Complete engine failure or seizure on the 2003 Dodge Intrepid
1 death 1 of the 4 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
Only 4 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When complete engine failure or seizure gets reported
There are 4 reports of complete engine failure or seizure on the 2003 Dodge Intrepid, 4 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 105,000 miles. It is the 7th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 70,650 miles | — | — |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 1 a fatality is mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $4,500–$12,000 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 7 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2001, at a median of 67,500 miles, and latest on the 1999 at 85,000 miles.
By volume the 2000 carries the most reports, with 91; the 2003 has 4. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
The 2.7 liter engine on our 2003 dodge intrepid seized without warning while on the road. We were on a two-lane highway on a bridge with no shoulders, in-between two large motorhomes traveling at 60 MPH with no power steering and limited braking ability. We were extremely fortunate that we were able to coast across the bridge and get to the shoulder of the road without further incident. The car only has 62,000 miles on it, and the engine seized because of excessive sludge build-up despite regular oil changes that occurred at less then the factory recommended interval of 7500 miles. *jb
My dodge intrepid 2003 with the 2002 2.7 liter model engine locked up on me for no reason at 76,000 miles apx. I spoke with another individual with the same engine and it locked up at 15,000 miles. Luckily I was not in the main road, but I was in the process of pulling out into a busy intersection and may have not turned out good. The car was in motion and when coming to a stop the engine just locks up and it wouldn't even turn over again. I had to have local law enforcement help me get the vehicle off of the roadway, which happen to be passing by at the time. The vehicle is currently sitting dead in the driveway. I was always under the impression chrysler products were good and dependable and this will probably be the last time I buy one of their products due to this. *tr
Tl*the contact owns a 2003 dodge intrepid. While driving approximately 35 MPH, the engine stalled and would not restart. Prior to the failure, the engine warning light illuminated on the instrument panel. The vehicle was towed to an independent mechanic and they stated that the failure was related to sludge build up in the engine. The vehicle was repaired. The failure mileage was 84,173 and current mileage was 86,000. Update 09/10/08 *cw the engine seized due to lack of oil to the upper part of the engine. Updated 09/10/08. *jb
Also reported on the 2003 Dodge Intrepid
Other engine problem
Engine sensor failure
Other powertrain problem
Water pump failure
Overheating
Other electrical problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 4 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 4 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does complete engine failure or seizure happen on the 2003 Dodge Intrepid?
Across 4 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 70,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is complete engine failure or seizure on the 2003 Dodge Intrepid?
4 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 41 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed