The dealership told me that the brakes had ceased because the channel that the pads slide back and forth on had got dirt in it and the pads had ceased (which sounded like bull to me) and that I needed new pads and rotors. Told them I'd replace them myself.

Replaced the rotor and pads on the defective brakes and low and behold what do I find.... the calliper is what has ceased, not the pads. Did the dealership even take any time to check this out??? So now I'm a couple hundred dollars down for new rotor and pads, and now I need a new rear caliper! And they still say the calliper isn't covered under the warranty even though the vehicle only has 33,000km on it! This is absolute bull! I've talked to 3 separate people who've all had problems with the rear brakes in these vans!

Again.... this is the first, and will be the ONLY Chrysler product that I ever buy.

Seriously, how many people need to complain about the brakes in these vans until they do something about it!!! My van has 30,000km(18,641 miles) on it. My day consists of about 50 minutes of highway driving and 15 minutes of city driving. One night I was driving on the highway, and I didn't even press on the brakes, and the rear left brake ceased up! It was making a terrible squealing noise and you could smell the burnt brake pads. I got out of the vehicle and since it was night time you could see the rotor glowing red.

In the time it took me to get into the dealership to get it looked at (about 3 days) this happened another 4 times. Driving, no brakes being pressed and then ceasing up. At the dealership they very casually said that something must have caused the "mechanism" that lets the pads release to get stuck. Of course the pads were shot and the rotor was warped. They said they could fix it to the tune of $450 plus tax.

I said "well this is covered under the warranty right?" They said that the brakes are only covered up to 20,000km (12,427 miles) or 1 year. I tried arguing the point that this isn't just a problem with the pads wearing down prematurely or a problem with the callipers.... the brakes CEASED on me when I was going 100km/h (62mph)!!! I told them not to fix the brakes. I'll get the parts myself and my cousin will install them for a case of coors light and save me from turning black with brake dust. :)

Apart from the brakes did I mention that the car rattles somewhere in the engine when it's first turned on, transmission "clunks" when downshifting at slow speeds, "myGig" entertainment system has completely stopped working on several occasions, front passenger door needs to be slammed to close properly. Curiously all of these problems the dealership can't find. They say everything is perfectly fine. The vehicle's been in for 3 recalls (which after what happened with Toyota, Chrysler now calls "rapid responses", what a joke!). This is all on a vehicle that is just over a year old.

I've never owned a vehicle from the "Big 3" before, and let me tell you, I never will again! I've owned a Honda Civic, Toyota Camry and a Subaru WRX STi. The only problem I've had out of all three of these previously vehicles was the left CV join had to be replaced on the Civic. This was just before I sold it and it had 423,000km (262,840 miles) on it!!!! Maybe I was just lucky with those three cars, or this van is the worst piece of crap ever made, who knows.

All I know is... buy a Honda Civic. Most reliable damn car I've ever seen!