It took me a while, but I was finally able to empty some transmission fluid this past week. I've noticed that I'll likely need to replace the gasket, as it as a slight crack on the edge, although there has been no noticeable leakage. The whining noise from the transmission takes less time to go away...

Good deal. I've bought a quart of T-IV fluid just in case I let out too much. It's crazy how low the torque is for the transmission bolts and plug, but that's likely to prevent squishing the gasket from what I've read.

I did a check yesterday according to the manual (15-25 miles of driving, sat for 5 minutes, cycled through gears) and pulled out the dipstick to find it about an inch above the top hot notch. My front right engine mount may be bad, and I'm thinking about replacing all four eventually, but I doubt th...

Here's a bit of a weird one... This is for a 2003 FWD automatic with about 209k miles on it. Lately I've been hearing a slight whine from the engine/transmission when I put my car into drive or reverse soon after a cold start. When accelerating, a sort of chugging/chain can also be heard. The behavi...

I think there was a change early in the 03 production run that made the issue only possible in the early 03's, but I could be wrong about that. Just out of curiosity, what does the driver door say when your Vibe was built? I still think the cold weather light switch is a long shot, so if you think ...

Took joatmon's advice and put the brights on before shutting off the car. Also took out the dome fuse as a precaution. It was a somewhat weak start, but the car started without trouble! I found the headlights would stay on after switching them off brights, and shutting off the car. :o I think the ma...

airbag light would be due to the clockspring. it's like $20 or so on ebay and fairly easy and straightforward to replace. Will do. I'm just hoping it's not causing a possible parasitic drain on the dome fuse. I say possible because after doing some research, it looks like the dome fuse is hooked up...

Update for zbyers, BIL says he has only replaced fuses. So nothing extreme, luckily!

Performing the draw test found the DOME fuse as the culprit, and I forgot to mention that the airbag light has been constantly on while the car is on for a long time. EDIT: Drawn from DOME was about 0.75A. That seems abnormally high. BIL said that he's taken it for the airbag recalls as of 2016, but...

When you took it to the parts store, did they test the alternator? They can test it in the vehicle. They should shut off when the key is turned off, but are you leaving anything plugged into the 12V outlets that might cause it to drain the battery overnight? Or do you know if you or the BIL have me...

Its a long shot, but there was a problem with a few of the 03 Vibes and Matrixes, actually related to the turn signal/headlight switch lever, where very cold temps would cause the headlights to come on. Not sure how that happened, but definitely a thing, although uncommon. Replacing the switch fixe...

So basically the history with my 2003 base Vibe is it was gifted to me by my Bro-in-law after 200k miles of driving in southern US. Now it's all the way up in Idaho for college. It originally had an oil leak and P0171 "lean code", and some other minor problems. This forum has been super us...