I'm not one to rant but I think it's due. It's a descriptive one, the few readers who would commit to it are in for some detailed frustration. I've ran into quite a few things in a row already and I don't have the patience to work on my car in 20 degree windy Michigan weather.
From the start, I kinda overpaid for my car. $4K for an 02 with 108,350 mi. It seemed there were absolutely no problems with it at the time, I really looked it over. There were a few dents, one small one on the front bumper that I could fix, and one on the lower portion of the left rear door that is rather large, but not in very far and the paint is not scratched. There's a spot of the coating missing on the panel under the rear bumper, a few stone chips in the front, and one tiny parking lot ding on the passenger side. Other than those the rest of the paint is nearly flawless. Oh and the door pillars have some paint gone for some reason. Writing that all down makes it look like a messed up car but it's pretty nice. After buying it, I've kept up on fixing everything really well.
I've: Replaced PCV Valve
Greased all door hinges(including sunroof)
Replaced both front sway bar links
Replaced both 3rd brake light bulbs
Replaced right rear speaker
Replaced both valve cover gaskets and grommets
Replaced heater hose elbows/connectors
Exchanged almost a gallon of coolant
Replaced battery
Done a fully synthetic oil change
I really didn't expect to do any of those things initially besides the maintenance stuff, but all of that is around $212.
Now, getting on with my point, I have a rim leak (Michigan roads + Aluminum rims). When I got it, only one leaked to the point that I wanted to do something about it, but I ended up taking both front tires off to clean the rims rather poorly with a scotch brite pad at my college. What luck, the leaky one now holds air perfectly, and the rather good one now leaks worse than the first one did. And no, I did not mix them up, they were done separately. And it's leaking bad, 20 psi a week bad. I wanted to get it done again at my college auto shop for a while now. In between then and now I took my left rear door panel off to lube the window track and guides because it was pretty slow. That ended up helping quite a bit, it works much better now.
Two days later I finally got my chance to get it in the shop to fix the rim leak, I get in my car in the morning, turn the key, and RURRR click-click-click. Really!? So I take the family Impala to school, missing my opportunity to finally fix my leak. So I still have to pump air in it every week in this amazing weather. Now I still have a tire leak and a possible parasitic load on my hands. The only electrical problem my car has is that the trunk ajar indicator light on the DIC flashes when turning or hitting bumps, which just started two or three weeks ago. "Conveniently" my GP doesn't have a trunk light, so a light in the trunk can't be the problem.
Just tonight I pulled it in the driveway and did a basic alternator test (turning everything on and making sure the voltage stays above 13v) That checked out alright, still have to find the cause of the drain. No reason a 3 month old battery should go dead in 2 days. As I pulled it in the driveway on one tire with 15 psi, it seemed like I had almost no power steering, to the point where I don't think the tire was actually at fault. After inflating the tire with the engine running(warming up a bit), and turning while in park, it still seems underpowered, but not bad. The fluid level was checked a month ago, and was a tad low before topping it up. No noise from the pump, ever.
So that's it for now. Congrats, if you made it this far btw. The point of this, idk. Maybe someone has had one of these problems and has advice. My situation is really pretty good, comparing to seeing people go through 3 transmissions, or putting an engine in, and it going bad in a week. So I'm not complaining, I'm ranting
Originally Posted by BillBoost37
