Educate me on the Chrysler Sebring / 2.5 V6...

Good friend of the family needs some help with his car, it's a 98 Sebring Jxi with the 2.5 V6. We got the oil changed, air filter, PCV valve, and topped everything off. I found a loose trans cooler fitting and tightened that. The only issue is it seems to be burning a little oil. A quick check down the front plugs shows a bad valve cover gasket.

So how hard is it to do the rear plugs? I'm assuming an UIM gasket set at the least? And what about the valve covers?

Money is very tight, so I'm trying to keep him on the road as opposed to the best of everything. No external oil leakage at all (it's actually a pretty clean car).

BTW, the main problem was a raft of electrical issues and a dead battery. Turns out it had a top and side poster shoved in there (the battery lives in front of the left front wheel, down in the wheelwell) that was touching the body over bumps. A new correct side-post only battery magically solved every issue!

light it on fire and collect the insurance money.

Sure it's not a 2.7 V6?

Bobzilla wrote: light it on fire and collect the insurance money.

I think that's probably the best way to help them.

yEAH, I was actually not kidding.

SilverFleet wrote: Sure it's not a 2.7 V6?

Second that... these motors are notoriously bad for coolant leak getting into the engine, messing up rod bearings.. Low oil pressure problems.. timing chain problems.. sell the car while you can get a few bucks out of it and get something else..

SilverFleet wrote: Sure it's not a 2.7 V6?

No, the '98 has the mitsu-derived 2.5L. The Sebring didn't get the giant turd 2.7L until 2001.

They're not bad engines, and I don't remember the rear plugs or rear VC gasket being terrible, but I believe the plenum has to come off.

crazycanadian wrote:

SilverFleet wrote: Sure it's not a 2.7 V6?

Second that... these motors are notoriously bad for coolant leak getting into the engine, messing up rod bearings.. Low oil pressure problems.. timing chain problems.. sell the car while you can get a few bucks out of it and get something else..

That's the 2.7L. The 2.5L is a totally different (and much better) engine.

Oh, one more thing, they are interference engines, so check the timing belt while you're in there!

16vCorey wrote:

SilverFleet wrote: Sure it's not a 2.7 V6?

No, the '98 has the mitsu-derived 2.5L. The Sebring didn't get the giant turd 2.7L until 2001. They're not bad engines, and I don't remember the rear plugs or rear VC gasket being terrible, but I believe the plenum has to come off.

Good to know... Oh, this is the 2-door version that's pretty much an Eclipse, right? Or did those come later? All I remember is my dad brought one home for a test drive once and I made him bring it right back.

One of my colleagues once described it as a decent powertrain – wrapped in a turd.

Yes, definitely the 2.5. This is the basically an Eclipse car. It only has 98k miles and everything works and well.

Javelin wrote: Yes, definitely the 2.5. This is the basically an Eclipse car. It only has 98k miles and everything works and well.

Not really. That generation of Sebring convertible is based on the Stratus/Cirrus/Breeze sedan chassis. The Sebring coupe and Avenger also had the 2.5L, but were based on the Eclipse chassis. And since you said "JXi" instead of "LXi", it's got to be a convertible. The convertible shares pretty much nothing from the Eclipse.

SilverFleet wrote: Good to know... Oh, this is the 2-door version that's pretty much an Eclipse, right? Or did those come later? All I remember is my dad brought one home for a test drive once and I made him bring it right back.

The coupe, yes. The convertible no. Although that generation of coupes shared the Eclipse chassis, the Eclipse never got the 2.5L V6. The later (2001 and newer) Sebring/Stratus coupe were pretty much the same as the Eclipse. Same engine options and everything.

Ugh. I had a Cirrus.

I'm betting almost all the motor mounts on that thing are broken and shaking every conceivable part loose.

Really? No help at all?

Only thing I can tell you about them is that chassis was available in Mexico with the turbo motor that later came stateside in the SRT4 cars. Beyond that, I know squat. I quit paying attention after the 99 Eclipse GSX.

I am 100% serious about the motor mounts. You can keep chasing new leaks but that is probably the source of them.

You will have to remove the upper intake plenum to get to the rear plugs...it looks worse than it is. I can have one off in less then 10 minutes. As long as you are doing the plugs, change the cap and rotor, they're buried under the intake and easier to get with it off. The gaskets will be baked into the grooves on the valve covers, it'll take longer to get them off the valve cover than it took to get the valve cover itself off. The engines aren't horrible...but the transmissions are.

Cant believe this thread got this far with 99% talk , 1% walk to answer a simple question like "do you have to take off the plenum to do rear plugs/valve cover..

ASEtech (recertifying two of mine tomorrow, as it happens, out of 8) covered it.. finally.

One of my colleagues once described it as a decent powertrain – wrapped in a turd.

Decent is about as much as i'd give it. I had a 2.5L 6g73 car at one point. The motor is a very good one other than the fact that it is a 2.5L bottom end under a 3.5L top end. The port CSAs are gigantic for the displacement and RPM range and the tiny plenum and too-long runners and weak cams that are on it. With proper manifolds and cams a 2.5L could probably make power to 8k with stock heads, but as delivered that engine is a horrible mish-mash design that makes crap power considering the headflow it has. The best driveability/power mod you can do to a 2.5L v6 chrysler is a drop-in 3.0L shortblock.

Vigo wrote: Cant believe this thread got this far with 99% talk , 1% walk to answer a simple question like "do you have to take off the plenum to do rear plugs/valve cover.. ASEtech (recertifying two of mine tomorrow, as it happens, out of 8) covered it.. finally.

Except I actually answered it 11 posts earlier:

16vCorey wrote: They're not bad engines, and I don't remember the rear plugs or rear VC gasket being terrible, but I believe the plenum has to come off.

Not to mention clearing up a bunch of mis-information. But I guess all of that was:

Javelin wrote: Really? No help at all?

Oh well.

In reply to 16vCorey:

Well I read and appreciated the answer to the OP. Reading is hard for some people

Good point, i guess i skimmed over that since it looked like yall were busy talking about engines that werent actually in the car.

In reply to 16vCorey:

Sorry Corey, I totally used your advice. I got a plenum gasket and popped it off and did all 6 plugs. Funnily enough, my friend now has the world's only 2.5 Sebring polished upper intake plenum. I didn't change the wires, rotor, or cap as they all looked like new. I'm not entirely sure the plug hole gaskets are bad because it was a quart overfull and the PO had 2 quarts riding shotgun (with no drips from the engine at all). With the proper oil level in it now it doesn't seem to have any issues.

16vCorey wrote:

Javelin wrote: Yes, definitely the 2.5. This is the basically an Eclipse car. It only has 98k miles and everything works and well.

Not really. That generation of Sebring convertible is based on the Stratus/Cirrus/Breeze sedan chassis. The Sebring coupe and Avenger also had the 2.5L, but were based on the Eclipse chassis. And since you said "JXi" instead of "LXi", it's got to be a convertible. The convertible shares pretty much nothing from the Eclipse.

As I have now found out after three junkyards, the convertible shares nothing with the coupe. The interiors are completely different. WTF Chrysler?!?!