My daughter saved her money and bought her first car - a 2010 Equinox. At first she wanted an Escape, but everything we found around here was priced much higher and completely rotted behind the back tires. We looked at Traverse/Enclave but decided the smaller body made more sense. AWD is much preferred since we get so much snow here (well, except for this year...) and it's hilly. So we were set for Equinox or Terrain, but I was out-voted on the idea of taking a road trip for something more pristine, so we grabbed the next decent one that came up locally. The name "baby black" is her idea that it's a miniature version of our black Yukon XL.
It's 3.0L high-feature V6 (4-cam VVT and DI), 6-speed auto (6T45?), AWD. Has a set of new Blizzaks on it. We drove it home running poorly with all the trouble codes that point to timing chains. I figured since they all need timing chains, why not take the discount on one that is already running bad? Ordered the Melling timing chains since there are too many recent stories of snapped Cloyes chains, plus a new damper/crank pulley, gaskets, etc. All 4 cam phasers were tight, so I left them alone. Did the change with the engine in the car which sucks on a FWD, but I thought it would be better than breaking all the fasteners pulling exhaust and getting the suspension and cradle out of the bottom. Out of paranoia having all 3 chains properly timed, I ran the engine forward several revolutions by hand, then backed it up to verify all of the holes, marks and key links lined up again. This engine is dirty. The losers were either running conventional or just waiting too long between changes. The parts I had off got cleaned but the heads/cams are still kind of black. My plan was to change the oil every 1000 miles for a while and use a little sea foam, but.....
Also discovered that the thermostat is "non-replaceable", so GM sells you the entire water outlet assembly. Aftermarket sells thermostat only, but nobody sells the gasket. Here's my take on it. The failure point of the thermostat is the gasket and that leak is what was keeping the car from getting to temp. The spring is so strong that's it's very hard to swap it out and that pressure is why it doesn't need a gasket. So that's how I ran it and the under-temp DTC was gone.
The car was running fine, although with disappointing MPG. There was a strange thing where the HPFP got noisy for about a week and then it quieted down again.
Fast-forward a couple of months and the car is dead. She says it started to get loud, there was some warning about oil
, it kept slowing down and then just stopped. The oil level was normal. Fortunately it was just a few miles from the house, so I pulled it home on a strap. The starter can't turn the engine and I can't turn it with a breaker bar. There's metal in the oil. I've started pulling the engine out to see what happened in there. All I know so far is the left-side chain is still tight, one of the cam phasers on that side is now loose and the cam lobe that drives the HPFP looks fine.
It's 3.0L high-feature V6 (4-cam VVT and DI), 6-speed auto (6T45?), AWD. Has a set of new Blizzaks on it. We drove it home running poorly with all the trouble codes that point to timing chains. I figured since they all need timing chains, why not take the discount on one that is already running bad? Ordered the Melling timing chains since there are too many recent stories of snapped Cloyes chains, plus a new damper/crank pulley, gaskets, etc. All 4 cam phasers were tight, so I left them alone. Did the change with the engine in the car which sucks on a FWD, but I thought it would be better than breaking all the fasteners pulling exhaust and getting the suspension and cradle out of the bottom. Out of paranoia having all 3 chains properly timed, I ran the engine forward several revolutions by hand, then backed it up to verify all of the holes, marks and key links lined up again. This engine is dirty. The losers were either running conventional or just waiting too long between changes. The parts I had off got cleaned but the heads/cams are still kind of black. My plan was to change the oil every 1000 miles for a while and use a little sea foam, but.....
Also discovered that the thermostat is "non-replaceable", so GM sells you the entire water outlet assembly. Aftermarket sells thermostat only, but nobody sells the gasket. Here's my take on it. The failure point of the thermostat is the gasket and that leak is what was keeping the car from getting to temp. The spring is so strong that's it's very hard to swap it out and that pressure is why it doesn't need a gasket. So that's how I ran it and the under-temp DTC was gone.
The car was running fine, although with disappointing MPG. There was a strange thing where the HPFP got noisy for about a week and then it quieted down again.
Fast-forward a couple of months and the car is dead. She says it started to get loud, there was some warning about oil
, it kept slowing down and then just stopped. The oil level was normal. Fortunately it was just a few miles from the house, so I pulled it home on a strap. The starter can't turn the engine and I can't turn it with a breaker bar. There's metal in the oil. I've started pulling the engine out to see what happened in there. All I know so far is the left-side chain is still tight, one of the cam phasers on that side is now loose and the cam lobe that drives the HPFP looks fine.
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