Opinion Of Dodge Nitro

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What's your opinion of the Dodge Nitro. I seen a 2007 for sale today and I really like the looks of it. I remember seeing that Consumer Reports didn't rank it very high. Does anyone know the reliability of these vehicles.
 
Hope you don't plan to do the oil changes yourself, because the filter is an absolute PAIN to get to! I used to work in a quick lane lube place and Nitros ranked in my top 5 worst vehicles to change oil on. There was also a Jeep variant just like them, but I can't remember the model.

I think they're fairly reliable, the 3.7 V6 has proven itself, but the way they crammed it under that hood is a joke!
 
Originally Posted by jongies3
I think they're fairly reliable, the 3.7 V6 has proven itself, but the way they crammed it under that hood is a joke!


The 3.7L V6 & the 4.7L V8 it's derived from are hit & miss AT BEST, I won't say what I really think about them!

The 4.0L 60 degree V6 on the other hand......Is a really good engine! The Timing Belt probably scares people off.....
 
Originally Posted by jongies3
Hope you don't plan to do the oil changes yourself, because the filter is an absolute PAIN to get to! I used to work in a quick lane lube place and Nitros ranked in my top 5 worst vehicles to change oil on. There was also a Jeep variant just like them, but I can't remember the model.

I think they're fairly reliable, the 3.7 V6 has proven itself, but the way they crammed it under that hood is a joke!


Please list your Top 5 Worst vehicles to change the oil- I think that is an interesting topic.
 
We have an '08 Liberty, pretty much same vehicle. My wife had it when we met. There are much more reliable vehicles to get. We have just spent too much having the HVAC basically rebuilt from cascading failures. If a new car was in our finances (almost there) we would have replaced it awhile back before pouring money i to it. Prior to us being together for the last two years, she had been nickeled and dimed for repairs of various kinds over her five years of ownership.

The 3.7 can be very reliable, but there were several with valve spring or other issues that had problems at around 120,000 miles.

It's a cool looking vehicle, but knowing what I do now, I would not buy it…
 
Quite possibly the most mis-named car in history. "Nitro" should've been used for something like the Viper with forced induction.
 
My 3.7 Liberty takes 15 minutes to change the oil on. 192k on mine. The valvespring issue was from 02.

The Nitro is a stretched Liberty, weighs more so slower and less MPG. And they took away low range. So of no use in severe off roading...so kind of pointless. I mean reliability wise it'd be as solid as my Liberty, but just has the MPG and power drawbacks without the huge benefit of being able to go off roading.
 
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I don't think these have 3.7, they have the timing belt 4.0. Which is definitely a better engine than the 3.7 in Liberties
 
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Originally Posted by Miller88
I don't think these have 3.7, they have the timing belt 4.0. Which is definitely a better engine than the 3.7 in Liberties


RTs only have the 4.0. Other are the 3.7.

Don't know much about that 4.0, I know of quite a few 3.7s going well over 200k to over 300k. Not bad.
 
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