I have now owned my Xfire for 2 weeks and I just love everything about the car.I do have a problem and I was wondering if anyone else has the same issue.When it rains and I use the headlights the inside of the lamps go very misty.If you have had this problem how did you cure it.

 

Yes. My father and I bought one at the same time. It happened to him the first time he washed it and happened to me once so far. He took it back to the dealer and then installed a new one without any questions.

 

its a known issue needs a dealer fix

 

It's happening to mine will have to have a word soon with the dealer. I'm just worried the dealer will mess me around.

LordPercy have you had your fixed?

 

Funny..... I've had the same problem and my dealer told me the xfire headlights and foglights are vented rather than sealed and that some condensation is "normal". I'm wondering if this is just another example as to the lack of dealer knowledge regarding this vehicle.

 

Is there a TSB we can refer to if we have this issue? Something to 'force' the dealer to fix it?

 

I had mine replaced last week,first lot of rain since and the new ones misted up....not as bad as the last ones but whatever fix there is it is still not good enough.

 

Had headlights replaced twice without question by dealer; know problem on all Crossfire's - Now fine

 

hmmm known problem you all say? Interesting.

My local dealer rep has had the following to say:

Condensation is normal. Instruct the owner to turn on the high beams for several minutes to dissipate the condensation. Any claims sent in to warranty for condensation will be charged back to your dealer.

This is straight from DC... So if your dealer is replacing headlamps for this- it could be a quite costly mistake for your dealer. Turning the highbeams on for several minutes will 'burn' off the water vapor.

 

Shouldn't have to "dry" out the headlights in a car of this calibar... design flaw???

 

Jamikest - your dealer is talking rubbish. Headlights should not have any water entering the unit. I suggest you insist on replacement units.

 

In this case, Jamikest and DC are correct. Modern projector type headlamps are completely sealed. As a result, vents are added to evacuate moisture. All headlamps of this design will show some type of condensation under certain conditions. The important thing to look for is that it must be temporary fogging only. Any large drops on the inside of the glass are a problem.

Turning on the highbeams after soaking the engine compartment, or after an extended period of moist weather around 0-5 deg. C, should clear them within one hour.

Once again, ALL vehicles with these modern headlamps do this. From Maybach all the way down to a Golf. It is not a design flaw.

By the way, if the dealer has to pay for them, it will be very expensive. Rumor has it that the Crossfire headlamps are around $800-900 each. Thanks.

:shock:

 

oliver1 Wrote:"...In this case, Jamikest and DC are correct. Modern projector type headlamps are completely sealed. As a result, vents are added to evacuate moisture. Turning on the highbeams after soaking the engine compartment, or after an extended period of moist weather around 0-5 deg. C, should clear them within one hour."

I'm glad we don't get much rain here in Phoenix because it still sounds kinda screwy to me... seems like the "vents" are the culprit. I don't remember the old style "sealed" beam headlights having that problem. Maybe the old way of doing things may still be better in some cases. Having to "dry out" the inside of your headlights by leaving them on for an hour just isn't too cool in my book. Some college educated idiot that never learned to read in high school must have designed them. Oh well, just my humble opinion... far be it for me to hold up the wheels of progress. :roll: :roll: :roll:

 

AZ wrote: "Shouldn't have to "... in a car of this calibar... "

I dunno, seems like that phraseology, straddling some problem niggling or large, is popping up with some regularity re this car, both here and on the Edmund's board.

sub par radio, lack of Nav, lack of memory seats, cheap interior pieces, paint wearing off the console where the elbow rests, after-thought cup holder, foggy headlights, wearing seat bolsters, sagging seats, dusty brake pads, 1st gear popping and now some guys are having probs with the autos, bubbles in the sidewalls, low power within its class, hatch rattles, spotty dealer service, heater fans that don't shut off, skipping CD players, glove box locks falling off, dealer manuals telling them to but 6 quarts of oil in an 8.5 quart sump, gear shift levers coming off in one's hand, lifter noise...

First year glitches? Maybe.

Just what caliber car are we talking about? I think we may be putting a little too much credence to "Yeah, but it IS a Mercedes." If that's so, don't want a Mercedes. (Actually, DID have a 240D years ago...an indestructible, exceedingly boring tank, admittedly.)

I know some of you guys will blow me away, have at it. My training wheels are off. But I've bought/paid for the car, I've paid the price of admission, and have a right to be disappointed, especially with the new product line with a Crossfire Light model that will drive the resale value of our cars down WAY below what would be normal depreciation.

And, as our most prolific poster so aptly pointed out...a forum IS for posting right? Just sharing my view, don't expect anyone to agree.

Guess this actually belongs in the Regrets thread, but yeah...calling for my payoff on Monday, sending in the check, as soon as the lien is released gonna sell her off. W/3300 miles and the general public not being aware of the Crossfire Light model being out (heck, they're hardly aware of the current car at all, for that matter), I MIGHT be able to come through with a couple more nickels than I would a couple months from now, or if the mileage was into 5 digits. Not going to add insult to injury and take an even BIGGER hit by trading her in.

Not alone either, one of the guys on this board who has been the biggest and most vocal Crossfire fan and enthusiast from day one, and who has until recently been a very frequent poster, let me know he's going to be trading his in this weekend.

For me, the attention this car gets no longer offsets it's below the skin mediocrity/lack of value. And if DC is succesful in generating sales with Crossfire Light, the attention factor will diminish exponentially as more cars get on the street, and the novelty wears off and they fade into the scenery. Remember, the styling of the CRX, the Audi TT, the last generation Mazda RX7, the BMW Z3, and others ALL were traffic stopping unique when they first came out...then faded into the background.

Can you tell I had a rough week at work?

Gotta go now...got an appointment at the Michelin dealer to mount the replacement tire for the bubbled sidewall...

 

kusheen,

I love my Crossfire and with it's faults, it's still a keeper for me. I had to sell two other cars way too soon that I planned on keeping for a long time... a red '69 Mustang Mach 1 and a silver blue '77 Datsun 280Z. This car is the first one to come along since then that I could afford that really jumped out at me. It screamed, "BUY ME".

With that said and hoping not to get pounded too hard by the rest of the gang... I agree with you 100%.

When I first saw the XFire I told my wife, "damn... if only it wasn't a Chrysler". Then I learned this show stopper was really MB SLK 320, a car I liked but could not afford. Always having heard great things about MB's I went for it and #2815 now lives in my garage.

However, sad to say... IMO I think the Crossfire will go the way of the Edsel. Chrysler has really screwed around this car and if this is MB quality, I'll never buy another MB product, much less one sold and serviced by Chrysler.

As you said, "First year glitches? Maybe"... but I don't think so.

Oh, you forgot to mention the wind noise from the windows...

 

kush:

Well said...and yes I'm the "other poster" he referred to. Monday the Xfire is going bye, bye. Why, please refer to two posts above mine. DCX screwed up several aspects of this car big time. While yes it gets a ton of looks, there are to many other things for me that are not adding up--like a $29k version (which means $27k invoice) of my same color car that no one will know the difference. I can assure you when you go to trade (of which I do every 2-3 yrs), the trading dealer is not going to know "oh, that's one of the originals, which means you have more features, so let me give you more money for it"--NOT.

Again for those that do not intend on trading in the next 4-5 years, more power to ya. I will post final facts and figures on what I got for mine after Monday and what most dealers were offering--it's not pretty folks.

 

Lost another loan to Ditec! Wow, did you people buy this car for yourself or others? I am nuts over the Crossfire and if it goes belly-up, I could care less, it's a long term keeper for me. However, it's a second car and one I don't depend upon. I drive it for pleasure only and it hasn't given me a moments trouble.
Best of luck to you tex, I hope you find something that you really like, it's not fun driving something you hate. Let us know your deal and brand of replacement. Best regards - Bob

 

Um, never said "hate". I DO like the Crossfire--for me it's a primary vehicle and not secondary, and I do tend to trade every 2 years, and therefore just beating the resale market to the punch--that's it, not a big deal. I have backed-up the Crossfire and will always think it's a great car. My point was wrapped around the way DCX handled the campaign of marketing the vehicle (Start at $35K, cannot sell, so drop to $29K--granted more stripped). It's not about wether it's a good or bad car for me, it's about value and how often I get in a new vehicle...no biggy.

 

I guess my questions are:

How many people have had every one of the listed problems? I sure have not. My radio and some wind noise are the only manufacturing problems I have had, and my car is on the road every day.

There is a TSB for the wind noise, and it fixed mine.

The radio and manual tranny (from my reads of the posts on the tranny) were swapped out by D/C; a fair and reasonable fix to a problem. So it was not done in 24 hours, but it did get done.

The enginge power (or lack thereof), interior design, cupholder, and missing features I was aware of when I signed on the dotted line. If I didn't like the looks or features, I should not have bought it. Would I like to see them? Yes. Should I sell my car over it? No.

Dusty brake pads? They are stock M/B, and you would have them if you paid $55K for the SLK. When it is time for replacement, there is a fix.

I have only heard of one or two occurrences on this forum of the glove box latch, heater fan, lifter noise, gear shift ****, and auto tranny. Does a few problems make the car the newest YUGO? I don't think so.

The rear hatch needed an adjustment on some of the early run cars. OK, it is fixed. Get over it.

The manual misprints and errors. I do have a problem with this one, and I think we all should get revised copies. Time will tell on that one. My copy just has the fixes hand written in on it for now.

That leaves the Michellins. At last count I think I read there are about 5K Crossfires on the road, and I don't know if that is US or worldwide, but lets use that number for the calculation. That is 20K of a brand new tire. How many have been defective? I doubt it is this high, but just for the sake of an argument, let's say 200. That is 1%. So 99% are OK. Unless someone out there has any real numbers for this that they could publish, that does not seem that terrible to me. I wish the computers I get had a 99% out of box complete success rate. Do they have an availability problem? Yes, and I think I waited the longest for my replacements. Will that last forever. I hope not. But as most people on this forum know, I fixed my personal problem with this situation by buying some spare wheels and tires. To me that made sense, to others it may not. But my car will not be off the road for this problem again.

I think I covered everything in the list. So what does it all mean? I have yet to purchase any vehicle that has been 100% perfect, and all I have ever purchased was brand new vehicles. And I have had a few that were only in production for a few years. Does anyone out there remember the 1981 Dodge Rampage? I had one. 2001 Dodge Stealth? Had one of those too. But even though they stopped the manufacture, I still enjoyed and drove the hell out of both of those vehicles. I intend to do the same with my Crossfire.

And I truly apologize for getting so wordy, but like it has been said, this forum is for sharing opinions. But you know what they say about opinions......

 

Jim,

You proved the point far more eloquently than I did...that one has to go down a list of niggling problems plaguing this car and explain them, particularly in the "Car of the caliber" statement that keeps popping up, is indeed problemmatic.

In your response, you overlooked what may be the most important point: Chryler's original bungling of the marketing, and now it's addition to it's product line of a Crossfire Light, has/will driven the resale value of our cars down much farther than they would have ordinarily depreciated.

I understand that may not be important to some, but it is to me. No, I did not buy the car with an idea toward immediate resale, toward making money on it, or towards nailing a high resale value. But I would like it to depreciate at least normally so that I can be better prepared for my next car purchase.

When I buy my kid a $15K Honda for college, or myself a stripped down pickup truck for utility, I couldn't care less about resale. I'm gonna use those vehicles till they die. Dropping nearly $35K on what is supposed to be a 'high' quality car, then seeing it's value drop farther and faster than is normal depreciation is not a comforting way to spend resources.

I'm not happy about my 4K mile car being worth RIGHT NOW about $8 to $10K less than I paid for it, and if/when the Xfire lights start to move off the lots, the residual will diminish further AND the Crossfire's one advantage over it's competition, rarity, will be gone.

All the feature drawbacks that one knew about when one bought it. I plead guilty to not really being the type to do a full pre-flight on a car to check every detail.

I admit to seeing the car, sitting in it, and getting an immediate Johnson for it. I also swallowed the line about Mercedes quality. It's not the first time I made a bad decision based on good looks and appealing curves...probably won't be the last. :shock:

Oh yeah...tilt wheel...car of this caliber should have a tilt wheel.