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The fan blade broke at the mounting. Of course it did not break clean, so the fan rubbed on the radiator and caused a leak. I heard the noise but could not find the source until it was too late. The car has 74k mile on it. I have never seen this before have others heard of this happening. It looks like the only place to get the fan blade is at the dealer for $56 plus $180 for the radiator online.
Watch out for the crankshaft sensor that fails without warning. Driving along the road starting to apply the gas and then no power. the oil light comes on. The car will not restart. IT took the mechanic 7 plus hours to figure out what the problem was. 10 plus hours to do the whole job at $85.00 an hour. $750.00 for the part. Watch out Trade it in on domestic car. I am.
What you hear is the clutch on the A/C compressor kicking in.
It is normal.
No cause for alarm.
Hope this eases your mind.
Make sure they use the suction machine otherwise the fluid in the torque converter will not be changed.
Should cost around 100 dollars.
RIGHT NOW add fluid if it is low but DO get it changed now.
If you continue to drive it like it is you WILL be replacing the tranny.
How did you get the fluid burnt ? Did it overheat ? Or is the fluid just old ?
I have been a fleet manager for many years and hate to be the bearer of bad news,but you really need to get that transmission flud changed now.
Long ago, I had a major service, in which my transmission fluid was to have been at least checked. Three weeks later, my car, an automatic was popping out of gear - and kept going it. I call the service guy and he tells me to check the transmission fluid. It is OFF THE STICK, it is SO low! I'm freaked, but report my finding by telephone message. No answer. I call the dealer main line and leave a message. No call back. I leave another frantic message on my Service Guy's voice mail. In three weeks, never a call back. As it turned out, I put in like 2 1/2 bottles of fluid to bring the level back up, AND...the car as been fine, that way, ever since. Maybe you have something basic like that wrong? Also, now that it's been so cold lately, like down in the 30's or 40's at night, at least, the car takes a LOT longer to warm up. AND, during that warming period my car revs a LOT higher during that time period. This is an automatic, mind you, but it sometimes seems like it NOT going to automatically shift up, ...and then, it finally does. I garage outside.
Do you know that a bad O2 sensor...there are 2 of them...one at the inlet and one at the outlet of the converter....will give the same code as catalitic converter ?
Here is a rule I use....disconnect the battery for 30 seconds...reconnect..if the light is out do not worry about it....if it immediately comes back on then you have a "hard" fault. I drove a Toyota Corolla for over 100,000 miles while the light was on and the computer was giving a code of catalitic converter.
Now the light could be on for ANY reason....bad cam position sensor, bad fuel injecter, etc etc etc....BUT...if you have not changed plugs since 30K that may be the nature of the problem as an incomplete fuel burn will make the O2 sensor trip the check engine light on....and if that tranny fluid has been in there since 30 K change that as well.
IF you need a catalitic converter trust me they are available aftermarket for WAY WAY less than the price quoted you...check the local muffler shops...look online...you will find one.
Also JCWHITNEY.COM sells a cleaner that you put in the fuel that will "clean up" the converter....it is under $20....I have never used it but I can see where it would work.
Hope this helps.
This is bogus. My daughter and I both have Aerios, and neither of us have had any of the above problems. As far as I know, the tire wear problems are largely limited to the 4wd models, and not all of those by any means. There is a known solution that involves putting alignment tabs on the rear suspension so that full alignment can be done. Just because you find 10 or 20 people on a complaint forum does not mean that you have a class action suit just waiting to happen. In many states, you have access to a lemon law suit, so that will handle many of the problems. I promise you, no lawyer worth looking at is going to start a class action for $400-500 worth of tires times three unless all three of those people have suffered severe injuries or a death in the family due to blown tires. Even there, it is really going to be tough to sell, because it takes an idiot to run on bald tires.
Now, there is a well known problem on the Aerio with standard transmissions popping out of gear, especially 5th gear. If you ask them nicely, they will fix it, because they know it exists, so it is hard to get anything going there. If you try to proceed with less than a few hundred persons, your lawyer is going to want to charge you, and the cost can be high. If you've got that kind of money, you probably wouldn't be buying a Suzuki to start with, so I suspect that you are blowing steam here.
Your inference that only an idiot would drive on bald tires is interesting as you fail to mention that the rear tire tread CANNOT be seen unless one gets under the car due to the configuration of the rear fenders/bumper which totally block any view of the tread! (are you SURE you own an Aerio or are you connected to Suzuki somehow which makes more sense) The only way to see the tread is to either have the neck of a giraffe, or to lie on the ground! And, there is a serious problem with this model. Suzuki even has a "fix" for this, but whether one gets the fix is left up to the individual dealerships. Interesting to note: out of 15 dealers I called in the USA, only a few (all in the North - none in the South) were aware of a problem and out of those, none agreed on the solution! In our case, it took several months of calling Suzuki's national number. They will do nothing unless you are tenacious - in our case they finally reimbursed us for the tires, and only after constant weekly calling! However, even after that, we are still left with no "fix" as our car's VIN isn't listed on their "known problem" list. Our back tires went completey bald - evenly with no pattern - after 4 months. The car was taken for routine new car maintenance & Suzuki obviously didn't check the tread or surely they would have seen this developing? The reason is obvious: They didn't check the tread as the car was brand new, just months old, & with low miles! It's also hard to get the " fix" when the dealer insists there is no problem, making matters worse as Suzuki uses the dealer's input whether there is a problem with a car. Interesting. So, Suzuki knows of the problem, has a fix, and yet the dealer decides whether any car gets the "fix"?! I think not! In our case, we had to go to a different dealer than the one who sold us the car, as we moved two days after we bought it, from CT to Tallahassee first, then Miami - all within 4 months. It's likely that FL dealers hadn't seen an AWD before ours, and so therefore lacked the knowledge of any problems or the "fix". The Miami dealer tried to blame the baldness on lack of tire rotation by us! However, the car, under new warranty, was serviced at a dealer in Tallahassee where we were for a few months, before going down to Miami. So this made matters worse & we got caught in the middle. The regional Suzuki rep got involved but he also deferred to the dealer in Miami who kept insisting that the problem was lack of tire rotation! Of course, the Tallahassee dealer admitted no wrong. So much for that. This was a classic "blow-off". And that's when I began to call around & found that only dealers in the northern USA knew of, or were informed of, a rear tire balding problem & the "fix" for it. Obviously, if only rear tires on an AWD car are balding, you have a big problem. So, if someone has found an attorney willing to try to help us, how dare you, without owning this particular car, swipe at us. We are trying to prevent injury here. I also got a similar trash talk reply when I first aired my frustration about this problem last year. Always blaming it on the owners! You really need to zip it as you only cause further frustration to those of us who are living through this!
I OWN a 06 Aerio SX, and yes it is the AWD model.
I have owned it 19 months, it has almost 11,000 miles on it.
I recently checked my FRONT brakes and they were still around 75%.
My tires... I rotated them at 4500 and again at 10,000 miles....they still have 7/32
tread depth remaining; so a usable life of 5/32; which in my case amounts to another 25,000 miles...sooo a set of Yokohama tires which are CRAP will last 35,000 miles....poor but not unacceptable. BUY AMERICAN TIRES !
As a side note I also have a 06 Cobalt...I put Bridgestone Fuzion tires on it, these tires have a treadware warranty of 40,000 miles...I took them off at 92,000 miles of use and still had 3/32 tread depth, hence I could easily have gotten 100,000 miles out of them. The point being that driving habits, proper inflation which I check weekly, and proper rotation which I do every 2nd oil change or 7,000 miles has a lot to do with tire life.
On this same car I got over 170,000 miles out of the front brake pads. Like I said...driving habits.
I want to point out that the wheel torque for the Aerio is NOT 100 ft. pounds like most cars....the specs are 62 ft. lbs in the owners manual...I torque mine at 65 ft. lbs.
On checking tread depth....if one is so infirm that they cannot bend over or down to check the rear tires maybe they are also so physically restricted that they should not even be driving....not to mention that all they would have to do was ask when the vehicle was serviced to have the tread depth reported to them....that is if they even service the vehicle properly.
About a class action.... I suspect the attorney mentioned here wants another 3 people involved before he commences litigation....hmmm....could it be that he wants a total of 4 people to share in the cost of the action which I guarantee you will be expensive ? I would also question what he claims the chances of actually
being successful in the proposed action are.
So, it's a rant if it disagrees with you. I'm not sure where you have been hiding all your life, but I haven't yet met a dealer that volunteered to fix anything that wasn't on a mandatory recall. There need to be stronger lemon laws and independent arbitration panels, but the dealers have a couple of dozen lobbyists at the state level and many more at the federal level, so I don't expect to see legislation tomorrow, if ever. In the mean time, if you are persistent and keep good records, you can usually get things fixed, aggravating though it may be.
Now, as to your lovely contentions that I work for Suzuki. Drop dead. I'm a computer consultant who has been in the field for 42 years, but I do know how to take care of my cars. For seven years of my life, I lived at over 9,000 ft. west of Denver, CO, so I know a little bit about bad weather and 4WD and AWD vehicles. I also was a member of the volunteer fire department, and you'd be amazed at how many idiots there were who thought that having power to 4 wheels entitled them to drive faster. Two and four wheel drives stop at the same speed. The 2003 Aerio SX that I have is visually almost indistinguishable from the AWD model, though there is a subtle difference in wheel base. Otherwise, they are almost identical. I can check the tires on one by just stooping down and using a penny, or as logmar suggests, get a dealer or tire place to check it for free, just by specifically asking. Your problem is that you are one of those lazy idiots who expects the car to take care of itself. And, you apparently raised a daughter who has the same attitude...surprise, or do I have the wrong complainer here.
Also, this area of the forum is for anyone who has Aerio wagons. The minority of those are AWD, or were until recently, when they started offering only AWD models, at least in the Aerio. Unless you haven't noticed, most people who buy AWD or 4WD vehicles don't buy them for snow or ice or mud or whatever, they buy them because they want them, and they put a little more power to the ground. Of course they suck up a little more power, cause more wear and tear, use more gas, and generally are useless except in rather extreme conditions, but people still buy them. The San Antonio dealers have had plenty of the AWD models, so I can't imagine what you are talking about on your Florida dealers.
And lastly, unless you are a lawyer with expertise in the particular area, you should leave it up to the lawyers to advertise their class action suits, if any. If there is actually such a suit in motion, there is no problem in advertising it, but acting as free advertising for what almost has to be an ambulance chaser doesn't make you look like anything other than the joke that you have already shown yourself to be. It is clear that you have a complaint, but it is also clear that you have been so negligent that no court in the land is likely to help you recover. You might want to follow your own advice about "zipping" it.
Alcohol is usually used to pull water out of the tank, but it also raises the burn temperature, possibly pulling contaminants out of the converter or burning off excess hydrocarbons plugging the matrix, but I am unsure of that. In any case, when you pull the battery cable on most modern cars to include the Suzuki, it may or may not clear the codes in the engine computer, but it usually triggers a separate code caused by that removal. It also causes most cars to go back to a default tuning, which may be a bit sluggish for a certain number of miles. The engine light can stay on for a tank or two of gas, depending on circumstances. So, the old, "if the light comes back immediately, it is a hard fault" ain't necessarily so. Now, if you have a reader, that's another thing entirely. There used to be a simple trick to cause the lights to flash out a 2 or 3 digit code, but that doesn't seem to work any more.
Also, since you are covering lots of highway miles, you are putting very little load on your converter, because it is damaged most at start up and under acceleration, when the exhaust is likely to be fuel rich. The EPA only requires that converters last 100,000 miles if I remember correctly, so they are not guaranteed for the life of the car. If you keep the engine running reasonable cleanly and do not consistently run it for under 5 miles on cold mornings, the converter should last the life of the car.
It made for higher operating temps as the previous post says which in turn rid the converter of deposits.
More than likely it was the "cheapie" gas that made the problem arise on an already older converter.
I drive 175,000 miles a year and I only run Chevron in my Suzuki, and either BP or Shell in my Chevy. I had two Toyotas I ran for 400,000 miles almost exclusively on BP fuel.
Keep in mind that now most of the fuel contains10 % ethenol, I consider this a bad thing. I add a fuel cleaner once a month.
Good luck to you and keep us posted.
Had the car 3-4 days now, not many issues to report except that the owner before me put 2005/60/15 tires on it (really louse and noisy ones at that) and they drive me crazy, will be changing them ASAP
thanks
brianm6
Thanks
brianm6
SM grade oil.
I have an AWD so I am not sure on the transmission, but the Suzuki website says
for an 08 with a 2.0 engine to use SAE 75W90 for a manual transaxel.
Here is the # for Suzuki 1-800-934-0934 (Customer assistance center)
Hope this helps.
Thanks.
215/50HR-15 Kumho ECSTA 711
They have warehouses around the country and I think in Hawaii and Alaska that limits the shipping distance and therefore the cost. In any case, that was $47.00 per tire plus $10.31.5 per tire shipping and $14.00 per tire mount and balance at my local tire store, so for a little over $71.00 per tire, I had a really good set of tires that no local store would sell to me for less than $90.00 per tire plus mount and balance, so I saved $33.00+ per tire and I did not have to pay sales tax. That size is less than 0.08% different in diameter from the 195x55x15 tires that are standard on the car, and they are smaller, correcting the very slight upward error of the Suzuki digital speedometer. The 205x60x15's are 5.2% larger than the OEM tires, meaning that they register 3 mph low at 60 mph, and that could end up costing you a ticket. The 215x50x15's are the only size that is really close in 15's, though you can use 185x60's and still be less than 1% off. If you don't mind approximations, you can go to an online tire calculator like this one:
http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html
You still have to calculate the percentage difference, but you can get what you need. The 215x50's rub very slightly in extreme bumps, but I haven't had any problems except when I got into some sticky mud that pushed off my decorative moldings, but that might have happened anyway with the mud that I was into. The problem with the 185x60's, if you can get them, should be checked for load capability and you will get some distinct tail end float in hard cornering. That's why I went to the wider tires in the first place...the regular floated out too much for my taste. Also, the Kumho's I mentioned are uni-directionals with a V sipe, which makes them handle really well on wet pavement, which standard all-weathers do not. The standard tires on the Suzuki might as well be water skis in the rain.
Good luck
Check the fluid level.
I checked the spark plugs and found them loose, did not have to use a handle on the socket/extension to take them off!! I had no info on the torque for the plugs, I set them at 20 foot/pounds, should do the trick...may not be a bad idea to check your spark plugs if you are experiencing poor gas mileage and or loss of power.
If any one knows the torque for the plugs, would not mind knowing how far off I'am at 20 foot/pounds....
I agree with the reply to the clutch problem: you may need a new clutch unless your fluid is low (or has somehow gotten air in the system); then make sure your foot is always on the foot rest, never resting on the clutch unless you are shifting gears (I also believe in leaving the shift lever alone, unless shifting gears also...
V
There is now way I can spend nearly $1000 to fix this. Has anyone used one from a junk yard? What years and models would work?
I have a second set of steel wheels 14" for snow tires. I run snows for two winters and then run the next spring and summer to finish them off. Last summer I bought my first replacement 15" tires for summer use.
Driving habits, tire pressure, and alignment all affect tire life and driving habits drastically affect brake life.
I hope you don't have other problems with your car.
Bill
When I got my car back from the dealer I read the warranty information. The manual states that the Traction Control Module (TCM) is covered Parts & Labor for 7 years / 100,000 Mi.
I wonder if that will fix the problem.
">Suzuki manualslink title
http://www.suzukipitstop.com
Then click on Vehicle information from the left and then Service manuals. They also sell Diagnostic trouble codes and service bulletins.
Best of luck.
Am I the only person here who hasn't changed the fluid yet? If you chose a more frequent interval to change the fluid, was the motivation precautionary or because of a specific issue?
-d
That flush at 30,000 is a bunch of crap...it is made by repair facilities to generate business.
I had 3 Toyota's and I ran them for 400,000 miles and changed fluid every 100,000
miles.
I have 2 Chevy Cobalt's one with 100K on it and one with over 200K....I change them about 90,000 since Cobalt has no stick to check the fluid (yeah can you believe it, no tranny stick).
My Aerio is an 06 AWD with only 12 K on it....I changed the fluid in the rear as
recommended at 7500.....but I do not intend to change the trans fluid until close to 100K.
One thing....if they drop the pan to change the fluid and filter you will still have dirty fluid in the torque converter which is why I recommend the "flush" where they hook it up to a machine and all of the fluid gets changed.
Unless the fluid is dirty or discolored I would wait until close to 100K to change the fluid if it were me.
Changing trans fluid at 30 K would be akin to changing oil at 2000 miles.
Hope this helps.
Sounds to me like the plugs need changed...maybe air filter as well.
Of course it could be a low voltage condition (check alternator output); but I really feel it is plugs.