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Sedans Chevrolet Aveo Chevy Aveo thermostat housing busted
78 messages, Last post on Aug 30, 2009 at 8:35 PM
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Replying to: pbol (Feb 06, 2007 9:27 am) Thanks to all. Carrie in St. Louis
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| I saw a thread about the issue at Automotive Forums. There are only three posts in that thread, though. | |
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Replying to: cclement1 (Sep 14, 2008 11:12 am) |
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My Chevy Aveo thermostat housing also broke apart. Composite plastic which is the material is made off might be strong enough, but since the housing is made in two parts, so part maker can install the thermostat and gasket, this parts break apart, because they are put together not even with glue, but by heat. When the engine moves, or the radiator moves because it is attached to the body, the housing will break. If an engine mount is in bad shape,the problem will occur more often. The solution is to get a metallic housing that has been available for a long time. In fact GM decided to use the plastic one, because it is cheaper, but leaves the driver exposed to a failure that can go undetected since the temperature sender will not send a proper reading, showing a lower temperature, since the sender requires coolant to properly read, so the only hint to this problem could be steam coming off the engine or a spill, but sometimes this is hard to see. If this happens, blowing the gasket or seizing the engine is a possible scenario. Anyway. I got tired of this problem after a second housing broke on me. Now, with the metal housing I think I solved the problem. It was more expensive, in fact dealerships wanted 90 dollars for it, but I found it on Ebay for 70, so it wasn't that bad. Another thing that I wanted to talk about is the timing belt and the water pump. The engine on the Aveo was designed for high compression, but because of space and engine size designer was force to reduce the size of the compression chamber and to install 4 valves per piston, which is fine, excepting for the use of a timing belt instead of a timing chain, which is acceptable, excepting that sometimes the belt breaks and then the pistons, that are very close to the valves, end up hitting them and getting bend, and this actually means a very expensive repair. The type of engine is widely known as an interference engine, and it is commonly used in the car industry, but some car makers install good quality components that will last 100 K or even more. Some people will say that is way you have a preventive maintenance schedule, which is true, but there are a lot of things that could drive the timing belt to fail prematurely, such as oil, dirt, water and poor quality rubber on the belt itself. On top of that, preventive replacement of timing belt is not precisely cheap, since belt is more or less hard to replace. To make things worst, the engine design makes the timing belt to drive the coolant or water pump, so if the water pump seizes, then the belt will get destroyed, hence the engine will as well. To top that, tensioner and idler pulley are made also in plastic and bearings are short lasting, so they could also seize, and then engine will also get destroyed. |
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Replying to: cclement1 (Sep 14, 2008 11:12 am) My Chevy Aveo thermostat housing also broke apart. Composite plastic which is the material is made off might be strong enough, but since the housing is made in two parts, so part maker can install the thermostat and gasket, this parts break apart, because they are put together not even with glue, but by heat. When the engine moves, or the radiator moves because it is attached to the body, the housing will break. If an engine mount is in bad shape,the problem will occur more often. The solution is to get a metallic housing that has been available for a long time. In fact GM decided to use the plastic one, because it is cheaper, but leaves the driver exposed to a failure that can go undetected since the temperature sender will not send a proper reading, showing a lower temperature, since the sender requires coolant to properly read, so the only hint to this problem could be steam coming off the engine or a spill, but sometimes this is hard to see. If this happens, blowing the gasket or seizing the engine is a possible scenario. Anyway. I got tired of this problem after a second housing broke on me. Now, with the metal housing I think I solved the problem. It was more expensive, in fact dealerships wanted 90 dollars for it, but I found it on Ebay for 70, so it wasn't that bad. Another thing that I wanted to talk about is the timing belt and the water pump. The engine on the Aveo was designed for high compression, but because of space and engine size designer was force to reduce the size of the compression chamber and to install 4 valves per piston, which is fine, excepting for the use of a timing belt instead of a timing chain, which is acceptable, excepting that sometimes the belt breaks and then the pistons, that are very close to the valves, end up hitting them and getting bend, and this actually means a very expensive repair. The type of engine is widely known as an interference engine, and it is commonly used in the car industry, but some car makers install good quality components that will last 100 K or even more. Some people will say that is way you have a preventive maintenance schedule, which is true, but there are a lot of things that could drive the timing belt to fail prematurely, such as oil, dirt, water and poor quality rubber on the belt itself. On top of that, preventive replacement of timing belt is not precisely cheap, since belt is more or less hard to replace. To make things worst, the engine design makes the timing belt to drive the coolant or water pump, so if the water pump seizes, then the belt will get destroyed, hence the engine will as well. To top that, tensioner and idler pulley are made also in plastic and bearings are short lasting, so they could also seize, and then engine will also get destroyed. |
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About two weeks ago my girlfriend called me and said she pulled over because her 05' Chevy Aveo was smoking.. I told her to look at her thermostat and she said it as normal.. When I came to her rescue. We found that the thermostat housing snapped on the seam and the coolant was spitting out.. We towed it home..I called around for the housing and it is a dealer part only! Found out this part has been updated and it is no longer a plastic part and it retails for $95.00! We replaced the part.. A quick and easy fix! then a week later. my girlfriend was on her way home from work.. Her car just stopped accelerating.. it felt like it wasn't getting enough fuel.. So again pulled over on the side of the freeway we tow it to the shop... my mechanic does a full diagnostics and finds water on the spark plugs.. He called and asked me does you car drive hot.. I told him never..I told him that about a week earlier the thermostat housing snapped and the coolant came out we replaced the part and no problems since.. Well he put it all together.. When the housing broke, almost immidietly it caused my heads to get hot and wrap and then water to get into my oil. Now with wrapped heads he started the car but its only a matter of time before it blows.. So do i wait.. No because it will cause more serious damage to the engine.. we need to get the head fixed .. now i am looking at closer to a 1000.00 bucks for something that could have been prevented .. by a simple letter from Chevy stating that thermostat housing is faulty, made of plastic and has been updated to a aluminum part.. well what do we do now! i see allot of posts about the same issue! lets act now! 
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| this just happened to me today and when i did an internet search to find a new thermostat this was the first thing that popped up. this really irritates the heck out of me. this is about the 4th repair ive made on the car and its only a 2004. im having a new thermostat overnighted to me. Ive never seen a thermostat like this, what were they thinking when this piece was designed. I wish i new this was a daewoo when i bought it, i was under the impression that it was a chevy design this forum was the first i heard of it being a daewoo untill i called the dealership today and the service guy told me the same thing. this really makes my blood boil. first i had a seat belt issue then a water pump and brakes that wore out in record time only to find out that the rotors cost a fortune. | |
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Yesterday morning I noticed a strange smell while I was driving to work but thought it could be another car on the freeway... But when I drove home last night, just as I was parking, white smoke (steam?) started pouring out from under the hood. I immediately turned off my car, freaking out, and didn't think to check the gauges... But I noticed some liquid under the hood, passenger side, spilling onto the headlight as someone else mentioned here. Couldn't see where it was coming from and honestly I was so distraught I didn't really look for the problem; I just wanted to get in my house and forget about it for the night. Now that I have done some research and talked to mechanically-inclined friends, I'm almost positive it must be the thermostat housing. I will look under the hood again later today to find out. I rarely use my AC but did notice it wasn't working a month or 2 ago... The fan was obviously running but there was no cool air coming out, just a weird smell-- similar to the awful odor that came out when it started smoking yesterday. Does this make sense? Could it be a different problem? It's a 2004 Aveo with just over 59000 miles on it. I'm still under the GM Major Guard Protection Plan (but not for long!) but I don't know if this would be covered under that... Anyone know about that? Anyway, I just wanted to add to this discussion and let everyone know that this is an issue with MANY Aveo owners and it seems to be occurring more and more as of late (probably because the folks who bought the 04 and 05 models are starting to reach 50-60k miles). If everyone who has this same situation speaks up, hopefully GM will issue a recall... |
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Replying to: invisiblemass (Oct 01, 2008 8:26 am)  65K miles. It took them 2 days to figure it out, charged me $400. 3 days after I got it back from the dealer, same exact start problem!!! It's as if it's not getting fuel, it struggles to start, then the HOLD light stays on as the car is shaking, like it wants to die. I immediately turn it off & back on and then it's fine. Of course it's not doing it on every start so they can't attempt to solve the problem unless it actually occuring. Then today out of the blue, after another "slow start", the A/C starts blowing hot air after being on for less than 10 min. I turned it off for a couple of minutes and then turned it back on and it was blowing cool air again. It happened twice today. Does anyone have any suggestions before I take the car back to the dealer?
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Replying to: stillabeelieve (Oct 16, 2008 11:29 pm) when ur thermostat housing broke it cause your heads to warp immediately! i know it sounds crazy but these aluminum heads cant handle it. it took my mechanic a couple day to figure it out also. but once i told him my thermostat housing broke a few days b4 it all came together! there is water getting on your spark plugs and water mixxing with oil.
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