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shop put in new sensor, they then discovered they had to clear out the "hard" codes from the PCM to make elec fan quit running (according to them, as long as the hard codes from bad sensor exist, the cooling fan will run as a safety thing). They cleared them and it all works so far. Gauge works and cooling fan doesn't stay on.
What a pain. Clearly some things (more and more things) can't be done yourself at home...no way I could have cleared the hard codes myself.
One hard code that came back was my EGR valve isn't working right--although van runs well. Mechanic said if it goes completely bad it will likely miss and get very poor mpg. He said the EGR in these 3.4's is not one you just replace and call it good--it's some sort of elaborate, three part setup or something. I will consult my Haynes manual, but anyone here with a 3.4 have any EGR experiences?
I'm goin' to Dallas in one week. 12 hour drive each way. Will do tran fluid/filter, possibly coolant flush/fill before I leave. Will make sure there's air in the spare, lol.
Thanks
Thanks.
"I have the very same problem on my 2000 OLDS Silhouette with 88K miles on it. Like you, once, twice or three times a month it would start shifting hard for the duration of a drive. I tried pulling over and shutting off and restarting the engine which did not clear the hard shifting. Letting the van sit for 30 minutes or more did clear up the problem till the next time.
After a couple of months of observation I noticed that hard acceleration from a standing start while making a turn tends to cause the hard shifting, so now I accelerate gently while making turns and haven't had this problem for several months.
Hope this helps. Good luck....
BTW - My Silhouette has the towing package which includes a heavy duty transmission fluid cooler and I changed my transmission fluid and filter which did not resolve the hard shifting problem."
Next, the alarm goes off, usually during the night, for no apparent reason. I've cleaned the pins on the power sliding door, but that doesn't seem to help.
Finally, our power sliding door mechanism has a problem. I could not open the door, manually or electrically. I had to pop the door panel off to find that the actuator to activate the power door was not extending fully. This was causing the lock mechanism to bind, so the door could not be unlocked.
I'm going to try and get the complete door actuator/linkage assy from a wrecker...
Any suggestions on my first 2 problems?
Thanks
My PSD also got hung up. Popping the door panel is not easy when the door won't open! Not having a tool for the inside handle, I ended up trashing it and buying a new one. My solinoid for the lock was not working right - the latch mech was getting stuck halfway where neither handle would operate. I did a lot of head scratching and testing, drove with door panel off for a few days trying different things, and finally actually took the lame route of just disconnecting and useing it manually. My wife luckily is strong enough to not complain about it!
What was your experience.?
I'll let you know how it turns out.
2. Remove the drive belt guard (this has the belt routing diagram on it)
3. Loosen (but do not remove) the pulley bolts
4. Remove belt
5. Now remove the pulley
6. Remove bolts holding the water pump on.
When replacing be sure to have her completely clean the old gasket material off. This is an area of potential leakage.
My replacement came from Autozone p/n A130-1480 I think it was a new, not rebuilt
Also would be a good time to have her change the belt.
Ho Ho Ho!!
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year
Anyway, my mechanic used some type of cleaner and completely flushed the system. He asked me if I wanted to use Dex-Cool again. Since he asked that question, I felt there had to be some reason. All he would say was that they only use Dex-Cool when the owner requests it if they are completely changing coolant. I went with the green stuff.
I did some checking around at other shops and finally one of them did say that quite few trade magazines have had articles about Dex-Cool being other than the greatest product. Some even going so far as to blame some of the manifold gasket problems on plasticizers, (whatever those are), in the Dex-Cool having a detrimental effect on the gasket material.
Any thoughts on this?
Charles
It was the thermostat and it was covered by warranty on my vehicle.
They spent close to two hours doing the job while I waited. I have no idea if that is normal, but they did mention that it was at the back of the engine.
You can probably do it, but with front wheel drive vehicles, I don't even make the attempt to get to anything anymore. It is probably not a real easy job.
Charles
While it isn't something you want to have, it is certainly something you want to find and correct immediately.
Charles
If adding a quart of coolant caused the "service engine light" to go out possible that was just a "low coolant" warning. As suggested, coolant loss may be a sign of other problems. Sometime in 2003 there was a new lower intake manifold gasket design released.
I have a 2001 Olds Silo. The driver's heated seat is not working. The light on the dash comes on and all fuses check out OK. Does anyone no what could be the problem? My haynes manual does not mention the heated seats at all. If it is the heating element, I noted from another post that this is a $45 part and 1.7 hours of labor. Is this a do-it-yourself job? Dealer gets $90/hour here. And you never know what you are going to get going some place else.
Also, I had the lower gasket replaced just out of warranty (that hurt). Then I noticed coolant leaking near the top of the engine in the vicinity of the water pump although I could not find the exact source of the leak. Oil has always checked out OK when changing it - no sign of any coolant in it at all. I went ahead and changed the waterpump (skipped draining the radiator step). Topped off the reservoir and bled the system. No more leaking and the reservoir has maintained a constant level for well over 1k miles now. I am keeping my fingers crossed on the intake gasket. The water pump was quite easy to change - a pleasant surprise. It was harder changing the battery!
Any way, we have really enjoyed this van and have had relatively few problems. I am thinking about trading out because it seems like more problems are starting to happen. In addition to the heated seat not working (and the wife loves that feature), I noticed that one of the power rear vent windows is not working. Any thoughts on that one?
Thanks
This is a description of how it works:
"Ignition voltage is supplied the heated seat switches. When a heated seat switch is turned on, voltage is supplied through the heated seat switch signal circuits to the heated seat relay module terminals B and C. Battery positive voltage is supplied the heated seat relay modules. When the heated seat switch is turned on and the resistance through the heated seat thermistor is within acceptable limits, the relay module closes the battery positive supply circuit to the seat heater element supply circuit.
As a long-shot maybe the thermistor has failed now allowing the module to activate the heater.
Power rear window:
Might try pushing on it gently while someone depresses the switch. Post back if this causes it to open.
Two days ago (1/10/06) I stopped to pick up the mail and noticed smoke coming out of the engine compartment of my 2000 Chevy Venture minivan, which has only 65,000 miles on it. Stopped driving it immediately and had it towed to the Chevy dealer. The air intake manifold gasket had failed and engine oil was all over the place. I have an extended warranty (the repair will cost the insurance company $750), but my exposure is still $525. This is EXACTLY the same failure I experienced two years ago (which cost the insurance company $900 and me $600).
Mean time between failure (MTBF): 25 months.
Mean miles between failure (MMBF): 18,000.
Good thing it didn't fail when I drove it to the coast a couple weeks ago. Put 300+ miles on it on that trip.
I researched the matter online on google and in addition to hundreds of hits on this topic also noticed a sponsored link at the top of the page that deals with this problem (my search terms: chevy venture defect air intake manifold gasket). The sponsored link directed me to a law firm that is investigating chronic air intake manifold gasket problems on certain GM engines. Including mine. It seems GM has redesigned this gasket THREE times already. The problem is also associated with DexCool (the engine coolant), which has been dubbed by almost everybody "DeathCool". Pretty funny. Sort of.
At $1400 every two years, I figure the car costs about $2 a day to drive. Or, another way to look at is almost 13 cents a mile. Pretty expensive.
thanks for the info but that might as well have been russian to me! do you think it is the heating element and,if so, how involved of a repair is that. I would hate to go buy, put it in and then find out it was some other part that was causing the problem.
Power vent window fixed itself!!!
Thanks again. we are really wondering whether to trade this van in. Up to now we had planned to keep it till 100k miles but I am a little worried after reading all the posts. Other than the lower intake gasket (which I already paid to have fixed) are there those out there that have had vans into the higher mileage range with relatively few problems?
Relatively few problems depends on your definition of relatively few.
The intake manifold gasket was replaced at about 125,000.
Head gaskets were replaced at about 150,000. Head gasket replacement is not all that common, but the manifold gasket has been.
About $1500 total in repairs which didn't upset me a great deal. I sold the van at 153,000, but I would have had no qualms about running it another 50,000 miles.
FWIW, I'm just dumb enough I bought another one. They look good, drive good, handle good, ride good, hold lots. We liked the 1998 enough to buy a used 22,000 mile 2004. The manifold gasket is rumored to have been upgraded some time in 2003. I hope that rumor is correct.
Charles
Just take a home air changer filter ( i use a 16"x20" 3M Filtrete from Canadian Tire store for 17$ca) you will have enough material to replace both filter 2 times.
http://www.alphonso.ca/alain/3m.jpg
Just replace the filter element inside the plastic housing of the old filter and sealed it in place with bath silicone on both side, it work very well! See the result:
http://www.alphonso.ca/alain/filter.jpg
Just for kicks, I'm taking a piece of Zinc and boring a hole in it and dropping in the coolant reserve tank and see if decays and if it does then I will know there is electrolosis in the coolant.
One previous GM still had the DexCool when sold.
Our experiences with the vehicles with DexCool.
1. Manifold gasket leak, 1998 Pontiac TranSport
2. Head gasket leak, 1998 Pontiac TranSport
3. Heater core restricted, 1998 Chevrolet Blazer
4. Manifold gasket leak, 1998 Chevrolet Blazer
2000 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP, no problems, DexCool dumped
2004 Pontiac Montana, no problems, DexCool dumped
I don't know if DexCool is bad, but I don't care to do anymore experimenting.
FWIW, My mechanic told me that not all vehicles with DexCool have cooling problems, but most all vehicles he works on with cooling problems have DexCool. :confuse:
Charles
I remove the plug (yes, the bcm prgrm one), get in the car (all doors including liftgate are shut), I turn to ACC, off and back on again (within a sec.), open a door (chime) close it (chime - seems because there's a key in the ingnition), hold lock/unlock for 30 secs, nothing. Somebody help! what am I doing wrong?
On another note, If I change coolant over to the good old fashion green. Since I heard something about a law suit on this would it void me out to get a claim? Also since there is a law suit on this coolant, should I get the dealer to fix the water pump for records or is my receipt buying a new water pump good enough?
Can't advise you on the other question(s). It may be years before anything happens on a law suit. A new Autozone pump is around $20. Is it worth waiting until a law suit is settled?
Suggest taking a look at the water pump when removed. See how clean or corroded it is and then determine if you want to change coolant. Mine looked very clean HOWEVER I haven't gone 5 yrs between coolant changes.. Leak may not be related to Dexcool.
New problem - chugging and stalling when making sharp corners. Replaced fuel filter to see if that would work - nope. Back to the dealership - they can't find it. No codes, no engine light - nothing. Intermittant problem too so it behaved for them but then 15 minutes down the road it starts chugging so bad, I thought I wouldn't make it home. Sharp turns, stalls - again intermittantly. Going to another mechanic tomorrow who thinks it could be electrical problem. He also thinks that something is trying to find a ground and has been shorting out my wheel bearings -this is the first time I have heard that it could be an electrical problem doing them in. Also, my stereo is burning hot if you touch it and has always been that way. Occasionally smell a burning smell but can't find anything. Suggestions? Oh ya, I'm on the hunt for an 02 Mazda MPV - no more GM but need this one fixed to get my through until the Mazda can be found. Idea's?
1. remove battery(must remove black brace bar first)
2. Insert 3/8" ratchet into idler pulley to release the tension on the serpentine belt. Remove belt.
3. Remove 4 bolts on pulley and remove.
4. Scribe a mark on the pump and the housing it bolts to. There is actually a small arrow mark on the water pump that was oriented to the top on mine. I'm assuming that it needs to be oriented that way because doing so caused the 2 weep holes in the pump to line up as they were on the original.
5. remove the 5 bolts holding on the water pump and remove.
6. Clean the old gasket off of the housing very good.
7. Install the new pump, tightening the bolts in a cross pattern. Then put everything back in the reverse order.
It was changed in warranty and was about a 1.5 to 2 hour job at the dealers.
Charles
Has anyone else had this problem? I really could use your help on it - we are heading south with it or renting if we have to, by the end of the week! HELP!!
thanks
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Finally will a 2001 rear bench and convenience centre fit in my 2002?
TIA