Not Impressed

[careyk]

Well I'm not impressed with the Chrysler planner that designed the battery placement. 1st of all you have to remove the entire air box. Than you have to undo pos and Neg..than you have to contort to get the nut off the metal bracket that goes over top of the battery and obstructs and prevents openning the battery. Than you have to put everything else back together. And to add insult to injury...Why did Chrysler not put a light on the underside of the hood? Even I would have thought of this...most other cars have a light under the hood...and not such an ordeal to change the battery

[careyk]

Well its done....everything works...and I don't see any flickering of my interior lights....now just to get the furnace and central vacuum fixed.

[Hooligan]

I could sense your frustration with your first post, glad everything turned out all right with the PT . The rest, (shrugs shoulders) good luck!!

[CREWZIN]

The shape of the PT's front end made the engineers put in everything wherever there was room. The battery should only have to be replaced every few years so it's not too much trouble to get at.

As far as the light under the hood. Chrysler started deleting all kinds of little things right after the first model year. The list of things deleted are too numerous to mention. If it would have come with a light I'm sure it would have been gone by the time you bought yours.

[MINIHEMI46]

careyk....Were would YOU put the battrey? And remember it has to be in a safe spot, bolted down and not inside the car were it's NOT safe. I think Chrysler engineers did a great job in planning and designing the PT. You can't please everyone no matter how hard you try.

[careyk]

Maybe the battery could have been mounted in the trunk ie like in the Magnum SRT8????

[CREWZIN]

Good Idea, But, the Magnum is 3 times the size of the PT. Most of us need all the storage space the PT can provide.

[wazzzzman]

Well at least the battery is in a place you would expect one to be. My wife had a 2004 Cadillac De Ville and the battery went dead just after she got the car. I opened the hood and could not see anything remotely resembling a battery. I thought she must have left the lights on or something and just wanted a jump. As I was sitting in the car waiting for Cadillac’s roadside assistance, I read the owners manual and it said the battery was under the seat. I looked under the seats but no battery was found. The folks at Cadillac called my cell and told me they would be a little long getting there so I told them I would leave the keys in the hospital office and I went home. Three days later they still had not picked up the car and it was still in the parking lot. To make a long story short, I expressed my concerns about support on a $48,000 car and after many shrugs of the shoulders and many oh wells, I found out that the battery is under the back seat on the passengers side. All you have to do is take the back seat out and there it is.

I guess that may be alright, but in the middle of the night out in the rain, one does not appreciate having to drag the back seat out to check the battery. So even if it is not convenient, I can at least see it on the PT with the hood open and a flash light. Not so on my wife’s Cad which is now a BMW and it has the battery in the trunk but there is a light and it is easy to get work on and check.

[damilleniumboy]

I had to replace the 9V battery on the PT last week, and it's not in a bad place acutally. It's located where most american vehicles have the battery located. I had a BMW that I sold a couple of years ago, and the battery was in the trunk. It took me about thirty minutes to find the damn thing; I had to read the manual just to find where the battery was at.

[Ironman]

Well, I'm a machinist trained at Dunwoody college of technology in Minneapolis MN, and part of the training included learning the basics of a few cad programs, and a few engineering and design basics. one more year and I would have had a degree in engineering as well. My father was a mechanical drafter with a little engineering experience, and I have always been fascinated by engineering feats. The PT in my mind is one such feat. It is extremely well layed out (with the exception of the power mirror and power window switch locations). The interior is functional, spacious, and luxurious looking. The engine bay engineering is amazing as well. To fit everything in its place and make it fairly accessible in such a small area is no easy task. though the car has drawbacks, as a whole I believe it is one of the best engineered cars I have ever driven.