GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

Finally had to replace the ORIGINAL battery in my red 2009 Vibe GT. At just over 30k miles, and 10 years of age, I'm surprised it lasted this long. Several times it sat for weeks at a time where it wasn't driven. That's not good for the battery. Very pleased with the original battery for lasting this long

tpollauf wrote: ↑Mon Feb 11, 2019 11:25 pm Finally had to replace the ORIGINAL battery in my red 2009 Vibe GT. At just over 30k miles, and 10 years of age, I'm surprised it lasted this long.

I dream of having a car with that low of miles!

Replaced broken fog lamps. 16 year old son did 95% of the work. I was there solely in an advisory role.

One question he had was what size plastic rivets for the mud guards? We found a bunch on Amazon but not sure on sizing.

Next project: drop and drain the transmission. I'm a little hesitant but the kids ready to go.

andrewclaus wrote: ↑Thu Jul 19, 2018 3:59 am I just drove 1000 miles in my '07, from Denver to Albuquerque, with a loop through Durango, CO back to Denver. Very nice ride on the new rear shocks and I enjoyed listening to audiobooks on my iPhone via the new stereo. (Those projects cost me $70 each. I'm pleased with the car's economy so far.) I brought my road bike, and didn't have to take a wheel off to stow it in back.

First two legs were in headwinds and it was hot so I used the A/C (which I just recharged), and I got 36+ mpg. Those legs were also on four lane, 70 to 75 mph limited-access highway. Last leg through the mountains, mostly two-lane, with a good tailwind, I got 45+ mpg. Again, fairly economical.

One little mech problem in a heavy monsoon rain storm: I switched the wipers on high and one of them jumped out of position. The wiper was very loose on the shaft. I removed it to check the splines and they look okay, so I tightened the nut and all seems well. It's a tapered spline arrangement I hadn't seen before, not that I have vast experience with wiper shafts.

I think the new shocks gave some lift in the rear. I parked next to another Vibe once and could see the difference. I'm considering doing the fronts now, though the ride seems fine.

Dear Andrew, I had a similar problem with my driver side wiper. When I removed the wiper to check the splines, they were damaged. I put a small sheet of tin foil around the shaft and replaced it yesterday. The extra metal seems to have done the trick. But I think I will have to replace the tinfil, or maybe the whole shaft, eventually. JC

After washing off the 3000 miles of filth from the auto transport truck, I drove my Vibe up to Manny, Moe and Jack and had some fresh Akebono shoes and rotors put all the way around. The car still doesn't stop like a Hyundai, but it is now as good as it gets for a Toyota design.

My Vibe took me to see the Space X Falcon Heavy rocket launch last evening. It is really amazing to watch the boosters land back down. Had 4 sonic booms with the landings and I could feel the heat 15 miles away. I checked my oil consumption after driving up to the World Golf Hall of Fame and then down to Cocoa Beach and then home. It is a bit premature, but it does appear that my tonic of Seafoam for 200 miles before each oil change, coupled with Lucas oil treatment when I am down my first quart, has reduced my consumption to 1/2 a quart every 1000 miles. I have been adding 1 quart per 1000 miles for the past year. I'll keep at it now that Walmart makes their own Seafoam/Lucas Oil equivalent and won't cost me as much money. Oh, and my car is back to "normal" gas mileage now that I'm done with the hills of California. I'm wondering if that had something to do with the oil consumption as the engine worked harder to get up the mountain passes and hills. Stay tuned.

Front brake pads & oil change.

Before/after speaks for itself... This is the 3rd time I've redone the headlights. This time I used the kit from Rain-X, though with a few tweaks... Given how tedious this has been in the past, I enlisted my DA polisher, Meguiars M105 and the Harbor Freight compound and polishing pads for assistance. It's a little difficult to use the 6" pads for this process, but that's all I had so I made do.

I started with M105 and the compound pad which knocked quite a bit of that old, yellowed sealant off. Went through the manual sanding steps and hit it with the DA again a few times in the process. It was a lot easier this time around, way less manual labor.

For the step with the plastic polish, I used the polishing pad on the DA and then followed it up with a thorough application by hand.

As usual, the driver's side turned out great but the passenger side can only be improved so much. I guess that side of the car has had more direct sunlight over the last 16+ years, giving it that permanent weathered look.
Will see how long things last this time.

Replaced passenger side control arm. The passenger side is SUPPOSED to be easier because it doesnt require raising the engine to clear one bolt but it still has its challenges. My best advice is just pay someone to replace them. Its not worth the time and energy, besides 1 MOOG replacement is only 50 bux on amazon. I replaced the driver side with a MOOG piece in January....car feels GREAT for 250K

Today I reinstalled the sacrificial dash trim (the stuff that a prior dealer destroyed during the first air bag control module recall.) She's finally going in Tuesday for the non-Takata inflator. Hopefully they also will be able to get the new control module in there too, hence the reinstallation of said sacrificial trim.

During the process of moving stuff from the new good trim to the old messed up trim, the little ears that stick out of the white piece surrounding the cigarette lighter broke off. I managed to get them sort-of glued back on to keep the lighter from falling out for now, but I'll have to do something else when I go to reinstall the good trim. I ordered a 2-port USB thingy from Amazon to replace the cigarette lighter socket, will see how that works out.

Gave her a good interior cleaning and a quick wash. My Sirius antenna broke a while back, finally got around to installing a new one today.

ColonelPanic wrote: ↑Sun Apr 28, 2019 5:27 pm I ordered a 2-port USB thingy from Amazon to replace the cigarette lighter socket, will see how that works out.

Don't be like me and wait a couple years to install it. My son ordered me a couple of them and I still haven't installed them yet! He ordered Red LED backlit glow to match my red Vibe Gt

I should probably get one of those to put in my console. I wouldn't do it to my dash - I have my laptop plugged into the 12 volt for the dash.

tpollauf wrote: ↑Sun Apr 28, 2019 8:45 pm

ColonelPanic wrote: ↑Sun Apr 28, 2019 5:27 pm I ordered a 2-port USB thingy from Amazon to replace the cigarette lighter socket, will see how that works out.

Don't be like me and wait a couple years to install it. My son ordered me a couple of them and I still haven't installed them yet! He ordered Red LED backlit glow to match my red Vibe Gt

Nice! Did yours fit in the lighter opening without modification?

I bought this one, thought it'd be handy to have since it also has a voltmeter on it. It almost fits in the hole, but the threads on it make it too wide. Bummer, it's a pretty neat little gizmo! I'll have to find another use for it somewhere.

I don't want to dremel out the trim panel since I paid a pretty penny for this thing, hate to go hacking into it. If yours fits the opening as-is, I'll forego the voltmeter one and try to find one like yours.

Nice! Did yours fit in the lighter opening without modification?

As my comment stated " still NEVER mounted it! So I have no idea if it fits. I like yours better with the volt meter and the fact that it's metal! Funny how they used my model as a put down in their comparison ad Measurements are identical so we can't trade (if smaller I would give you one of mine!)

tpollauf wrote: ↑Wed May 01, 2019 1:43 am

Nice! Did yours fit in the lighter opening without modification?

As my comment stated " still NEVER mounted it! So I have no idea if it fits.

LOL, I totally missed that.

I had the SDM and inflator recalls performed this week, so I spent some time today I reinstalling all the good trim and the JVC radio. The guy at my Chevy dealer who did the recall work didn't add a single scratch when doing the repairs, so I probably would have been OK to leave the good stuff on there!

And yep, I managed to get that charger installed. As I mentioned above, I wasn't too keen on modifying the trim panel, but I had no issues modifying a $15 charger. Since the charger had a metal body, I grabbed a file and went to town on it, shaving off enough to let it go through the existing lighter opening. I did file some plastic out ever so slightly from the panel, but not enough that would prevent me from going back to a regular lighter socket if need be. Despite all the filing on the charger, I managed to not wreck the threads so the nut was still able to thread on there nicely and tighten down.

The voltmeter seems to have a pretty quick sample rate. Unsure of accuracy at this point. Briefly plugged my S9 into it, it does fast charge the phone.
I have the power coming from some taps that are on the radio's positive and negative from back in the day where an FM modulator was connected.
Come to find out, the connections at the taps might be a bit flaky, so if it stops working I'll be tearing it apart again and running a wire over from an add-a-circuit in the fuse box.

geeez, I think that is really impressive. Nice job CP!

Thanks!

I went out to see what it looks like at night... Ouch, the LED's are a bit bright!


I have some "LightDims" film that I use around the house for various devices with obnoxious LED's that light up a dark room. I cut out a piece to cover the LED's, much better. Granted, now I probably won't be able to see the car's voltage in the daylight but what can ya do?

Great job! As of last week I am finally driving both of my Vibes on a daily basis. Obviously one at a time Officially got out of the service business after 25 years and no longer have a company commercial vehicle to drive around all the time. The miles will slowly begin to accumulate on both of my Vibes! I'll be driving my 2004 Vibe GT fusion as a work commute vehicle mainly to construction sites and refineries in my area. I'll definitely begin small mods on that one first. The 2009 Vibe Gt will remain as is for now and get used for more "pleasure" driving.

Friday night, I gave her a quick wash, wax, shined up the cladding and cleaned up the interior.

Saturday she got a new set of tires.

Today it was some fresh Maxlife and a 2ZZ-spec filter. I was going to attempt to paint the wheel covers as well... Took them off and gave them a good scrubbing, but then the storms rolled in. Slapped the wheel covers back on, they'll have to wait for another day.

Replaced valve cover gasket. I finally bit the bullet and changed it after 4 years

I replaced the oil in my vibe, and the serpentine belt, air filter, cabin air filter, and oil in my wife's 2013 Mazda 5.

Someone needs to put together a class action lawsuit against Mazda for deliberate and malicious bad design for standard maintenance, to force people to take their cars to a mechanic.

The cabin air filter is a stacked air filter, which you access from a tiny panel under the passenger side under-dash. It requires two kick panels to be removed to get to it, as well as unplugging one to two electrical connections.

The serpentine belt tensioner access is... stupid. It's at the _bottom_ of the engine. You have to jack up the car, remove the passenger front wheel, pull off the splash guard underneath (if you want to do it 'easily'), then remove an access panel in the front side of the wheel well. Then, you need a 14mm socket to rotate the tensioner. Okay, easy enough - except that the two main compressor lines are bolted to the frame _directly in front of the tensioner_. So, you really need a 14mm box end wrench, and a cheater that can fit over the other end of that wrench (not simple). It requires that you also remove the bracket holding the lines (which are _clamped_ into another bracket that you can't remove), and do some force to move everything out of the way so you can get a breaker bar into place with a normal sized socket. Even my 'through' socket was too big.

Once that's all done, it turns out that you have to have a spare person to keep the belt from coming off of one of the idler pulleys while you put a 1/2" socket wrench on the crankshaft pulley and rotate the entire engine to get the belt to slip on. You _must_ put the belt on at the crankshaft pulley, as it's the only one that doesn't have a really high lip - and the tensioner doesn't retract enough to be useful.

I think I preferred the old "loosen the alternator bolt and tilt it back, remove the old belt, put the new belt on, and use a crowbar to tension the alternator while tightening the adjustment bolt". Quick and easy, and you could fix it in the middle of nowhere if you had to, with minimal tools.

Oh - yeah. Powerflo oil filters are a non-standard 'wrench' size at the base.

Changing my vibe's oil, hot, was far simpler.

I noticed the other morning that the gearshift position backlight was out. I ordered a couple of types of LED replacements for 74 bulbs to try out. One with a single LED at the end (link) and another with 3 LED's total (link.) I bought both red and warm white, more on that later.

The PRNDL plastic has decided to get all cracked, so I wasn't willing to chance sliding it out and tackling it from above. Removing the trim and shifter console was easy enough, but getting that bulb out and back in was nuts.

I first tried the single LED model, before sunset it seemed like it might do good enough. Put it all back together and called it done. As the sun was setting, I took a look at it again. It was bright enough for PRN but was rather dark after that. Time to tear it all back up again and try the other bulb!

The 3-LED bulb type worked out much better. All of the positions are nicely illuminated now. BTW, as I suspected the red didn't look too great when mixed with the green filter on the indicator. As much as I've always wanted to see it lit up in red, keeping a white bulb in there is the way to go.

Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinally got around to installing the PPE exhaust parts I've had in my garage since 2015...

Major Modification !..........New Steering wheel cover ! I have to admit, it does look nice.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072P ... UTF8&psc=1

cptnsolo77 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 03, 2019 6:25 am Major Modification !..........New Steering wheel cover ! I have to admit, it does look nice.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072P ... UTF8&psc=1

Let us know how well it works. I know the cover on mine likes to slide around until it's cockeyed - then stays there.

I've been planning to cover it in jute and sisal, then lacquer the rope.

cptnsolo77 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 03, 2019 6:25 am New Steering wheel cover !

Nice. Pics of it installed and feedback on it's performance

Had all of my "active" Vibes out in the driveway for some serious cleaning! I say ACTIVE because the sick 2003 Vibe GT (not pictured) will not see driving for another year or longer when I have time to work on it. The Honda jet ski is here also as it needed minor maintenance. It will be back in the marina later this week!


Speaking of jet skis ........... these three Honda Aquatrax 1500 fx turbocharged toys are waiting for our Vibes to get us to the marina so we can take them out for some fun. All three hit 70+ mph. That's a nice thrill on the water Oh, on a side note, many of you may be living in areas of the midwest where record rainfalls have led to major flooding! Well this pic clearly shows Lake Erie being no exception. Water levels are anywhere from 8 to 16" higher than last year.


FYI .... here are "normal" water levels ! This pic was from last summer

Wow. THREE holes in the water in which to throw money!

Anyway - nice herd. I'd bet there are people complaining about having to get their feet wet to get to their boat/jetski/whatever - to then go get wet.

Got a flashing check engine light I PANICKED and limped home to the tune of 30MPH. Car had zero power and vibrating violently at the stoplight. Turned out to be a P0303 ( misfire ) I swapped out the coil pack from cylinder 2, erased the code, waited till the code returned and the code moved to cylinder 2 ( P0302 ). Bad coil pack. Picked up a new one at Advance and back on the road. They were a little pricey at 62 bux for one so i just purchased one to get back on the road. I found a set of Denso/Toyota units on ebay for 60 dollars for a set of 4. I know if one goes bad im SURE the rest will follow so im going replace them all. This has been the SCARIEST and EASIEST fix of my Vibe ownership

1. I found that the same two forward bolts on the heat shield that are described and shown in Derf's thread (first picture on second page of his thread: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=40549&start=50 ) were also missing. I had never noticed these missing bolts before because you have to be under the front of the vehicle and really be looking for them to notice.

I was able to find a couple of bolts and got them to tighten down. I was going to use thread locker but the threads were very tight from being so rusty I don't think they will be backing out again.

2. I found an up-opened small plastic bag with two oval plugs that was labeled “IMPORTANT” with these instructions:
To Pre-Delivery Inspector:
Insert these Rubber Plugs into the holes of the center floor side member extensions.

Of course these plugs were suppose to be installed by the dealer at delivery but were never installed. So now 14 years later I found the two holes and sprayed a generous amount of Fluid Film inside the rail openings and then sealed these 1” oval holes with the two plugs. This is in the rear area about a foot forward of the rear tires. If yours don't have plugs one could just put a piece of tape over these holes - or I guess just leave them open sense mine have been open all of this time and I would have never noticed it except for finding these instructions!

3. I went front to back on the underside and sprayed a can of “CRC Marine Heavy Duty Corrosion Inhibitor” over much of the underside with special attention to any areas that were showing signs of rust. This is a product that I haven't seen much talk about but I really like it. It's suppose to be more resistance to wash out than fluid film and drys to a waxy honey-colored film. The best price that I found was from Iboats and I purchased 3 cans plus shipping which worked out to about $10 / can.

Pretty wild that the dealer (un)installed plugs were still in the car after so long

Jbenrod wrote: ↑Fri Aug 02, 2019 6:24 pm If yours don't have plugs one could just put a piece of tape over these holes - or I guess just leave them open sense mine have been open all of this time and I would have never noticed it except for finding these instructions!

At some point I found that the rubber plug under the front passenger floor pan was missing, I RTV'd a can lid over the hole

Filled up my 2009 Vibe GT . Didn't realize that it's been over 5 months since I last filled it. So with that said I finally surpassed the 10 year milestone of ownership. Extremely impressed with the mileage. Here's a snapshot of the mileage history



You'll notice the two very low dips on that chart. Yep ... that's when the WIFE drove it Winter driving, winter blend of fuel, and the wife driving = very poor mileage!

tpollauf wrote: ↑Sun Aug 04, 2019 11:51 am Filled up my 2009 Vibe GT . Didn't realize that it's been over 5 months since I last filled it. So with that said I finally surpassed the 10 year milestone of ownership. Extremely impressed with the mileage. Here's a snapshot of the mileage history



You'll notice the two very low dips on that chart. Yep ... that's when the WIFE drove it Winter driving, winter blend of fuel, and the wife driving = very poor mileage!

Lots of idling to get the car to warm up, or to keep warm while sitting somewhere.

I just replaced front struts and right front wheel bearing on my '07.

Everything came apart just fine with a 24" breaker bar, even the axle nut. I sprayed penetrating oil on everything a few days ago. (Last time I took an axle off my old Subaru, I had to grind that nut off, after breaking two cold chisels on it.)

I had to call around for a shop with a large press. Finally found a Big O in a neighboring town that could do it.

I was surprised at how good the old bearing felt off the car. There was no perceptible play, just a very slight noise when spinning the hub. But the new bearing gives a much quieter ride. The bearings I saw on YouTube videos were horrible by comparison. I can't imagine what they felt/sounded like before they came out. I must have a small threshold for noise and play.

Next up is fixing the engine oil leak at the timing belt tensioner.

Seems like I just did this 2 years and 10,000 miles ago.



She's recently developed a case of the shimmies while braking. Given the low mileage on them, I probably could have just had the old rotors turned but new rotors are cheap. And I already had a new set of ACDelco Professional ceramic pads laying around in my Vibe parts stash. Might as well use them.

The rotors used are Raybestos Element3 coated rotors. I really like them, all three vehicles in our fleet now have these installed. Pretty good bang for the buck and they stay looking nice. Not like that matters on this steelie-equipped Vibe.

Pretty uneventful job, she's stopping schmoove again. Hopefully things stay that way.

Got sick of my "meep-meep" horn on my base Vibe, slapped on a two-trumpet 110db horn from Hella.
Much more manly.

Paid the $39 at Sam's Club and got my headlights nice and shiny and got a 5 year warranty as well. I doubt my car will last that long though.

Finally had access to the lift Changed oil and performed a thorough underbody inspection before nasty weather gets here. I'll comment on the canister/evap issue in that other thread. What a nightmare just to satisfy emissions!

Did some final prep before driving this poor car to death (not really) over the next six months or longer as I took a new job out of our union hiring hall.
Steel plating plant 61 miles one way from my house 7-10's with an option for every other Sunday off. So what else is there to do over the winter up here except work your A S S of and make some good money while you can! The 2004 Vibe GT will be my primary "go to work" vehicle with the Silverado being used ONLY if nasty weather is predicted. So by springtime the Vibe could have an additional 20k miles or more on the clock. For me that is considered a lot. For a lot of you it's nothing Also, last week was the first time this "Florida Vibe" got a good taste of salt/brine all over it

tpollauf wrote: ↑Sat Nov 16, 2019 4:57 pm Did some final prep before driving this poor car to death (not really) over the next six months or longer as I took a new job out of our union hiring hall.
Steel plating plant 61 miles one way from my house 7-10's with an option for every other Sunday off. So what else is there to do over the winter up here except work your A S S of and make some good money while you can! The 2004 Vibe GT will be my primary "go to work" vehicle with the Silverado being used ONLY if nasty weather is predicted. So by springtime the Vibe could have an additional 20k miles or more on the clock. For me that is considered a lot. For a lot of you it's nothing Also, last week was the first time this "Florida Vibe" got a good taste of salt/brine all over it

My aunt managed to make her 88 Ford Tempo last 15 years by regularly hosing off the undercarriage before parking, after driving through slush.

- edit - In Cleveland. Ohio, not Texas.

On 11/16 I replaced both inner tie rod ends. Could not get an alignment as the adjusting nuts were seized.

11/23 i replaced a perfectly good axle on my 04 GT because the alignment shop melted the axle boot when trying to break aforementioned seized nuts free. Greasy mess, and unfortunately, not an OEM axle now.

11/24 I replaced the wheel bearing on my wife's 07 at 200k miles. Pretty straightforward task. Took the spindle off, and knocked out the hub. Then took it to a local shop. They removed the old bearing and pressed in the new one for $40.

I was reminded of why I should just buy a shop press. I pay that fee three times, and the press would have been paid for.

Today after work I will have to replace the parking brake hardware on my 04 GT. Somehow the retaining pins disappeared as I was driving yesterday, so the brakes are making noise. Glad dad was on vacation this week so we could steal his truck to get around.

Was getting a gas odor when at a stoplights. Did some investigating and the smell seemed to come from the fuel injestors. Replaced fuel injector O rings. 8 in total, 2 per injector. Drove home tonight and did lots of sniffing at each traffic light. I cant smell anything anymore so I guess I fixed it 1 hour job and 20 bux in parts...ONWARD to 260K !!!!

Video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK3xga0 ... ex=9&t=11s

Parts : https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003V ... UTF8&psc=1

Thursday night, I went ahead and did a full drain and fill on my oil. Used conventional, because it turns out that I still had five quarts of it lying around, so I'll wait to switch to synthetic at the next oil change.

cptnsolo77 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 01, 2019 7:34 pm Was getting a gas odor when at a stoplights. Did some investigating and the smell seemed to come from the fuel injestors. Replaced fuel injector O rings. 8 in total, 2 per injector. Drove home tonight and did lots of sniffing at each traffic light. I cant smell anything anymore so I guess I fixed it 1 hour job and 20 bux in parts...ONWARD to 260K !!!!

Video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK3xga0 ... ex=9&t=11s

Parts : https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003V ... UTF8&psc=1

Looks like I DIDNT fix it. Theres was gas seeping out of something called a fuel pulsation damper. Looks like a fuel pressure regulator but it isnt at all. It is NOT a seperate peice and you have to purchase the ENTIRE fuel rail. Needless to say $100 bucks later I replaced it. 1 HR job so it wasnt bad at all. Hopefully that was REALLY it

Replaced battery due to a sloooow crank concern without any troubleshooting whatsoever. Because of course I did. I figured it's had a rough life - 6 years old, most of that time sitting around and when the car is driven it doesn't travel great distances. And I didn't own a charger until recently.

Charged the new battery and installed it. Still cranked slow. On Christmas Eve, temps were in the 60s but if you listened to the starter you'd think that it was trying to turn over on a 0 degree morning. The starter finally conked out while I was trying to get voltage measurements. No sounds except for the fuel pump and a relay click. It never cranked again, even after some persuasion with a hammer.

On Christmas day, I confirmed I was getting voltage to the starter and then pulled the fan shroud and starter. Picked up a reman starter from Oreilly the next day. It cranks super fast now - who knew? It's not like the starter has been giving me warning signs for the last 5 years with the rattling it did on cold starts below 40 degrees. Or the fact that it always seemed kind of sluggish.

While I had it all apart, I hard-wired the pigtail that came with the charger/maintainer so I can just plug it in and let it do its thing.

Also finally replaced the oil pressure sending unit, which was made easier with the fan shroud out. It's doable with a 24mm deep well and a ratchet, but there wasn't enough room to get a torque wrench in there with the shroud in place. No leaks and so far the oil pressure light hasn't done the weird flickering thing on startup.

TL;DR: Listen to what your Vibe's starter is trying to tell you before you condemn what may be a perfectly serviceable battery.

Just got done replacing water pump at 260K. Amazing....this is the original pump. I Had a small coolant leak from the bottom. Also replaced thermostat while I was there. Removing the alternator gave me full access to the pump and thermostat. About 3 hours total. I took my time with it. Hardest part was accessing the 2 bottom bolts.

Parts
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FZ ... UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00I9 ... UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00G0 ... UTF8&psc=1

Videos

Water Pump: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqxY6CH3EvM&t=872s

Thermostat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUPMO7_NeFQ&t=411s

Dropped my "redneck" oil catch pan from under the Vibe GT the other day. Needs an oil change and will change out the CV halfshaft axles so it was in the way. Amazingly this thin pan that I fabricated did exactly what I designed it to do ........ catch the drops of oil that leak from the timing chain cover gasket, and lay in this pan . The dipstick pretty much shows a full oil level so I figured just a couple ounces or so actually leaked out. Other than an occasional drip from one of the corners of this pan, it pretty much caught & trapped the oil and stayed there instead of leaking all over my driveway or garage floor Not bad for 5000 miles/two months of almost all highway driving.

First repair for the year.....upper radiator hose. Vibe has a new cooling system. T stat, water pump, fan assembly, Coolant temp sensor, radiator and upper/lower hoses are new. Ready for the Florida heat

New year, new subframe. Installing a replacement subframe in an '05 AWD we picked up. Old one is out, new one is going to get media blasted soon, then we will paint it and install.