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Sedans Oldsmobile Aurora Oldsmobile Aurora Maintenance & Repair
4284 messages, Last post on Dec 05, 2009 at 6:21 AM
You are in the Oldsmobile Aurora Forum. Your Hosts are pat & karens
| Hey, my 2001 has that momentary blink of the headlights that seems related to the shift in the transmission--what does that TSB say it is? Just curious because I e-mailed Olds and they haven't answered. Is this a big problem or just an minor thing? You guys are getting me a bit unnerved with my purchase. Oh,yeah, I had the dealer check out the intermittent wipers and it was in the rainsense dohickey on the windshield--apparently, the windshield had been replaced and the wrong kind of glue was used to reattach the sensing device--a kit is ordered! How is that thing supposed to work anyway? Experienced rainsense owners only--is it automatic or does the driver have to activate--yes I have an owners manual but it is unclear. | |
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You do have to activate the rainsense wipers. Essentially your wipers have four settings: 1) Off 2) Rainsense (instead of intermittent) 3) Low 4) High (5 could be when you push it down to momentarily activate the wipers while you hold it down) When you set it on Rainsense, you can control how sensitive it is by adjusting that ring. This would be where you would adjust the time interval on intermittent-only wipers. The Rainsense takes the place of intermittent and will activate the wipers when it sees "enough" water on the small amount of windshield by the sensor (figuring that if it is wet, the rest of the windshield must be too). By adjusting the ring, you set how much is "enough". They work pretty well, and I like them when it is just misting or the rain comes and goes. I always used to have to mess with the interval on my old intermittent-only car because otherwise the wipers squeaked or there was too much rain on the windshield. The rainsense works like a charm for this. As an aside, would you believe my 1987 Corvette had fully adjustable intermittent wipers? I am always suprised at that considering it was 1987, and that most cars still don't have fully adjustable intermittent (many econo and family cars have just one or two intermittent settings) It had ABS too, which was certainly rare then (I beleive only Porsche and the Corvette had them in 1986). |
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| My 96 aurora has a steering vibration when I turn, most noticeable when I turn to the right. Changed the power steering pump, the tension pulley and rack, all under warranty. Vibration is less pronounced than it was but still there. Someone said it is the egr, another said it is the harmonic balancer. Any Ideas? Warranty is running out. | |
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I had a problem with a '95 engine (3.4l)... a friends car was overheating ( low on antifreeze, actually bone dry ) so i filled the reservoir and the radiator with haveline GM approved long life fluid... started the car and noticed white smoke from the exhaust. Shut off the car, told her she had blown a head gasket or intake manifold gasket and she had it towed to GM dealer. They said that the wrong antifreeze caused more damage. I know if you have the new stuff, you can't add the old. But has anyone heard of the old can't be updated?
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I don't have any facts on your problem. However, it seems the wrong type of antifreeze would just damage the water pump or possibly cause long-term corrosion of iron components in the engine. However, even straight water wouldn't cause any damage that quickly (except maybe to the water pump because it is a poor lubricant). What sort of "more damage" do they think it caused? I would try to get specifics. If the gasket was blown/damaged, then I would bet it was from running with no coolant, rather than from the later addition of the "wrong" coolant. Plus, doesn't the antifreeze say on the packaging that it is ok to use in any application? I suppose if coolant seeped into the intake manifold and then into the combustion chamber once the gasket was bad, it could cause some damage. However, it wouldn't matter what type of coolant it was as it is all incompressible... Just my two cents, though. |
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| I hope your mechanics were wrong about using the wrong antifreeze, I just had my cooling system flushed and the "red" antifreeze installed in my '95 Aurora. I wanted it to be compatible with my '97 that has the "red" coolant in it from the factory. In fact my bottle of "red" coolant says it is compatible with the "green" coolant. Does anyone know if I can replace my coolant with the "red" coolant? The old coolant was completely drained and flushed. I also had a new thermostat installed, it runs somewhat cooler now on the temp. gauge. | |
| The new coolant is compatible with the old. However, even after a complete flush, the new coolant will not last in a system that has run the old stuff. You may use the new "red" stuff in the old system so that you only have to stock one kind, but you still need to follow the old schedule. The problem is that even the slightest contamination of the new stuff shortens its life to match that of the old "green", and any system that has had green in it will always shorten red life. | |
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| Thanks everyone.... I also spoke in more detail with the mechanic manager at this dealership. I feel he was sending out a line of bull. Two mechanical friends of mine stated ... the damage was done, no added damage could result from the "wrong antifreeze" although both said that if you convert from green to red flush the system at least 2x then change the red at about 12k miles again. | |
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My father "sold" (nominal amount) us his 96 Aurora last March with 57K and never had any trouble with it before then. It seems like it just started to go bad when we got it. The throttle was cleaned for sticking. $194. The spark plugs were replaced when it seemed to be misfiring. With tune-up $503. Then the main belt shredded, lost power steering and A/C before making it into the driveway. $184. Performed 60K service and replaced front brake pads $288. Replaced transmission fluid $96. Now at 69K, the Service Engine Soon light stays on and sometimes blinks. Computer codes say "input speed sensor going open intermittently. Internal harness found to be leaking fluid past terminals to outside of trans which in turn caused saturation of external harness also." Dealer wanted $2400. Found someone to do work for $1500, but says it may mean damage to trans and require total rebuild for $2200. Right now we have $4000 in the car from insurance plus repairs. Carmax offered us $4300 and we are about ready to take it to get our money out as it seems to have so many expensive repairs. Oh, the A/C has low freon too. I wish we could find someone out there that wants to give us a better price without us having to fix it up. We have been car shopping but wondering if we are giving up too soon on this car. Reliability??? |
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It seems to me that part of your problem is you pay too much for service. $184 for a new serpentine belt? All you need is a $30 belt and a $10 breaker bar... $194 for throttle body cleaning?? They probably just sprayed a $5 bottle of throttle body cleaner in it (which should work fine). Almost $300 for just the front brakes? Maybe for the front and rear... I gotta tell you, there is no way I would have paid for any of that. No offense... Did you ever check the transmission fluid before it was changed? I have heard that if the fluid it burnt, changing it will cause many more problems than it solves (although I've never heard any reasonable explanation of this). This might explain your immediate tranny problems after having the fluid changed. Also, is that quote actually what the computer code said? That is pretty darn specific. What work was done to the tranny for your $1500? I wouldn't recommend CarMax especially if your car is more than a few years old. They say their prices are around blue book, but that is crap. Even more so for older cars (older than about 2 years). You probably ought to at least see what an Olds dealer would give you. Maybe it would be a bit more than CarMax. Now that you've fixed everything, though, you may as well keep it.  They are nice cars. Many people on this board have had success with aftermarket warranties to help diffuse the cost of repairs. As an aside (since I am already adding a post), I have never noticed any of the vibration in my 2002 that some of you have mentioned. Also, it was alluded to earlier that Bonnevilles are about as rare as Auroras. In fact, the Orion plant produced during the calendar year 2001: 66,783 Bonnevilles 33,921 Auroras 45,418 Park Avenues and there were 163,919 LeSabres produced between Orion and Detroit. To put this in some perspective, during the calendar year 2001 Cadillac produced 28,026 Sevilles, 118,967 Devilles and 12,043 Eldorados. Keep in mind that this is part of the 2001 model year and part 2002 model year. Plus, this is built not sold, although there is a strong relationship between the two... |
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