intake manifold gasket finally blew on our '99 Venture

My guess is that this is eventually a 100% failure rate item on these engines. It seems to be a question of when, not if!

John

That is the exact reason I dumped my 99 Venture and bought a Honda Odyssey instead of a new venture. I have bought GM vehicles for 50 years. When GM wouldn't stand behind their product I decided it was time to switch. I had bought my last six vehicles from the same dealer that wouldn't stand behind the repair. And before the bigots start on the Honda transmission problems I haven't seen a single report from anyone that had a problem that Honda didn't cover, in and out of warranty. That and the resale value is double that of the Venture.....

I must agreed with you that this type of failure should be covered under GM warranty. A friend of mine bought a 2000 model Toyota minivan. Toyota have issued a letter that their transmission may fail (so far 70,000km still no problem) but to ensure that their customers is satisfied with their product. They issue a letter stating a "Life Time" warranty on transmission. Go figure that one out! If Chrysler or other manufacturers willing to do similar as Toyota, they will close out their business. I own two GM cars and always have GM cars for the pass 10 years. I never had any major problem with their products and hope that never has to deal with it.

Can you imagine that guy's expression if his wife took it in?

You went in to get a service and you came back with a NEW TRANSMISSION???????? What in the H*&$ were you thinking????? Oh... Recall? cool.....

There really was a recall right??? ;-)

"Full_Name" wrote: > On 10 Sep 2004 10:37:57 -0400, > Can you imagine that guy?s expression if his wife took it in? > > You went in to get a service and you came back with a NEW > TRANSMISSION???????? What in the H*&$ were you thinking????? > Oh... Recall? cool..... > > There really was a recall right???

Yeah, he would have taken her checkbook, keys and credit cards. They kept his van a couple of days but he said when he got it back he noticed a difference. Mostly he said when going toward the mountians the van would keep jumping from 4th to 3rd then back to 4th etc.... So he would manually put it in 3rd and keep on trucking. It doesn?t do this anymore...

WOW! The guy didn't even complain of a problem with the tranny, and they TOLD him about the recall and put a new tranny in it?! That's customer service. Things like that will cause your customers to be loyal for years. I know people who've driven Hondas for the last 30 years.

That's horrible, isn't there a support group or something available?

I knew friends who had to buy Honda's when they graduated University because they couldn't afford real cars. It's so sad that some never move beyond that point...........

PS to all the NSX drivers out there, this is just a wind-up.

There are an astounding number of 3.1 and 3.4 engines out there. It would be an big financial loss to GM to recall all of these. From a short-term financial standpoint, I can see why GM doesn't issue a recall. Even if they issued a "silent recall" or "secret warranty", things like that don't stay silent or secret for long.

There are far fewer specific Honda transmissions on the road than GM 3.1/3.4 engines, so I can see why it might be "easier" for a manufacturer to take care of an issue such as a few application-specific failures. I'm not claiming I have the solution, but it seems that GM should do something about this before the long-term effects come back to haunt them. Personally, I've never owned either of these engines, so I don't feel the effects first-hand. However, I do own a '99 Regal with the 3.8 which has been known for some problems with the plastic intake. So far, I'm sitting at 82,000 since new without a single problem. Maybe I'm lucky, maybe it's perfect maintance, maybe the problem isn't as widespread on these. As for now, I'm a satisfied GM customer, but I'm sure I'd feel different if/when my plastic intake fails.

Attention GM: Although too late for many customers, Ford finally admitted much of the 3.8 headgasket problems they had and retained many customers because they fixed the problem at no charge. They did it again with the plastic intake manifolds on the 4.6. I got free parts and labor to replace the intake manifold on a 7-year old Cougar with 70,000 miles on it. Although I'm more of a GM guy than a Ford guy, I commend Ford for at least taking care of some of the problem unlike GM who seems to be avoiding all of the issues.

Roger

I wish I would have bought a Ford Windstar instead of the Venture. I recently drove a cousin's '00 Windstar LX. Seems a lot more refined than the Venture, better fit and finish, looks better, etc.. Better van, all around.

The Windstar was Ford's other nightmare next to the Taurus when equipped with the good ol' headgasket-blowing 3.8. I'd much rather do an intake on a

Roger

WOW...you made it to 70K!!! Mine went at 35K.