Service engine light and stalling

yes, I believe the manifold is two pieces, an upper and lower. You'll have to get in there with a flashlight and see where it is in fact leaking. "visible coolant" can be let go for a while, but if it is going inside the engine it needs to be addressed quickly. Keep an eye on the oil, with any sign of mayonnaise stop driving, likewise check your plugs, if any of them look super clean that means coolant is getting into the intake runners and needs to be addressed because if it gets worse it could hydrolock the engine.

nate

The dealer says it's a $700 part. What do regular shops want?

But can an amateur tell if it's warped badly or borderline?

It definitely had fuel in it, and they did change it.

One injector was $189 from the dealer.

I haven't seen it myself, or didn't notice it because I don't know where to look.

That'd better be installed.

The googs tells me

fel-pro lower gasket set from Rock Auto about $50

AC Delco upper set $27 (for some reason don't see fel-pro?)

Dorman upper intake $72

this may help with procedure (haven't watched it yet, just searched)

Now I don't have the labor hours handy for this job but keep in mind a shop's prices for parts will be about 2x what you can buy them for so say $300 parts, then $400 labor that's 4 hours give or take. they may or may not be hosing you depending on how long it takes.

Once you get it apart yes, check between the mating surfaces with a feeler gauge while holding the parts together, gap of more than .002" or so is cause for concern.

nate

A VW Type I has skinny tires and very little weight on the front end - no need for power steering.

As for the Buick, I would keep comprehensive insurance on it, and have an engine fire, or some such. ;)

On an 11-year old Buick, I would take the manifold apart, gob a bunch of Form-a-Gasket between the pieces when reassembling, and hope for the best.

Remove the oil cap, and look at the inside of it. If there is a sort of milky goo on it, that's bad.

He should go to the GM Buick or Pontiac forum for LIM or plenum gasket problems on 3800's. Go by model year. GM really failed on this. If I liked the car and it had the problem gaskets or plenum, I would put in the new, upgraded stuff as a preventative measure. LIM gasket or plenum failure can destroy your engine. For the LIM you want the Felpro metal jacketed gasket. For the plenum use the Dorman. Me and my son did this on his Bonneville after I read about failures. The plastic LIM gasket looked pretty bad, but who knows? Couple hundred for parts and about 8 hours, working at an easy pace. I've heard you can get it done for $8-1200.

No, I mean he said $700 for the manifold if it's warped.

Don't forget to keep some bricks in the trunk. :-)

then don't go there, because if rockauto is selling it for $72 then you really shouldn't pay more than $150-200 for the part (no labor) In some cases you may be able to retrofit an earlier cast metal upper intake, not sure if yours is one of those or not. But if it is you ought to be able to get one for less from an auto recycler, if you have one handy to you.

I saw another poster said use Dorman for the upper intake gasket set. I'd defer to someone with more 3800 knowledge than I to tell you what specific products to buy. All I know is that wherever you can use Fel-Pro do so, and get the best that they offer (perma-dry or whatever)

3800 intake gasket leaks are well documented online, search for more info - I've never personally owned one but the issue is common enough that merely by listening I've picked up info about it. So a couple hours reading online ought to get you up to speed.

nate

I thought you meant $72 for the gasket set.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding somebody or everybody. The dealer service manager said if he replaced the gasket(s) then the manifold might be unusable and a new manifold was $700.

Above it looks like you were quoting prices for gaskets but not the manifold.

Thanks for all the input.

The gaskets that you need are $50 + $27 (or whatever the price is for the "best" upper intake gasket set is)

Unless I'm horribly misreading rockauto's site, the $72 is for a new Dorman-brand upper intake manifold (and while I normally associate Dorman with meh-quality aftermarket parts and the "HELP!" section at Vatozone, buzz I hear is that their replacement 3800 upper manifold is actually *better* than GM's.)

There may be other greebly parts that you ought to replace "while you're in there" as well, I'd search for a DIY on a GM-centric forum or web site...

nate

Real gaskets aren't that expensive. The problem is the labor to put them in. If you go in that far there's no good reason to kludge it.

Well, if I owned the car, I would probably be testing the airbags - defensive driving is bogus (lets the bad guys win).