Attention: TDR Forum Junkies My girlfriend's dad bought a 2001 Pontiac Montana minivan 2 years ago. It has under 80K miles, and the headgasket is going. It's been steadily going downhill for the last 6 months, and it's ready to up and quit any day now. The best part is that GM has known about this problem with the 3. 4L engines since the problem surfaced sometime around 1999 or 2000. They REFUSE to do anything about it, or even admit that there's a problem, even though the problem is widespread throughout their fleet of vehicles, since the 3. 4L V6 is the standard in most minivans and sedans.
We've been doing a lot of research on this lately, and it turns out that they used a cast iron block and an aluminum head... . let's think about this for a minute, the two metals expand and shrink at different rates, so it's pretty obvious that the head gasket would only hold on for so long with repeated expansion and shrinkage...
GM clearly knows that they screwed up on this one, and they also know that they'd loose millions, maybe billions, of dollars doing repairs, since most of it would be warantee since the problem usually surfaces prior to the warantee expiring. We've priced it out, and it looks like replacing the gasket would cost over $2000 due to the intense labor to get the head off (you practically have to take the entire front end of the van apart to get to it).
The plan as it stands now is to take window paint and cover it with bad publicity for GM, then go around to all the GM dealers in this area, park the van, and take pictures of it, then send the photos to GM, and see what happens. This is the second vehicle my girlfriend's family has had trouble with, the first was a Ford Windstar where the engine just about blew up and Ford refused to do anything about it. Finally, after a number of threats of driving the van to Detroit, lighting it on fire on the front steps of Ford, they got the picture and put a new engine in it. (I love this family :-laf )
I'm just curious if anyone else has had this problem, and what, if anything, was done to fix it short of either shelling out the cash yourself, or taking it to the Bronx, leaving the keys in it and the window open, then report it stolen and collect on the insurance... . (not that we'd commit insurance fraud).
We've been doing a lot of research on this lately, and it turns out that they used a cast iron block and an aluminum head... . let's think about this for a minute, the two metals expand and shrink at different rates, so it's pretty obvious that the head gasket would only hold on for so long with repeated expansion and shrinkage...
GM clearly knows that they screwed up on this one, and they also know that they'd loose millions, maybe billions, of dollars doing repairs, since most of it would be warantee since the problem usually surfaces prior to the warantee expiring. We've priced it out, and it looks like replacing the gasket would cost over $2000 due to the intense labor to get the head off (you practically have to take the entire front end of the van apart to get to it).
The plan as it stands now is to take window paint and cover it with bad publicity for GM, then go around to all the GM dealers in this area, park the van, and take pictures of it, then send the photos to GM, and see what happens. This is the second vehicle my girlfriend's family has had trouble with, the first was a Ford Windstar where the engine just about blew up and Ford refused to do anything about it. Finally, after a number of threats of driving the van to Detroit, lighting it on fire on the front steps of Ford, they got the picture and put a new engine in it. (I love this family :-laf )
I'm just curious if anyone else has had this problem, and what, if anything, was done to fix it short of either shelling out the cash yourself, or taking it to the Bronx, leaving the keys in it and the window open, then report it stolen and collect on the insurance... . (not that we'd commit insurance fraud).
