Well, as a newish Vibe owner, and hopefully looking to keep this one around a while, I figured it'd be fun to see what others are doing on their Vibes still in their possession, hear some good advice, as well as establish a self-serving place I can post things I'm doing to bring my little Vibe up to snuff, so to speak. This car was obviously not used much by the POs (only 83k on an 07 and only 67 miles since an oil change in August). I drive ~120 miles a day just to/from work, so she's going to get used.
First thing I did was clean the throttle body & MAF - big ups to those who put together some good threads on that.
Next, I got underneath and tried to get over the shock of how much corrosion was evident (compared to my somewhat doted-on 22 year old Cherokee) that I conveniently chose to ignore when buying the car (only 83K miles!). I brushed away what I could and put a few coats of Krylon on it before the winter. Ball joint and control arm areas were the worst - not a huge deal - something to look into in the spring. I'll look into replacing what needs replacing (ball joints) and undercoat the rest.
I poked around looking for the source of a chirp / rattle and have narrowed it down to the exhaust manifold area. Only an annoyance when the windows are down, so perhaps another spring job! (I did get a bundle of hose clamps to clamp down the lower manifold heat shield which is inexplicable missing a bolt).
I installed Yakima bars (one set with rail-grabs on the rails, one set of Q-clips up front) - tested them when toting a surfboard on roof while dropping my wife at the airport- seemed to work well at 70mph. I love the utility look of a good roof rack. A fairing with some cool stickers will round that out.
Driving back from the beach Thursday, the radio LED display started to go out. I heard of this being an issue so I ordered a new JVC stereo & install kit from Crutchfield . With all that driving, I depend on a good radio and really wanted an aux port, so this is well worth it. Install TBD.
Yesterday I got out there and fixed the lower passenger door trim.
I also took on the probably not entirely needed job of replacing the drivers side wheel well trim (the old trim had a small hole from where the wheel rubbed through when it came loose). Man, was that a b!#(h. Reward not really worth the effort, but it's in there now. It was definitely good to clear the drain though - there was probably 10 Autumn's worth of leaves and dirt packed in there. Because of that, I decided to take off the wiper motor cover and clean out as much as I could from that area as well. A coat hanger was key to at least somewhat clear both drains from the windshield edge down through the frame. That felt good.
I picked up a pack of 45 trim fasteners which have been key, as a bunch have worked loose or were missing all over the place.
To Do:
1. Snow tires - scouring Craigslist for a decent set already mounted. Hopefully I can then address the crappy state of the current steelies (need a good brushing and painting).
2. Fix the roof - it seems to be separated from the cross braces from the rear doors on back. It's like having a piece of loose sheet metal on top of the car - loud WHOMP when I close the rear doors or hatch. Need a warm-ish day to pull the headliner and see what's what up there. Probably a spring job as well, as I'll probably need to use some sort of panel adhesive or cold weld to re-attach it (hopefully it's that easy).
3. Replace the serpentine belt tensioner (possibly) - belt has more deflection than I think it should, but it's not making any noise yet.
4. Headlamp rejuvenation - pretty "foggy" looking right now.
5. Engine mounts (?) - a bit of vibration - front was replace before buying - might at least try the passenger side if I'm replacing the tensioner.
6. Front brakes - they were done at something like 40K, but I'm noticing some vibration when braking when they warm up - rotors probably need replacing.
7. A good cleaning!