posted 12-28-2004 08:27 PM                  

America is a free place. This is a free website where everyone can express their opinions. If you feel compelled to complain to NHSTA and panic enough other people into filing, you're just diverting their limited resources from another problem which may indeed affect the safety of others on the highway.

Tami, Orange appears to be the new expert on all things Prowler. Have him help you resolve this issue.

posted 12-29-2004 12:45 AM                    

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Originally posted by RPL:
Boy, I'm really concerned! If you know that there is an issue with your hood support struts I would think you would be more cautious about being under the hood without additional support or letting anyone else do it. If you're aware of an issue with any vehicle and don't correct the issue, you become the problem.

America is a free place. This is a free website where everyone can express their opinions. If you feel compelled to complain to NHSTA and panic enough other people into filing, you're just diverting their limited resources from another problem which may indeed affect the safety of others on the highway.

Tami, Orange appears to be the new expert on all things Prowler. Have him help you resolve this issue.

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RPL, from my understanding, you had something to do with prowler production (I apologize if I'm wrong about this fact) so it's understandable that you feel my concern is an attack on you.

I am not panicking or trying to get others to panic. I just reported an issue I believe is important and wanted to let people know that if they have a similar concern, they could do something about it, like I did.

I also agree with you that once an owner is aware of the issue, it is their responsibility to be extra safe. However, just because someone is aware of a problem and takes extra precautions, it does not mean that the problem should not be addressed.

Finally, I would like to say that I am dismayed at your final comment to Tami. From reading many posts on this website, I can tell that you are a very nice guy and help out a lot of prowler owners with answers about their vehicles. Your comment, as a view it, was not only childish, but also misstated facts.

I never claimed to be an expert on ANYTHING prowler related. Anything I stated is either from my personal knowledge or from reading other people's accounts of issues they experienced. Regardless, even ASSUMING that I claimed to be an expert, there was no reason to tell Tami that I should help her because you won't.

posted 12-29-2004 08:36 AM                  

When my original set began to fail, I understood this was a problem that most everyone was having and I worked around it by using clips to hold the struts open when at car shows and such. It was when I took it to the dealer for service that they saw that the hood would not stay open and replaced the struts under warrantee. Now on this set, the problem was that they would no longer hold the hood open.

A couple of weeks later, I went to open the hood - no luck - the strut on the right side broke and wedged into the hinge. You can read my posts about the troubles that caused, but the dealer was able to free the broken strut from the hinge and they replaced that set.

Set three lasted from the time it took to drive from the dealer until I opened the hood when I arrived home, about 28 minutes. I watched both sides fall off when I opened the hood.

Set four lasted a couple of weeks, I went to open the hood and the left side fell off.

My problem with the replacements were not that they would not hold the hood open, it was that they were so overcharged that they would put the plastic ends in such a bind when the hood was closed that they would deform and either break off the end of the strut or push themselves off the pivot.

I could not ask for my dealer to have been more cooperative with me on this - or anything else on this car. With any other vehicle, if I didn't like the little problems, I would trade them off and get something different.

posted 12-30-2004 11:43 PM                  

Of course quality can be six-sigma'd to death with statistical methods etc. but the root of the matter lies in the customer perception and experience which is not easy to quantify... e.g. the "satisfaction survey."

I have had problems with the hood like most everyone else, and a whole host of other repairs and problems. If it were on my truck I'd be ticked, but on my Prowler somehow I put up with it.

IMO from a "product quality and reliability" perspective my Prowler is without a doubt the biggest piece of garbage I have ever owned, but at the same time it is also the coolest car on the planet and I will never get rid of it. How do you explain that? I don't now about you but I plan to be buried in mine.
(DO you think they require a permit for that? Do I need to replace the oil with embalming fluid?)

posted 12-31-2004 07:33 AM                  

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IMO from a "product quality and reliability" perspective my Prowler is without a doubt the biggest piece of garbage I have ever owned.

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It's a shame you feel that way.......and I am always puzzled why some vehicles have more problems than other vehicles of the same model. However, that is not only indicitive of the Prowler.........it's true of any car model.

posted 01-02-2005 12:05 PM                  

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Originally posted by ETMIDZT:
My "99" has a Hood prop......No problem here!! I guess they(DC) should have stayed with that design?!

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Same here, Eary 99 with a hood prop