2008 Chrysler Sebring convertible (hard top)
107643miles automatic
Codes: P0300 P0113 P0118 P0420
Hey there Scotty!!
We just got this car about a month ago and it ran great for 2 weeks...But of course we're already having lots of issues. Initially we didn't know that we were overheating because the gauge on the dashboard didn't go over the half way mark between cold and hot...also we didn't smell anything burning or visually see any smoke coming from under the hood. We experienced a loss of power and what feels sort of like a hesitation when accelerating. Then we started noticing the lightning bolt light intermittently going on and off. Shortly after that is when it went to crap..the car shut off and locked up while we were driving. We then had a friend look at it and he replaced the alternator which was not charging the battery, according to him. Car ran fine for a day and then we drove from Orange county California to the nevada stateline , which is about a 3.5-4.5 drive depending on traffic. And it made it there okay. Seemed to lose a lot of power the last hour or so but we did stop pretty often for pee breaks lol.... We stayed for a couple days as planned but when the day came to go back home we did a check to make sure everything was okay to drive 4 hrs. Well the coolant reservoir looked empty! And like it had been boiling the coolant or a bit warped/swollen/expanded compared to the usual reservoir that I remembered seeing. So we ended up stuck over there for an additional FIVE days (almost a week total) as it turns out there aren't many mechanics that like to work on cars at stateline and the ones that were known to take the trip were either booked up or trying to charge us $300+ just to check it out and diagnose the problem. . we had to max out the AAA tows for the year to get it back home. As of now the radiator looks like it has a hole towards the bottom passenger side, it had a stream of coolant spraying right into the alternator. Which maybe was the reason for the alternator going out in the first place? We used the blue devil stop leak and it didn't seem to fix the leak but very much helped as far as the leaks severity. It can drive locally . .only a few miles it seems at a time before overheating. Doesn't seem like turning the heater on while it overheats makes any difference whatsoever ..prior to all of this the only obd code was a p0420. Now in addition to that code are the few others too..so frustrating !!
The question for you is what the heck do I need to replace first? And is it safe to drive at all?
The blue devil was probably a bad move . It created more problems than it fixed.
Flush out the cooling system really well to remove as much of the product as you can. Sounds like it may have already clogged up your heater. Hopefully the engine and water pump are OK. Replace the radiator and heater core. Make sure the gauge works. Go from there. Actually test the head gasket first to make sure it isn't blown because the vehicle would be scrap and you're wasting your time.
