Another Mopar Off My Bucket List - Barracuda Fastback

OK. Maybe I was overly optimistic when I hadn't found anything wrong with the Sebring on Saturday.

Sunday I was able to take it for a longer test drive and bad things happened. I drove it about 5 miles out of town when I first started smelling oil burning. I thought it might have been residual left on the exhaust from earlier but it got worse as I returned home. As I pulled into the driveway I started hearing a rattling knock, smoke began rolling out from under the hood, and the car died. For those first 5 miles it had seemed perfect.

I jacked it up as high as I could and crawled beneath it again. The new aluminum oil pan that was installed last year is pretty scraped up but not cracked. It's obvious that someone's been bottoming out the car. There was so much oil on the bottom & backside of the engine that I couldn't tell the source location. My guess is that it's the rear seal and it's being slung all over. If it weren't for the noise it's making I would have assumed a cheap fix.

The urgent need for transportation means we're best off looking for another vehicle. - Hard telling how long it would take me to get it fixed and if the motor needs replacing it would run into more bucks than it's probably worth. Teresa didn't want to drive the Dodge dually or the crew cab Ford. She needs something with better fuel economy.

We spent the past few days looking at minivans and Durangos. sigh...