They Named a Car Part After Me

The Reliability Issues with 2001-2004 Cars

Imagine you're 17 years old in 2001, and your dad keeps bugging you about cleaning out the garage. You've had it up to here with that guy, so you jump into the Dodge Caravan and start blasting "Satellite" by Pod (bumping so hard, your speakers light on fire). But what if I told you that's not just a great metaphor for how good Pod is? It's actually 2001, and your speakers are really on fire. Now you have to deal with it.

Drivers of 2001-2002 Dodge Caravans know the drill all too well. Condensation dripping off the air conditioner can be a real problem. Sometimes it drips through vent holes onto the top of the rodum (if that's even a thing). If the rudo short circuits, it sends enough surge down the speaker wire to set the speaker on fire. Not cool if you have to replace your whole setup and worst-case scenario, you burn up your legs.

Dodge fixed the issue by putting a little cover on the rodum vent slots and advising drivers to avoid listening to not Pod (the second-to-last entry on this list). Toyota is often considered one of the most reliable car companies ever lived. Depending on the day, what's your favorite car company? What's the most impressive car company ever?

But even Toyota has its off days. In 2013, they voluntarily recalled 800,000 Camry, Venzas, and Avalons after their airbags randomly deployed on the road. Can you imagine something worse? You're driving down the road, and all of a sudden, you get "Tommy Boyed" right in the face.

It turns out that's not just a myth. Spiders were building webs inside the air conditioning units on some Toyotas. This caused water and condensation to drip onto the airbag control module, situated underneath the dashboard. Where are these spiders coming from? This is now the third spider-related recall in most cases. The airbag light turns on, but in at least three cases, the driver's side airbag went off, smashing someone in the face and causing a wreck.

ToA (I think that's what they called it) fixed the problem by adding some sealant on the AC unit to prevent spiders from getting in. Then, they added a cover over the airbag system to block out any moisture in case the spiders did get in.

Now, let's talk about Volkswagen. In 2002-2004, Voltragon Rec called a bunch of Jettas and Golfs because their seat warmers were malfunctional. Drivers reported that in some cases, the heated seats couldn't be turned off, but the heaters could still be on. This caused burned holes through seats, even through jeans and jackets. Jackets how are you supposed to protect your legs? The cause of the problem had to do with a hardware malfunction that sometimes occurs when the ignition and seat heater switch were both on at the same time.

Volkswagen issued a recall for these cars and fixed the problem by changing out the seat heater switch. Interestingly, the recall expired in 2007. Guess you had to be quick to get it fixed, Volkswagen. And now, I'm going to put the pump free rod to the test.

The pump free rod acts like a training wheel if the car starts to tip over. The bar stops it. That's engineering. After four years since my horrific (not embarrassing at all) crash, I'm going to drive the Pod 50 and find out if the pump free rod actually works.