny but always out ran and out lasted ChevyII’s if both were stock .
Better ride, handling and brakes too .
-Nate
PT Cruisers are like pets that outlast their owners and need to be euthanized by the family. I know of two PTs that outlasted their owners just this year alone. These cars were very popular with retirees. There was something about them that seemed to attract that generation.
The used car market is filled with them as well.
That something was their retro styling and their ease of entry/exit.
I think a ‘command seating’ position with good outward visibility that also had an ease of entry/exit was the big lure for seniors. My late mom’s last vehicle was a RAV4 and she liked her previous Camry a whole lot better, simply because it was easier to get in and out of.
Just inherited a 2008 PT Cruiser.
78000 miles. Man hardly drove it.
Great little car for in town driving but took it on trip to mountains.
No guts climbing. Didn’t overheat but couldn’t get over 40 mph climbing.
Unlike most I actually like the concept and styling of the PT Cruiser. I recently had a close look at one including under the hood. They are not DIY friendly … at all in the engine compartment.
Looking at this post reminds me of the purple PT Cruiser that my mom had in the early 2000s. I think that it probably inspired the later crossover trend because of the high seating position. It was odd and I’m glad she eventually traded it in for something more sensible.
I’ve had 5 pt cruisers! Loved them all! Currently have 2 2005 convertibles, the grey one my wife has only has 30,000 miles. My black one has almost 50,000. Never fails to start great on the highway. My wife’s is a turbo with automatic. Mine standard shift. The prices are now right to own one! You won’t regret it!!!
You’re right about purple paint colors, they’re quite rare these days. The Dodge Challenger and Charger are available in a hue called “HellRaisin” and the Cadillac XT4 is available in Garnet Metallic. Those are the only ones I know of.
I’m surprised FCA doesn’t use the original Dodge name of ‘Plum Crazy’ (Plymouth called it ‘In-Violet’).
I suggest we give Jim the CC Stick-on Badge of Honour (Limited Edition) for spending his holidays doing extensive research into……a Plymouth Neon in fancy dress.
Thanks for the tour Jim. Just tell you weren’t hoping to find some golf clubs to use at the resort…… 😉
While popularly attributed to Mark Twain, apparently he did not say it but I still like to use the quote: “Golf is a good walk spoiled.”
But you inadvertently bring up an interesting point, despite being sold for two more years and selling literally twice as many in the US (2 million vs 1 million), I see far fewer Neons in junkyards than PTC. Perhaps most have already cycled through at this point and likely were viewed as more disposable to being with. The sales years being skewed a half-decade earlier probably has a lot to do with it as well.
Close. the PT Cruiser is actually closer to a ‘cloud-car’ (Cirrus, Stratus) underneath than a Neon (the Neon never had the 2.4L engine). It’s a common mistake.
I noticed Brad Barratt’s comment above. Maybe they were before there time. Good seating position, hatch, if they added AWD you’d have had an awesome CUV for today.
I always wanted one but my size 12 feet and the narrow footwells just didn’t jive.
They were also available, and briefly popular, in Australia. A friend had one, done up hot rod style with flames and big chromed wheels.
Now they’re all gone, and the only Chrysler product you see is the 300.
Oh, CC-in-scale, yeah. I forgot!
Thanks for this paleontological look at a herd of PTs.
For me, the PT Cruiser falls into the small group of modern cars that I’ve never had any interest in buying, but yet I still like them. At least they were different… well, in appearance, anyway… but I viewed them as a welcome change of pace in the automotive landscape. I understand their appeal.
And of all these, I think I like the woody best!
I had such hope for these when they were new but that didn’t pan out. Pull an axle to change an alternator? No thanks. They could have done so much more with these as a two door panel vanette would have been interesting and they took far too long to paint one yellow. A lot of those are probably dead from a lack of support from Mopar like the cloud cars. Just try to find an ECM for one of those when yours craps out. Overall just another mediocre appliance.
It’s hard to believe this car is approaching 20 years old. Thanks for enduring punishing conditions to capture the moment, Jim…I’m sure the CC accounting department will approve your request for hazardous duty pay!
I always kind of liked the PT Cruiser and didn’t mind when assigned one on the rental lot. They were comfortable (that high seating position!), handled well in city traffic and had a decent ride. Downsides were ambient noise levels and some all-to-obvious cheapness in interior materials. Not a bad effort, though; I’m kind of surprised that Chrysler hasn’t followed up with something of similar size and usefulness, only disguised as a small CUV to compete with the CR-V and RAV-4.
When they first came out I was fascinated by the retro styling. It was arguably the best of the retro cars, certainly better than the TBird or HHR. They were really hard to find initially, especially with a stick, which was non-negotiable. I found one in NM, but never pulled the trigger. In retrospect it would have been a fun trip with my then-4-year-old son. Instead I actually ordered one from a relatively local dealer, in that hot rod maroon color. But as it was to be a stick it never got built and I kept my 5 speed Cherokee for a few more years.
Owned one with the stick shift. The manual transmission transforms the car. It was no fire-breathing hot rod, but shifting the car yourself gave it a “fun to drive” element lacking in most of them.
I have a 2002 PT and the only real trouble I have with it is the wiring to the turn signals, headlights and horn. Other than normal wear and tear it’s well my 5 speed PT Cruiser is a great vehical to go camping all weekend fishing, and the back holds a nice twin size blow up mattress with a tarp extending off of the hatchback makes a nice camp site.
They sold a fair few of those things in NZ but after reading this Ive just realized i havent seen one in a long time its relative the Neon disappeared from the roads long ago now it seems the PT cruiser has gone too
Never was interested in these, kind of a mini-minivan. Throw in some crappy engineering. Another fad, paying over list to get the first ones and eventually giving them away to get them off the lot.
Wow, 1 million of these were sold in North America? I never thought they’d been so successful. I wonder how many Chrysler sold overseas. These were occasionally seen in Europe and I’ve spotted a few in Japan, too.
Great post. Hope you rewarded yourself with an ice-cold brewsky afterwards.
Properly the most popular Chrysler import in to the UK at the time out selling the Neon. Babies pram style convertibles are hilarious?. Why did they junk that nice 30s style hot rod dash for the horrible square one?.
Apparently just over a million in the US and another 300K or so everywhere else so maybe 100k in Canada and Mexico maximum so 200k or so in Europe and Australasia that were all produced in Austria. Japan got the convertible as well, with 10k or so in total supposedly going there they are surely around. Somewhere….
I’m not sure if I’ve seen the convertible here in Japan, but the wagon definitely has a loyal following. In a retro-obsessed country like this, the PTC was always guaranteed to have a dedicated fan base.
Ooh, someone stopped by Autobacs to accessorize… Interesting how the bumper is very different. The car’s a decent size for Japan and follows the tall wagon ethos well without the slab sides for maximum volume that only makes perfect sense once you’ve seen the place.
“wagon”. Did you say “wagon”? Tatra, Tatra, Tatra…that’s not a wagon. It’s a compact hatchback MPV.
Seriously, that’s probably the first time I’ve ever heard anyone call it a wagon. No worries; I’m not going to call in the wagon inquisitors. 🙂
The lead shot looks like a nest of baby birds waiting to be fed. 🙂
I had considered owning a PT Cruiser until I opened the hood on one and saw how tight the engine compartment was. I work on my own cars as much as humanly possible and it made the 1999 Chrysler Concorde I’d later own look positively roomy by comparison. I wanted the PT for hauling my paintings to art shows which it would be perfect for. A friend of mine has a PT Cruiser with a 5 speed manual that he loves and it gets better mileage than the automatic but he has found some of his repairs to be painful in more ways than one, but it soldiers on.
Great story! I remember the hoopla when these were introduced, with buyers eagerly paying the sticker price – or more – to get one. Seeing this many in this condition is therefore more than a little ironic.
In early 2007, my wife and I visited Disney World so that she could participate in a Disney running race. Our rental car was a PT Cruiser. It was very handy car.
During that summer, we visited Texas, and our rental car was a Chevrolet HHR. The Chevrolet was the better highway cruiser, but felt more ponderous around town compared to the Chrysler. The Chrysler also had a nicer interior. The PT Cruiser felt airier, while the Chevrolet gave us the impression of sitting in a cave.
Years ago, I rented a turbocharged PT Cruiser convertible in California for a week and drove it all over the place with the top down. I liked it very much.
Chrysler could have improved engine access if they styled the front-end like a 1934 Airflow!
It’s not just in Phoenix as well. I just recently ventured up to the Inland Empire area of Southern California (specifically Riverside and Fontana) to snag a full dark slate interior out of a 300C for my Magnum SRT8.
There were a sh!t ton of PT Cruisers in both yards. For a minute I had to do a double take on the lead photo, because it looks like it could have been taken at either one of those yards. Each had almost an entire row of nothing but PTs.
I bought my only current car (2000 Golf) just before these came out…had a bit of a “why didn’t I wait a little” but the Golf has served me well. Never been in a PT, and though they are spacious, wouldn’t have liked the tight engine compartment since I do like to tinker with the Golf (almost a requirement with VW).
To me the PT seemed analogous to the VW (new) Beetle, a bit less so, but style trumped some of the function. The original Beetle packaging fit the styling, but I’d argue this wasn’t the case with the new Beetle, and though overall more spacious, the PT Cruiser as well…though undoubtedly these wouldn’t have sold at all well if they looked like a ’78 Omni (which in turn looks a bit like my ’00 Golf). I’m a slave to function, so I guess on 2nd thought the Golf is what I should have bought all along. Not sure what I’ll replace the Golf with, but I’m hoping a hatchback will still be available once I finally decide to do so…my Golf will be turning 20 this Thanksgiving…I tend to keep cars a while, and this has been my longest ownership (only have had 5 cars in 46 years of driving…this one has upped my average ownership duration by quite a bit nonetheless).
timing belt at 100k is about 1000 with water pump, if you let it go around the 150k miles it may break and zero cleance motor is done.
plus
100k trans flush
100k coolant flush
100k plugs and wires,
power steering pump is hard to do, radatior is hard, most coolant hoses and boost hoses are dificult to change. so they add time and money fo rhtem,
cam sensors and map sensros thortel postion sensor are cheap but shops charge 200 a sensor and 100 to put in, they take 5 mins. , and the cheap ones dont last to long compared to better brands.
and the front suspension on a pt cruiser is a problem zone,
the bearings wear out fast and are difficult to change out as they have to be pressed on and not everyone does it right so the new one has a high chance it wont last. long.
the control arm wear out after 100k or so, sway bar links last a lil longer but can knock,
struts on pt cruisers are iffy i had 3 diffrent ones on my pt i didnt like any, kyb, monro, and moog.
plus if you over and havent done thouse things and have any other problems
your looking at a steep bill to keep going. . it coulld be at 2-3 k, and worrysome that next month it mayl need more, , so just put a thousand down on a new car and pay 300 a month aand be worry free,
Go to any junkyard in the Salt Lake area in Utah, the amount of dying PT Cruisers here are insane. In the back if one junkyard I saw 6 of them just huddled together talking about their years on the road before ending up there. And there were many more spread throughout the yard. I have a blue 2001 PT, one day it might be one of the last ones alive. And hearing it start up after seeing all those dead ones was a sigh of relief.
How quickly they forget .
These popular cars dropped automatic trannies like flies, sending them to the junkyards when they were essentially new .
My buddy bought one new and did some minor upgrades to it, the tranny failed and in the end he had to save up the $ to have it fixed properly, still has it and loves it .
Less now but 5 + years ago these were jamming every self service junkyard in So. Cal. , mist were in VGC cosmetically .
Most I see now driving about or in the junkyards have the tail lights duct taped in place or dangling by the wires ~ why ? .
-Nate
where exactly is this Phoenix graveyard for Turbo PTs? (presumed on the south side)
i need parts that are no longer sold via mopar…
Specifically the intake hose that connects to the throttle body with the Mass Airflow sensor section, not the hose from the air filter.