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). However, I started noticed a "wobbling" to the sound around 30 or 35MPH.Anyway, after the 4-wheel alignment, most of the roar is gone and I can't tell whether there's any "wobbling" or not (I'm not positively sure).
Yesterday I rode in the rear seat and opened the trunk access, but the noise wasn't coming from there, at least it wasn't as loud as in the cabin, as I'd have expected it to work as a resonating chamber for any noise coming from the wheels or tires. I'm actually starting to wonder if the rear spoiler has anything to do with it, IOW, that it's actually an aerodynamic noise...
You mentioned that after your alignmnet, the roaring had subsided somewhat. That would indicate that the tire(s)that were out, didn't like what was happening and have been scuffed or scalloped in some way and are now being re scuffed back into position.
Do you know which tires were out and can you say move front to back, go for a spin and see if any thing changes. If the noise is altered, it may be that the skins are the problem.
If the rear was out of alignment and the skin was not re balanced at alignment time then you will have a balance problem and will be magnified when you put in on the front.
good luck
I don't post very often, but I am a daily reader of the posts on this board.
I'm hearing a whine from under the hood when I have the steering wheel turned to either lock and am making a turn.
I installed some strut tower braces this weekend on both the front and back strut towers. I haven't had time to check it, but could it be that I'm squeezing some tubes because of the braces? I know that a tube is being squeezed a bit in the back, but I'm not squeezing any in the front and so I;m not sure what it could be.
I think this topic has been posted before on this board. Any help is appreciated.
After wlarsen's post, I've decided on shelling $120 on the factory manuals. He put me at ease about it being user-friendly.
As I have my Bonneville registered with http://mygmlink.com, I'm registering the Intrigue there too and I can buy the service manuals from there (among other sites).
My experience is three alts., probably looking for a forth someday, however , now it is better than it ever was.
The Gm Customer NO-service hotline told me that all intrigues do this and that it is an operating characteristic of the vehicle. What a laugh, Perhaps they thought i was a little old lady, with a lobotomy.
I asked the girl if gm was so proud of this operating characteristic then why didn't they brag it up in the brochure. Silence. Then she tried to convince me that flickering headlights weren't such a big deal because it was instantaneous. I then asked her if she would like to be driving down the highway in her car at night and have someone randomly reach over and turn her headlights off and on. "That would be annoying" she said. I told her that she now knows how i feel.
Anyway, thats my rant for now on the flickering/blinking headlights and if gm hopes to sell me another car then they better come up with a permanent solution before its time for me to say adios to this car and gm.
Maybe you will be one of the rare lucky ones, like dingdak, and get it fixed right the first time.
lmacmil : We have a 2000 also and we didn't get it until this year and only in extreme cold. I could live with that but I figured I would take it in and get it fixed anyway since my warranty was running out.
I find your conditions interesting as mine would do it at any time: hot ,cold ,wet, dry, January, July, just started, after running for 5 hours, sitting still, around town and whipping down the highway. I say would, because the third alternator seems to be the best, as it is very rare now.
However, it almost always happened at moderate speeds (55-75kpm) just as i crested a rise in the road or when i let up on the gas. It liked to flicker/blink as i let up on the pedal on the curve of an off ramp.
I had studied this extensively with my scope and DVM when the problem was excessive. With a 20 second sweep time i could watch at idle the regulation and it would start up shy of 14 volts and then stair step all the way down to 12.5 volts. Thats with nothing but lights, sitting in the driveway. Then pop, doing nothing, a 0.5 to 1 volt drop, anywhere from instant up to 1/2 second long. Sometimes there was a single negative pulse and other times there was several, the most i saw was probably 4 drops, of varying intensity and pulse width.
There is two problems here.
First the regulation sucks. Although high 13 volts is low, it is still tolerable, but should stay there. This slow progressive drop shows that the regulator is not working or at least not well. This was happening without any load changes such as wipers, blower etc.
Second, the multiple negative spiking is dead wrong. If one was to turn their blower off and on rapidly, this would occur but with consistancy. However, GMs story about the air pump is crapola as the pump should come and stay on, creating a single drop. When i sat in my drive way and monitored the spikes, the air pump did not cycle. On the highway, i was unable to hear if it was the case.
ozznet: Unfortunately, as oldsman has pointed out, gm has latched onto this air pump cop-out because they are unable or unwilling to address the issue. For example, if the alternator can not handle the air pump current rating, then, every car on the highway would be flickering, every time someone turned on their blower motor(30 amps) raise or lowered the power window to the max and held the button(20 amps +), rear window defroster( 20 -30 amps) and the air/radiator fans that are a good 30 amps each on start up. That is just what a alternator /regulator function is. Supply an ample amount of current to the battery and car and maintain the voltage so as not to create excessive fluctuations that would show up in head and dash lights that would and does drive the operator batty.
Anyone can see the loading effect due to a surge by parking your car in front of a wall and turn the blower quickly up to max(40 amp+ surge). Dimming occurs, ever so slightly, but you have to look for it. It is nowhere near what is happening to the intrigue on the fly.
Imagine, blinking headlights is normal. Normal if your looking to create road rage for the guy in front of you. How many cars do you think Gm would sell if they brought out an advertising campaign that promoted flickering headlights on all their vehicles. I guess i'm ranting again, or is it raving, probably both.
Sorry about the long posting but Gm has really got my shorts in a knot with this "blinking" headlight thing.
I've sat in the driveway with the headlights on normally (in the dark, of course). Just for an experiment, I turned the switch on manually, and there was a slight, but noticeable brightness!
I have other issues with my car - bought in January, 99 and JUST turned 27000 this morning. Warranty is over with a year now, but too many little things have gone wrong and I think GM should make good as there are such low miles on the car. The No-Service line "tech" told me that low miles on a car is worse than high miles! Where does GM get these people?
Anyone else have the rear stabilizer problems? Replaced the bushings/links TWICE and needs another go-round, but I can't afford to keep taking days off from work to sit in the dealership!
Deke
moonshadow : Is your car still under warranty? Sounds like you may have to live with the occational flicker. I can't understand why this is such a problem for some people and not for others. Even more perplexing to me is that it occurs in cold for some and all the time for others. Makes me wonder if the alternator is this only issue here.
Still very happy with the car and compared to some cars, this seem like a minor bug to me. I have seen other cars on the road with flickers before so I know it's not just an Intrigue problem.
Hard to believe that gm is still selling and installing the old part that is known to be defective.
The impression i got from noservice is that i bought the car and i have a curb and gutter warranty. "When you get to the curb, you got her"
dindak. "01 with just under 30000kms,good until 06/100000 with the extended plus, $0 deductible, good selling point. However not sure i will be able to last that long, cause of gm attitude and stupidity.
I was called into a situation where a $500,000 piece of x-ray equipemnet was ripped out and replaced only to have the same eractic intermittant issues appear. Turned out to be an improperly installed grounds in the power distruibution.
From what you had said now and in the past, I believe that your problem was an alternator/regulation issue. Oldsman and I seem to have a another cause in addition to the alt., albeit the same result.
Perhaps that is why GM is getting some fixed with the revised alternator. I told the gm noservice rep, the engineers need to get back to the bench and start looking for another solution, as the multiple alternators is not totally resolving the problem in all cars. There has been posts here in the past of people with six or more alts.
Thats like continually replacing a fuse over and over, hoping that the thing is going to repair itself. lol
This is why i wont let them touch it until the tell me they have a secondary solution, since it seems to be better now. However, if it stsrts the multiple rapid highbeam flicking simulation again, then its off to Gm i go.
To get on their case, they will have to take the car and duplicate the problem and we all know how that will end up.
Living with the rare incident now is a lot less frustrating than giving them my car for a couple of days, hoping and praying, only to hear the "can not duplicate..".
Gm is in denial and thinks that i will go away. Then come back a few years later with my loyalty discount and start all over again with another of their miracle products. The only thing that they are right about, is that i will go away.
I really do not understand Gm. Based on my aunts, uncles,parents and actuary tables I'm good for another 40 years of driving and at a new vehicle every 5 years that 8 new cars, trade ins, service, parts and warranty work that the dealers and gm ain't gonna git. I know, I'm getting riled up again.
In the early days after the second alt., i captured images of the votages spikes and crapy regulation on my scopemeter memory and showed these to the service tech and Gm rep. They were not overly impressed, perhaps it was over their heads, perhaps they thought it could be of anything. Of coarse, they could have duplicated the effect with their own scopes but hummed and hawed and insisted on test drives. I had the scopemeter right their in the car but they just shrugged it off. I think it is because they know they cant fix it and "can not duplicate" is the best solution to their (my) problem.
I spent 4 hours waxing my car yesterday. Guess what was on my car when I got out of work today?
Bird crap on 3 spots of my car. Man that pisses me off more that my flickering.
is there a scientific explanation to this?
moonshadow : Video got my car fixed. Do it!
ozz : I think some one on the board did that and their car was fine, but I'm not sure who.
Also, I have never noticed a flicker in my '99 GL. I'm still on the original alternator (at 51K miles), but I'm on my third battery.
From over on the impala and Gp site they seem to be up in arms about the plastic leaky prone intake manifold on the 3.8. We get the flicker and they get the manifold leak. Both are very expensive repairs, maybe it is a design operating characteristic. LOL
Even one dead cell would drop the voltage by 2+ volts and for sure would give the result we have. However, i mentioned the battery to the tech and he dismissed that rather quickly as he has been brainwashed by gm engineers that the alt. is the prob.
Sides, i would think that the Gm engineers should have considered this posibility and researched it for the cause. Cheaper and easier to change.
I asked gm noservice to let me talk directly to the engineer but was refused and would only relay my questions and return a response. That response was that the alternator is the cause and is remedied by the new part #. Blinders on, no vision. It is obvious that many people as per jg28 post have not had it resolved and Gm is up to its neck in a river in egypt. De-nile.
It is a world wide phenomena.
I have come up with two deductions.
1. Birds are a more highly evolved species than human with an acute sense of humour.
2. Bird crap contains an active substance that is highly magnetically/chemically/gravitationally attracted to the shiny, waxy or dirt free objects.
There is also the phenomena that occurs when you park your new car at the very farthest remote corners of a parking lot, Only to return in just minutes and find it surrounded by the ugliest most abused rust bucket beaters on the road. Also there is half a dozen empty spots directly in front of the place you just came from. hehehe thats what gets me.
Right up there with my murphy's top 5
1. If every thing is going smoothly , then you have obviously overlooked something.
2. If it aint broke, keep working on it.
3. That wrench/socket that you cant find is right in front of you. Probably in your hand or pocket that you have already checked 5 times.
4. Someone holding the light for you will always adjust it for their benefit, which is directly in your eyes.
5. If you TELL someone, that you think you finally fixed that snot problem you've been having. It will come back the next day.
It was first available on GLS then moved down to the GX as a $500 option. By the end of '99 model year all Intrigues were 3.5L and the $500 was added to the base price.
My February '99 build date Intrigue had the engine as a $500 option but I think April and later cars had it in the base price.
Had the upper manifold plenum warp in my Impala
at 16,000 miles. Fixed under waranty.
GM continues to engineer cost and reliability out of this engine.
I understand the new Series III in the Grand Prix has an ALUMINUM intake manifold.
If mine warps again I will sell the car or find a wrecked Intrigue and put the 3.5L in.
Now that's an engine!
a replacement part that solves them.
This is most evident with aftermarket brake rotors which are less likely to warp.
Mine has a build date of 05/99, with the 3.5L engine. The 3.5L became standard equipment in March of '99.
My 99 was never afflicted with the 98 practically GM wide rotor problems.