My 2003 Dodge Neon

[roushstage2]

Finally got one again! Yesterday as a matter of fact! This was the only one I looked at that didn't have a moon roof, which was fine with me because my head was in the roof because of the drop for the moon roof, have any power windows or locks, and ran fine. It was also in the best overall shape and had the lowest mileage out of any of them.

It is a 2003 Dodge Neon ES in Patriot Blue with the 2.0L SOHC engine, and the cleaning and modding began about 3 hours after I bought it. The first thing when I got back in town was install a steering wheel cover, new wiper blades, and a new set of wheel covers. The ones that were on there made it look like an old lady's car. Nothing wrong with that, just not my style. Once I got home, I scraped the tape and glue off of the windows and gave them a quick, but not thorough wipe-down. Then the engine was cleaned with APC and dressed with CD-2 Engine Detailer. I gave it a rest until this morning. Started up by wiping the entire interior, headliner, visors, and door jambs with APC and some towels. I then headed out and got new reverse bulbs. I went over to my friends house and switched the broken/cracked headlights out for the set off of the SRT-4 he had. They even match the front trim and wheel covers better because they are the chrome, not black. Installed a new radiator cap that actually had a gasket on it. Took off the front plate and got a plain, gloss black frame for the rear. I got home this afternoon and washed it with Deep Crystal, applied Hot Shine Tire Gel to the tires, applied NXT Tech Protect to the interior panels, and BlackWOW to the trim.

The Helper



Interior Befores













Interior Afters











Here is the car washed with the tires and plastic dressed.



















On Thursday morning, I am installing an SRT-4 cat back exhaust. Can't wait!

[VoicesInMyHead]

Re: My 2003 Dodge Neon

Nice!

Keep an eye on that 'helper' of yours... I saw Kung Fu Panda!
Just keep an eye out...

[El Tano]

Re: My 2003 Dodge Neon

Wow I haven't seen a Mantis in years.....

Nice job on the car, but with that dirt road I think it will last

[03mach1]

Re: My 2003 Dodge Neon

Hey tyler so is that your daily driver now? and saving the Roush for the weekends? Nice looking neon. Are you going to get the SRT 4 bumper too? The Neon looks great. Nice work.

[benhui86]

Re: My 2003 Dodge Neon

needs new rims

[Nappers]

Re: My 2003 Dodge Neon

Great job on that Neon, does yours have a hard as nails clear coat? My CC is hard as nails and need a cold chisel and a hammer to get the swirls out. But I now have more to my arsenal that can help hopefully.

Keep an eye on that automatic, make sure to service it more than usual to keep her going and DONT hot rod it, they break easy from what I read on the Dodge forums.

Great job though

I like that blue, almost bought that, but the wife found the Orange Blast Neon and we bought it.

Aaron

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: My 2003 Dodge Neon

Tyler,

Congrats on the new ride. It looks great, The car looks like some maintenance was done on it. Congrats and enjoy.

[yalerd]

Re: My 2003 Dodge Neon

Nice work!
Great job on the interior

[Jokeman]

Re: My 2003 Dodge Neon

Congrats on the new ride!

[TimG]

Re: My 2003 Dodge Neon

Congrats on the new ride. BTW, great cleanup and a new cat back system? wow...thts fast


But the stance definately needs to be changed


Tim

[Hemin8r]

Re: My 2003 Dodge Neon

Great job on the cleanup. Car looks new again. I changed my exhaust sometime ago. If you were nearby I would have given you my stock exhaust since I just had it sitting in my garage. My clearcoat is pretty hard too. The DA cleaned it up but took a few passes.

[Sal329]

Re: My 2003 Dodge Neon

Lookin good

[roushstage2]

Re: My 2003 Dodge Neon

Hey tyler so is that your daily driver now? and saving the Roush for the weekends? Nice looking neon. Are you going to get the SRT 4 bumper too? The Neon looks great. Nice work.

Yeah, the Roush is now the 3rd car for special events/rides, etc... No SRT-4 bumper in the near future, that I can tell anyways. Thanks!

Wow I haven't seen a Mantis in years.....

Nice job on the car, but with that dirt road I think it will last

Thanks. That dirt is just an empty little lot down in Volcano where I went for pictures. I got off of the dirt road when I moved out of my parents house, yay!

needs new rims

I'm going to look into that when I need new tires, but I agree.

Great job on that Neon, does yours have a hard as nails clear coat? My CC is hard as nails and need a cold chisel and a hammer to get the swirls out. But I now have more to my arsenal that can help hopefully.

Keep an eye on that automatic, make sure to service it more than usual to keep her going and DONT hot rod it, they break easy from what I read on the Dodge forums.

Great job though

I like that blue, almost bought that, but the wife found the Orange Blast Neon and we bought it.

Aaron

Haven't polished the paint at all yet, still too hot around these parts, especially in the sun. Didn't have a problem with my 2001 though (with M80).

Haven't heard that about the Neons?

Thanks!

Tyler,

Congrats on the new ride. It looks great, The car looks like some maintenance was done on it. Congrats and enjoy.

Sure was. Thanks!

Great job on the cleanup. Car looks new again. I changed my exhaust sometime ago. If you were nearby I would have given you my stock exhaust since I just had it sitting in my garage. My clearcoat is pretty hard too. The DA cleaned it up but took a few passes.

My good friend that had an SRT-4 is actually giving me his old exhaust from his car. If for some reason we can't get it back from the person who currently has it (long story, but is supposed to be bringing it to me tomorrow), I'll shoot you a PM! I plan on having to spend some time, especially because of the color. Just need it to cool down here. Still in the 90s in the shade and well into the 100s in the sun. (currently 95 in the shade).


And thank you to everyone else! I am enjoying the car and the gas mileage! Not that I don't love my truck, but the 8mpg and the two 20 gallon tanks was too much.

[03mach1]

Re: My 2003 Dodge Neon

I have heard the exhaust on these SRT4 neons and they sound pretty awesome.

[roushstage2]

Re: My 2003 Dodge Neon

Well, I did a test spot today on the trunk because I was bored.

Here is what I started with:



Same place, but zoomed in. Notice you can't even tell the car has metallic paint?



Has the typical scratches from using the trunk as a table.



Next up was some claying. I found out I will need to get some C-2000 because the Quik Clay wasn't enough, but it definitely provided an improvement.



That small area on the right yielded these results:



After one pass of M80. Not bad, but still room for improvement.



A pass of M02.



Now, I thought these were still swirls, so I gave it a pass of M83, but nothing changed. Upon close examination, these scratches seem to be under the clear. This car has had areas repainted, not sure which though. The trunk seems like it has because of these sanding marks, although the paint reacts to polishing just like factory paint. Still looks 100% better either way.

Untouched on the left. M02, M07, and NXT 2.0 on the right. Note the clarity.



Untouched side



Test side



I didn't polish up to the tape too well, but you can still see how big of a difference the polishing made. Plus, you can now see it is metallic!



I must say, the camera cannot capture how INCREDIBLE this paint looks in the sun! I can't describe it, it is just simply an incredible color when clean!