What happened to this transmission?

[azrael69]

These are pictures of my friend's 2003 PT Cruiser. It has had a history of transmission problems. The first transmission just died after 1000 miles. The clutch was also replaced two other times within a few weeks of the first problem. My friend does not drive this car hard at all. The local Chrysler dealership is convinced that he does everything he can to destroy his car.

A few weeks ago, he was driving and shifted into 3rd gear. His car stopped moving, and he could push in the clutch but couldn't take it out of gear. There was a puddle of transmission fluid under the car.

Pictures: http://plaza.ufl.edu/d3mlg0d/pt/ - pictures my friend took
http://plaza.ufl.edu/d3mlg0d/pt/dealer/ - pictures the dealer took

I think we're looking at the flywheel casing. As you can see, it has exploded. The dealership claims that the "hot spots" (coloring) on the clutch indicate that he drives it too hard. They said that since he drives his car hard all the time, one of the gears broke and caused this damage to the casing. When he said he doesn't drive the car hard, they said it could happen just from one or two bad shifts (the damage to the clutch? or the transmission exploding?). They claim that 2nd gear broke and shot out of the box. However, isn't the gear box on the other side of the flywheel? Wouldn't the gear have to shoot THROUGH the flywheel to come out this side??

I need opinions please, professional if possible. What do I need to do/say to get Chrysler to do a warranty repair on this car? Remember, I'm in Florida, so any laws or guidelines specific to the U.K. may not work for me. So far it's just been the dealership that said no, not the corporate office.
Thank you.

[azrael69]

I've been searching a bit. Apparently the Neon is notorious for a problem where the pin holding the differential slips out, lodges in the clutch, and launches itself at the casing. Well, I certainly think that's what looks like happened here. The PT Cruiser uses the same chassis and I think it's reasonable to assume that it shares its design flaws. There's also a NHTSA recall for the issue on the 2003 manual PT Cruiser, but supposedly it was only in early-production models. However, if the issue was never corrected in my friend's car, obviously it could still cause the problem. I guess I have to figure out from the dealer if it's ever been corrected.