Worst Technical Gremlin you ever had?

[Branden]

Once I had a short somewhere in my 79 Firebird Forumla that was making the fuse that the turn signals run off of constantly blow. It took me weeks to find the kink in the wire that was causing that.


Anyone else have a pain in the butt problem to fix before?

[1999 White C5 Coupe]

I special ordered a new 1997 Chevrolet Camaro Z-28 30th Anniversary convertible. Its build and delivery were delayed by a Canadian UAW strike.

When the car was finally delivered to the dealership, the trunk was full of water. A close friend worked at the dealership and he attributed the water to disgruntled workers at the plant.

During the first 4,000 miles, 14 separate defects surfaced (including numerous major defects). The car was in the shop for more than 30 days for repairs.

Chevrolet repurchased the car under Ohio's Lemon Law following BBB arbitration.

This car was full of defects and "gremlins" and was the worst built car I have owned in my 35 years of driving. I have no doubt many of the defects were a result of intentional poor workmanship. I was glad when I learned the auto plant that built this car was closed at the end of the Camaro run.

[oldskls10]

The dome light in my '88 S-10 used to get stuck in the ON position. I searched every connection and ground wire I could find to no avail. I replaced the door switches, cleaned to connectors and checked all the fuses. I never did find the problem, so the "fix" was to remove the bulbs from the dome light and under the dash. My dad is driving the truck now, which, by the way, has nearly 215,000 miles on the original engine and transmission (2.8 V6/Auto) and I think the gremlin still exists. I'm sure if I re-installed the bulbs, the same thing would happen. The dome light would stay on and only dim when the doors were closed.

[Swahili]

Our old 1988 Olds Delta 88 with the computer. We had a lot of trouble with it when we first had it. The car had a tendency to stall, and many times inconveniently in the middle of an intersection making a right or left turn. This turned out to be really dangerous. We took it to the dealer and after a few cheap fixes, still nothing worked. On a more positive note though, the car would now shudder, or chug, before it stalled as a sort of warning, not that we could do anything about it anyway. When my parents threatened the dealer to go to GM headquarters in Canada, and make a really big deal about it, they suggested we try another dealer. I think maybe they knew they were incompetent and couldn't fix it. The second place we took the car to connected a mobile diagnostic computer to the cars computer and drove it around until it stalled, which of course took some time. I think all necessary electrical components were replaced and after that the car was great. Until my older sister, the bonehead she is got in a stupid accident and wrote it off.

[T-Type]

When I first got my Buick it had an overboost problem. It took me a long time to figure out that it was a hardened and cracked vacuum line near the turbo. Visually it looked fine. BTW this was back before there was extensive information on the Turbo Buicks on the internet.

Then there was the time I started as a mechanic. On this car, the rear passenger power window stopped working. The switch and the motor checked out OK, so I set about tracing the wiring. Wound up taking the interior half apart to get to all the wiring. Finally found a broken wire in the harness that comes out of the driver's side front door. A broken wire in the driver door harness turned out to be a common cause for power window issues as we later found other cars with the same problem.

[327]

on my 88 silverado, all the gauges one by one slowly stopped working. Then when i turned my headlights on at night the alarm stayed on( the one that let you know you left your lights on after you turned your vehicle off). I couldnt figure out the problem.It would only happen when it was cold out. Then i finally checked the fuses and some of them were blown!

[T-Type]

Yup, it's surprising how often it comes up as a cause of accessory problems GMCSonoma.

There ya go folks, you just learned a trick of the trade. Go on out and amaze your friends when they're trying to figure out a power window/door lock/seat problem.

[69nova]

1989 Ford Taurus. When the car hit 80,000 miles, it seemed to fall apart. The first problems were electrical related and I ended up getting towed 2-3 times from the company parking lot; then the starter crapped out. Then came the big one- one year of trying to locate a short that would occur every 2-3 months. This short would occur any time under any circumstances and leave me thumbing a ride on the highway (I rmemeber 3 times). The Ford dealership never found the problem even though I gave them the car for one month and it stopped while the mechanic drove it. The car's motor was reliable but the electrical system must have been designed by the Brits. I dumped that car like a hot potato.

[zeobandit]

I still have this issue:

I had my dealer install an aftermarket remote start system in my Silverado. Occasionally (most frequently with cold weather), using the remote start will cause the ABS light to come on. It is impossible to replicate, which is one reason why it hasn't been fixed yet. We have put in 5 different makes/models of remote starts, and all of them cause the issue. We unhooked the remote start for 2 months and the light never came on during that time. I finally gave up with my dealer fixing it, since it has been in over 10 times for this issue with a total service time of over a month. I just live with the issue now. I am keeping a log every time it happens, with all kinds of conditions, (temp, what accessories were on, how long since the engine was last started, where I was when it came on, etc....) and so far, no pattern is emerging.

[zeobandit]

Originally Posted by GMCSonoma

Must be something in the aftermarket unit which is clashing or giving feedback to the ABS system. Kind of unrelated, but at a former dealership, we used to hardwire in cellular phones, and on the early ones, we had to add an isolation diode or alike so the phone wouldn't create havoc with the ABS system. Maybe that is related? Mind you, this all occurred 10-12 years ago!

It is definitely related to the aftermarket part, but the dealer has never been able to replicate the issue with the diagnostic equipment hooked up to the truck. The Service Manager even drove the truck home at night for a week and they never could capture the codes with the diagnostics. I have given up hope of it ever getting fixed and I just live with it now.

[SolsticeMan]

Once had a flat tire in a 1989 Cavalier. Only inconvenience was that it was in the dead of winter, about ten degrees F out.

I got out, hoping I had air in the spare but resolved to ruin the spare if need be and drive it rather than mess up the wheel. My first indication of trouble was after I pulled out the stuff in my trunk, and unscrewed the spare tire hold-down. I had a difficult time pulling the cover off - and when I got it off I realized the problem - the entire tub, including the spare tire - was a totally frozen block of ice. I thought I might use the tire jack handle to chip it out, but then realized it was frozen in the block of ice underneath the spare. I half-heartedly tried to use a key, but no use - I just drove it back on the rim and had to replace it. Luckily, it was only a 13" cheap steel rim. I don't think the trunk leak ever got fixed - I ended up drilling a hole in the bottom of the trunk.

The worst "gremlin" I encountered was consistent stalling on my brother's 87 Grand Am. I've since seen this on over a dozen GM cars and trucks of various engines. Symptoms: Intermittent stalling, sometimes related to ambient heat but not always (would happen in the winter too), impossible to duplicate on demand, set no engine codes whatsoever, and sometimes took a half hour once it stalled for it to start again. Would stall while driving on the highway, or sometimes you couldn't even get it started. Most times, in the morning it would start up fine - then drive it to the store, go in and when you came out the thing would not start, just crank and crank. 40 minutes later, try again and "vroooom" it would start like nothing happened.

Talked to a dealership - $45 to put it on a diagnostics and tell us nothing was wrong. Their suggestion: $600 for a new fuel pump/sender unit. Or it might need a new "brain", for $450. When it stalled and I was able to do diagnostics while it wouldn't start, I found: compression was fine, air filter and induction system was clear, no spark and no fuel.

After thinking and thinking about it, the clue was no code. In order to set a code, the engine has to be running or attempt to be running. The entire engine setup and running software is based off a very few sensors, including MAP, MAT (which were fine), and Crank Position Sensor. It turns out that a non-functioning Crank Sensor is the ONLY thing that will kill the engine completely - no fuel, spark, control programs, lookup tables, ets. - without setting a code. Unplug any of the other sensors and the engine at least attempts to run (tho not very well without a MAP sensor). Essentially, if the engine is not sensed as turning at all, you end up at the start portion of the electronic control system. You can crank the engine all day long and it won't ever start because it has determined the engine is not cranking.

$35 for a new crank sensor, and two hours of contortionist movements to replace it, and the car ran another 112,000 miles as the body disintegrated into rust around the engine. The bad piece has a hairline crack in the plastic (it was just a simple magnetic sensor that senses a notch in the crank) - you could make it go from normal resistance, to open, to near-short just by wiggling it.

As I've said, I've seen this on several GM cars and trucks, and even a Ford Taurus. And I've probably helped at least a dozen other folks avoid a fuel pump or ECM replacement. But it's a nasty one, especially for those folks who still think in terms of carburetors and rotors and caps...

[LGRpup]

I had a 1994 Olds Bravada with 65,000 miles which I miss, but thats another story, that had only two major bugs. One was my EGR valve, which made the thing run horrible. So I took it to the dealer to have the engine looked at. It was purchased used so it had the typical 3mos 3k warranty. The dealer called and told me the EGR valve was to blame and they had to clean it out. I guess to clean it out they let the egine run with the valve opened, seemed kinda cheesey to me but hey I am not the tech. The fix worked for about a month and then I was back, they wanted to "clean it" again but after some discussion they put a new one on... problem solved. Untill the digital dash started going out. After getting a price from the dealer to have it repaired and not finding a single one at the junk yard I got me a rubber mallet. Everytime the speedo would go out I would hit the top of the dash with the mallet... problem solved. The kick in the pants was about a year after I sold the thing I found a couple websites that repaired auotmotive digital clusters, and they did it for less than half the dealers price ARGH!

[paul8488]

Hmmm... I've had no fun! Nothing interesting like any of your stories. Though a pine needle did manage to work its way into the speedometer face of my dads 1981 Mercury Capri Black Magic. You'd be surprised how annoying it was... and how much time I sat and tried to figure out just how it got in there!

[327]

did anyone get an email from that site?
I posted there once or twice and the other day i got an email from there from some lady, It said my office will be closed on Martin Luther King day. If you need any assistance call, this number blah blah or you can reach me at this email.

[doh]

I purchased a 61 Econoline pick-up, half restored. Starting the restoration was the wiring, the guy before wired everything with blue wire, from a diagram for his fathers 75 F-150