Where do i begin. So many problems. since day one. I bought my 03 e car brand new in april of 05. the first day i bought in it didn't sound right. It had that deiselish sound to it. I brought it back to the dealer in massachusettes where i bought it and they assured me that the sound was normal ( the forged saleen pistons they said). I didn't think much about it after going on some of the forums and finding out that other e cars sounded that way.On that second day i also noticed that the belt that was on the car was the wrong size. the tentioner was maxed out and the belt was rubbing. This struck me as sort of odd.Why would saleen send the car with the wrong belt on itThe next thing was the gears that were supposed to be 355's were really 308's. fine no big deal, i just bought 373's. the warrenty manager (at the time) they have been through a lot of warrenty people over the last year .He told me that when they put my car together it made a howl in the rear so they changed the gears before it left the plant.Whatever no big deal.I drive it for the season which is short here in new england. The car goes in the garage for the winter. On my second time out with the car in the spring of 06 on my way back home from a show the engine ceased up solid with no warning.Instead of bringing it to the dealer who was 2 hours away and is totally incompitent. I took it to a mechanic who has has been working on our cars for 25 years. He pulled the engine out for me. while i was there we inspected it a little further. First off the clutch disk was installed backwards, that's right backwards. The noise i was hearing was the clutch disk shearing off the flywheel bolts. there is a goddam sticker that says flywheel side, and the dumb asses couldn't even get that right.The car only has 3300 miles on it. That isn't even the bad part. When we pulled the oil pan off, what i found was 4 to 6 inch strips of black rtv gasket sealer in the bottom of the pan. After looking a little further the oil pick up screen was clogged solid with pieces of this sealer. They used sealer on the whole motor. The WHOLE oil pan had it not just corners like it is supposed to have. Now trying to deal with saleen what a @#$#ing joke.You only get 12 month warrenty on these cars, I had 12 months and 16 days. They were breaking my balls about the warrenty. After sending the pics and a statemtment by the certified mechanic , the agreed to fix the engine back in irvine ca. I was responsible for the shipping out the and the labor to the mechanic since i didn't bring it to the dealer. Like i said the dealer was incompitent. I feel if i brought it to the dealer they would have tried to cover it up. The warrenty manager at the time said it would be a 2 week turnaround. (any one see the movie the money pit). to make a long story short i sent the engine. After 44 documented calls, countless emails and 10 months later i finally got the engine back. All i got along the way was answering machines and 1 email (bacically the email stated that they were all screwed out there and that they were sorry>
I got the engine last week.I video taped every step. I wanted to make sure i got a new clutch like i was told i would. When i took the pressure plate off. What do i find, a used clutch disk. What a bunch of idiots. it isn't even worth trying to get a new one out of them. I figrued i would put my story in a few magazines to let everyone know that kind of shoe makers they really are. From reading some of the forums it seams that i am not the only one with problems. I don't even think the care about their reputation. I just want to put this engine back in the car and get rid of it. I just hope that all of this bad publicity doesn't make it hard for me to sell this car. I mean they made 14 e cars in 03 you would think that they would have put a little more care into them than mistakes like that. Who puts a clutch disk on backwards on a $63,000 car. Sorry for the long post.
another disrguntled extreme owner
problems with my 2003 extreme
