Intrepid trouble
 

I have a '94 intrepid I recently got from a friend of the family. It was beautifully cared for, he loves his cars. Yet, in the 10 months I've had it, I've put over 20k miles on it! It had only 124k when I got it, that is not the worst part. In the same time, its hit a dear while going 50, a slow speed front corner collision, and now I drove it into a ditch. Until the ditch it was fine, the dear somehow did shock damage and busted a turn signal and broke a few headlight housing mounts, thats it! the front corner was someone taking a corner too close in a huge vehicle and smashed the bumper, broke the fender a little, and broke out the housing. But the ditch did more damage. It bent my radiator and A/C condenser, as well as a brace under them, and the brace is pinning the serpintine belt, and caused my power steering gear(cheap plastic) to break. Still all and all, no one can believe i didn't flip. I'm using this time to remove the A/C while fixing it, but I'm posting this in case anyone needed a laugh, or could provide thoughts on it. Sorry if the pictures are bad, they are from a low end camera phone.

Yes, you hitting a dear made me laugh! :p

You've had 3 accidents in 10 months / 20.000 miles ? Oops.

Good opportunity for some eco mods though ...

Yeah, as far as eco mods go, this is a good time to do a few quick ones, but not many because my school starts in 2 weeks, and i have no other transport. At the very least I plan on removing the A/C. Doesn't seem too difficult, removes +/-50lbs, and means I don't have to buy a new condenser, which is about 50 from a junkyard. The bigger thing is when this is fixed I plan on doing a budget EV conversion with the insurance money from the front end collision(not my fault). But for more laughs, the night I hit the ditch my sister came with tow money, and it started raining while we waited. It didn't take even an hour for the tow to get there, in that time her car died. in the rain, next to mine. We had to get a jump from the tow guy.

scrap metal about $200 worth
 

..."with the insurance money from the front end collision(not my fault)"...
please accept this for what it is and not as
something derogatory
i do not intend to belittle you by making the following statement

when you get the insurance money from the crash ...
pocket it
drive the car to the scrap yard and , drain the remaining fuel with a siphon to a fuel tank.
pocket the 2 hundred or so the scrap yard will give you and add that to the insurance funds

buy something else , anything else .
the car of your dreams is junk and your copy of the junk seems to be a very poor specimen ....

a Geo Metro would be a far better choice for ecomodding and
they are inexpensive to buy and easy to work on

I would also recommend this! That car will not last much past 160K. For what the scrap place will give you ($300-$500) + insurance money you can get a better car.

Is there something bad about Intrepids besides that awful 2.7?

No do not just scrap it try parting it out or find out what the scrap yard will give you and then sell it as a parts car on craigslist for $150 more.

thw 2.7 is good , with the correct oil
 

I should have specified, the '98-'04 models.

There are many of them out there with cooked 2.7 engines... wondering if it's worth taking one of them on as a fixer-upper? I hear the 3.2/3.5s are less prone to the sludge failure mode...

Also it's my understanding it's not so much oil grade and change frequency that causes the sludging, it's a bad water pump design that fails prematurely and weeps into the crankcase before it weeps outside, thus the only indication of impending doom the driver has is lack of heater output at idle...

I have an '89 Mitsu 3.0 but I've never been a "Dodge Boy" and don't have much of a clue as to how involved swapping that in would be.

I love the styling- it's a larger heavier car than I really need but if the rest of them isn't junk then it might be worth messing with.

The car still has a reasonable life left, the insurance MORE than covered what I paid for the car, and I want to fix it as an out of town vehicle and build a budget metro EV. And I never get upset at people for opinions/points of view.

I'm not sure if you are thinking it won't last long because of damage or the shotty 2.7, but both don't really apply. Yes, the damage looks bad, but it comes down to a radiator(65 at a junkyard) a condenser(i'm removing A/C) a plastic serpentine belt gear(Haven't priced) a fan assembly(not priced, but cheap(Also not belt driven :thumbup:)) Misc tubing(not priced). We are fairly certain it will be under $200. And until the incident the engine hasn't made a worrisome peep. The 2.7 engine isn't related, its on the 2nd generation as Frank Lee mentioned, and the 3.2 and 3.5 2nd generations have a solid quality, not civic level, but still good.

Frank lee, you were asking how easy it is to mod, not at ALL. It sacrifices trunk and engine space for cabin, but mostly engine space. It is TIGHT, and without heavy modding you can't drop any non intrepid(or concorde) engines in. And it has no manual (but an automanual) transmissions. although it gets reasonable milage for its size and comfort, i actually get 23-25(just math, not guages) without any modding. and it has a reasonable CoD. Besides the 2.7 engine there are no problems I know of, its been a beautiful car and saved me multiple times.