Are Neons any good?
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Anonymous
Are Neons any good?
Hi all, Jo's Toyota is about to be written off (a dozy cow at work backed into it) and she fancies a Neon to replace it. Are they any good?
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Anonymous
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Anonymous
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Anonymous
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Dave-R
- Posts: 24752
- Joined: Sun Apr 18, 04 11:23 pm
- Location: Dave Robson lives in Geordieland
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Got a dicky left knee myself. A clutch in rush hour traffic is no good to me.
We had our 1998 Neon automatic from 9 months old. Just sold it earlier this year.
I can only comment on what these older Neons are like because in 1999, when the Germans took over, they completely re-designed the whole car.
I have no idea what these later ones are like.
I hardly ever needed to lift the bonnet on ours. Very very reliable car. Bodywork remained solid despite all year round use and never been garaged.
Never even replaced the exhaust from new. But it did tend to blow from the manifold to down pipe from time to time. I eventually had to replace the sealing ring at that joint.
The petrol tank filler tube did rust. As it does on all these Neons. I picked up a good used one from a scrappy and cleaned/painted it up so it would last.
They all leak oil from the rear passenger side of the cylinder head gasket unless you replace the gasket with the re-designed version. Even then they can leak slightly after as mine did. Wish I had used sealant on it.
When I sold it I had not long replaced the front discs and pads. Drilled vented discs were the same price as the stock type at $40 a pair from Summit Racing. Even with a weak pound many parts are still cheaper shipping from Summit than they are from a Chrysler Jeep dealership.
Even with auto trans the car was not slow. Put your foot down and it would go quite well. Being 16 valve it likes to rev for the power. But the engine sounds more like a diesel than a petrol engine. Like something in-between the two. Returned 40 mpg though if you drove it like a girl.
All in all the car served us very well indeed. I thrashed the nuts off it for years showing it no pity and it still never let me down. I think the battery packed in once. That was all.
It started to run a bit rough just before I sold it. The engine internals were not showing any wear (looked like new when you took the head off) so i don't know what it was. Probably one of the engine management sensors.
We had our 1998 Neon automatic from 9 months old. Just sold it earlier this year.
I can only comment on what these older Neons are like because in 1999, when the Germans took over, they completely re-designed the whole car.
I have no idea what these later ones are like.
I hardly ever needed to lift the bonnet on ours. Very very reliable car. Bodywork remained solid despite all year round use and never been garaged.
Never even replaced the exhaust from new. But it did tend to blow from the manifold to down pipe from time to time. I eventually had to replace the sealing ring at that joint.
The petrol tank filler tube did rust. As it does on all these Neons. I picked up a good used one from a scrappy and cleaned/painted it up so it would last.
They all leak oil from the rear passenger side of the cylinder head gasket unless you replace the gasket with the re-designed version. Even then they can leak slightly after as mine did. Wish I had used sealant on it.
When I sold it I had not long replaced the front discs and pads. Drilled vented discs were the same price as the stock type at $40 a pair from Summit Racing. Even with a weak pound many parts are still cheaper shipping from Summit than they are from a Chrysler Jeep dealership.
Even with auto trans the car was not slow. Put your foot down and it would go quite well. Being 16 valve it likes to rev for the power. But the engine sounds more like a diesel than a petrol engine. Like something in-between the two. Returned 40 mpg though if you drove it like a girl.
All in all the car served us very well indeed. I thrashed the nuts off it for years showing it no pity and it still never let me down. I think the battery packed in once. That was all.
It started to run a bit rough just before I sold it. The engine internals were not showing any wear (looked like new when you took the head off) so i don't know what it was. Probably one of the engine management sensors.
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Anonymous
Not to fussed about a noisy engine, thats nothing an induction kit and big exhaust can't drown out. 
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Trigger_Andy
- Posts: 7867
- Joined: Sun Apr 18, 04 10:27 pm
- Location: Stavanger, Norway
Not sure about the earlier Neons but I found the suspension prone to faults. I bought my 2001 Neon with 50k miles and the wishbones had already been replaced. Since I've had it I've needed to replace the rear top shock absorber bush and I had the anti roll bar link snap. I've heard similar things about the PT Cruiser.
Martin Walker
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Anonymous
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Anonymous