I live in northeast Ohio and bought a new 2004 Crossfire from Classic Chrysler in Madison in March 2004.

The car was delivered with a dead radio and when I took it in for replacement the "Crossfire trained" mechanic spent an hour and a half trying to remove the radio from the back of the console before discovering that it was designed to come out through the front. In the process he had damaged the HVAC system which they have refused to repair.

When the car was seven months old it began handling badly and the windows started hanging up on the drip rails and the doors didn't close all the way. At first I thought it was failed welds between the body and the chassis but some kind soul on this board pointed me to the factory manual which I downloaded. At that point it became clear that the car was glued together and what I was dealing was failure of the adhesive joints.

I have e-mailed Chrysler's help line repeatedly and their answer is to try other dealers. One dealer refused to work on the car because they didn't have a trained mechanic (they were selling Crossfires). Another dealer made three appointments, the first two times they cancelled when I got there because they didn't have a rental, the third time they called me and told me not to show up as they had gone out of business.

I got an appointment with the local service representative from Chrysler which I missed because I got the date wrong. We did have a phone conversation during which he denigrated me repeatedly and told me the gouges left in the car by Classic were caused by a shopping cart.

I sent in the complaint card Chrysler includes in the manual/warranty package and recieved no response.

After six visits to Classic I called Jim Brown (the owner) and requested that he take the car back in accordance with Ohio's lemon law. He told me to file a complaint with the better business bureau.

I made an appointment at Junction Chrysler in Chardon and when I arrived the service manager looked at my list of problems and said that Chrysler wouldn't let him work on a car with that many problems. He also said that he wasn't responsible for damage done to the car by another Chrysler dealership (the gouges left in the doorsill when Classic failed to fix the seat heater). He later told me that a Chrysler dealership is only obliged to repair a car enough to get it back to the selling dealer.

I've bought another vehicle to drive because the Crossfire is frightening in even light rain.