My wife's '04 Hemi Durango has been one of the most reliable vehicles I've ever owned. So I don't complain when it needs something.

We bought it new with 15 miles on it. The wife's car now has over 120K miles on it. I change the oil in the 5.7L Hemi ever 5K miles. I've serviced the 545RFE tranny twice with an oil and filter change and changed out the lube in the Chrysler 9.25 rear end once. There's no T-case or 4x4 to worry about. I changed the 16 spark plugs at 75K and put an Airaid cold air intake on around 50K miles. I did a new set of 265/65R17 Micheline tires after the factory Goodyears wore out and then installed the used 265/70R17 BFG Rugged Trail tires that came on my diesel after the Michelins dry-rotted in the So Cal sun. I put in a new Mopar battery after the stock one went kaput with 5 years on it. Then, 2 years later the Mopar battery bit the dust, so a Kirkland battery from Costo is now in the tray. Other than the stuff listed below those have been the extent of the maintenance for the 7 years we've owned it.

The vehicle chews through brakes, but that's because we live atop a big mountain. It's to be expected. Originally I got stock replacement pads and rotors, but they only lasted 15-25K miles. I put on two sets of stock replacements front and rear until I wised up and ordered some EBC dimpled and slotted rotors front and rear and some Greenstuff pads. The front EBC pads wore out after a long while, so I put in some stock replacement pads. Then those wore out about a month ago. I noticed the front rotors were pretty gone, so I placed an order from Summit Racing for some Summit in-house-brand dimpled and slotted rotors with some Hawk front pads and installed them in a couple weeks ago. It was about $270 for the front pads and rotors.

While doing the brake job I noticed the passenger-side upper control arm tie rod end was a bit wobbly. It was cheaper to buy complete new upper control arm assemblies from my local CarQuest with bushings and tie rod ends already installed than it was to buy the tie rod ends by themselves, so about $150 later I had two new upper control arms. I also grabbed a new serpentine belt while at the parts store for $30, but when I went to replace the factory belt it still looked brand-new, so I tossed the new belt in the back of the Durango in case I ever need it on the road.

I got the control arms installed yesterday and matched the bolt locations pretty close so it would drive okay to the alignment shop. The front end alignment was $65.

So, for under roughly $485 out of pocket this year I've got a Durango with plenty of power that steers tight again and stops on a dime. I keep thinking I'll sell it and get the wife a new car, but it's been paid off for years and is still as reliable as a top, considering this is the first time I've spun wrenches on it in over a year. It will roast a standard 3-series Beemer from a stoplight and knocks down 20 mpg or better on long freeway hops. My little $485 repair works out to roughly a $40 car payment every month. I don't think I'll do any better than that at any dealership's Labor Day sale.