GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

vibedrivermatt

Awesome man. What year/trim of vibe are you crusing? Pls feel free to start a thread about you car over in the genvibe garage. We'd love to hear all about it and in particular your repairs and maintenance. If theres one addage I can say about genvibe its that pictures make the thread all the more fun.

vibedrivermatt

Did you unplug the battery by chance? My car always idles rough for awhile if the battery cable is disconnecred for any reason. The cars computer or ECM needs to relearn how to idle smoothly everytime battery is unplugged for an extended amount of time. Its impossible for me to say if this is the ca...

vibedrivermatt

Awesome. Thanks for sharing it. Yours still appears to be in great shape cosmetically if it still resembles the old pic.

Mine has a 1 1/4" tow reciever hooked up as well. I mainly use mine to hold a mountain bike rack and sometimes haul my harbor freight 4x8 light trailer.

vibedrivermatt

The new starter to the yard tractor showed up. That didnt fix it.. I installed a new internal starter solenoid as well. Nothing. :( But finally. The moment lf truth. Huzzah! Its the freaking ignition! I had to hot wire it to make it work. The tractor is fixed!!!!!!!!! Now the tractor also has a bunc...

vibedrivermatt

Whelp. The new switch arrived. That didnt fix the mower.. in hindsight I probably should have tested it with a multimeter first.. also, its unlikely that 20A current would be sent through that switch anyway. The mower (or yard tractor) uses a single 20A fuse. It keeps blowing it when the ignition is...

vibedrivermatt

I got the other sway bar end link on the vibe today. It turns out I fowled up the first job. After driving around for a while, the first link I had replaced loosened. The sysmptom was a tell tale clunking sound of the front sway bar moving around in ways its not supposed to. This happened because I ...

vibedrivermatt

Guss2008 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 30, 2026 4:39 pm Hello guys,

I really love my 2009 Vibe, which I bought new, and I drive it almost every day.
And I check the forum every three days.

Its great to hear from another 09 owner. I'm an original owner as well. Surely, your vibe has taken you on many adventures over the years.

vibedrivermatt

Ive attwmpted to replace the serpentine belt tensioner but failed to remove it. I ended up just tightening it back down. That bottom bolt messed me up. I was trying to remove it from the top. The oem part was of a higher quality than the replacement one I had anyway. To use this tensioner you have t...

vibedrivermatt

Hey. Just wondering. Did you ever get that sorted?. Welding seems like a good option in that situation.

vibedrivermatt

Ohhh metabo! Those are fine german power tools.. onetime I bought a metabo angle grinder for my dad.
It had a soft start.

The one I have was gifted to me. Its Porter cable brand. Its nothimg fancy but it works.

vibedrivermatt

Hi. According to internet the 2006 pontiac vibe has a hydrualic power steering system. Have you checked the fluid levels?

vibedrivermatt

Making a first post here for 2026. I drive a company pickup truck, so my 2003 Vibe get very little use. It's hanging in there with my milage only around 170Km. Hey thats great for keeping the milage low. I work on tugboats so my vibe sits in a parking lot for 6 months of the year. The schedule we w...

vibedrivermatt

Theyre really great cars. I too have 2009 with 2.4l. but mine is equipped with the 5 speed manual. On my car the rear brake calipers have proven to be the weak link. I've replaced several of them. As for the engine, the 2.4l tends to burn a little oil between oil changes. I just keep it topped off a...

vibedrivermatt

Screenshot_20260426_185517_Chrome.jpg I jist asked a google Ai about drive by wire throttle system on our cars. I wonder if you have a poor commection to ykur throttle body. As cars age the wires weaken. Corrosion can form and causes resistance which restricts current. Perhaps theres a way to perfo...

vibedrivermatt

Hi. My suggestion is to replace the AC power switch in the climate control console. I changed a similar part on my 2009 vibe to fix the issue of No AC or blower fan turning on. The heater core was still working on my car. It would still prodice heat to passively defog the windshield. With the blower...

vibedrivermatt

I'd have expected struts to last more than 135K miles. Do you think its because of hard driving, weather, bad roads, or just general age of the parts? It may habe been a combination of factors. Its possible that my struts wore out faster because I had TRD lowering springs. Those went on the car whe...

vibedrivermatt

Those large bolts wwre super hard ti break loose too. I forgot about this but I believe we removed these durimg the clutch job ti grt them out if the way. We might have used blue (or maybe red) loc-tight on there. I had to use the jack handle over the end of a breaker bar to break those loose. 20260...

vibedrivermatt

I had to put new struts on the vibe. Honestly, I should have done years ago. The left front strut was beyond gone. The replacements cost about $160. The replacement parts were nice as they are complete strut assemblies. Its comes assembled with new strut, spring, bumper, bellows and strut mounts. Th...

vibedrivermatt

Im very glad to have found the fix. I was really taking shots in the dark at it. Had the replacement switch not worked I was about ready to go to a professional. Concerning your sons vibe GT climate control switch. All I can suggest is taking a look at the some of the replacement knobs and cables. H...

vibedrivermatt

The AC and blower fan stopped working on my vibe. The first thing I thought to try was the fusible link block. This part contains a 50 amp fuse for the hvac circuit. I thought that replacing this may energize the AC controls. this ended up not working. My blower fan controls and AC still wouldn't tu...

vibedrivermatt

Thanks.

They still look great to this day. Pictures dont capture how nice as it looks in person.

A lot of awesome cars were made in that era. I'm also fond of the 4th gen firebirds and cameros. They looked aerodynamic then.

vibedrivermatt

Thanks! Its a lot of fun. I just put new rubber on it.
We're even considering getting a second Z. 370z to be specific. That one would be an automatic with convertible for the wife..

vibedrivermatt

Aha. Found you. Im baaaaaaack!

vibedrivermatt

Here's my 300zx Twin Turbo. I bought it 2007 so ive actually had it longer than my 09 vibe. We (wife and I) dont know but we're thinking about calling it lady emerald.. we're still unsure on the name. Its called MouserZ by me. 20250515_111100~2.jpg 20240622_145424.jpg 20250514_153133~3.jpg That Pic ...

vibedrivermatt

If look around at junk yards and see if you can find an AWD 09 vibe. They should be able to extract the part for you. Another good place to look is ebay. There you'll find a treasure trove of parts from totaled vibes and matrixes.. or matrices?

Could you show us pictures of the broken thing?

vibedrivermatt

I just ordered some stuff form this website. https://www.toyotapartsdeal.com/ It looks like they had a pretty good selection of oem Toyota parts. I needed a new hose clamp for my air intake hose. Its a very specific part. They had it. They had a good variety of other oem hose clamps and clips. But m...

vibedrivermatt

Hey this reply might be eight months late but your wheels look good. At one point I spray painted my oem steel wheels high gloss black too. It looks pretty good with tuner lugs.. my hubcaps have been long gone for awhile. I also really like your backup camera vibenation I have thought about ordering...

vibedrivermatt

The matrix part would definitely fit.

vibedrivermatt

I joined in Jan 2010 and am ashamed that this is my first post. I still come here and really enjoy the site. There's lots of good info here. I'm an old fart and bought my first Vibe, a new silver 2009, when I retired and still have it and love it. I'm from Michigan but have never driven it in the w...

vibedrivermatt

It's neat to read everyone's stories about their vibes. I really like this car. Im pretty stubborn about replacing it. If I did I might even get another toyota compact such as the corolla hatch. On the otherhand I wouldn't mind something different entirely. Our vibe is named Earl grey. We are star t...

vibedrivermatt

Hey, I'm late seeing this post. Did you ever get you clutch installed? We used Duralast Clutch Set NU72456-1 on my 2.4l. I agree wjth jolt. maybe that pilot bearing is needed for some other toyota build cars such as scion, tc or Xb. The clutch set i bought didnt include one. It just had the throw ou...

vibedrivermatt

How was the car running before you did the work to it? What promoted you the replace the torque converter solenoid? If possible, maybe you can undo what you did. Put the old solenoid back on. Maybe that new one isn't working as intended and is causing the engine to hang up. I don't have any experien...

vibedrivermatt

My car does this when I'm using the AC. Its a 2.4l 5 spd. It happens whenever the car is in neutral and idling.. so it's happening often when the car is stopped. It also start to happen if I'm coasting down the road in neutral. the RPMs start dropping to around 500 and it makes the car shake and my ...

vibedrivermatt

The backing plates for the rear rotors have rusted off completely on my car. I remember one was flopping around and I just ripped it off during a brake job. The car still passes inspection without them but I have had to replace 3 rear brake calipers. I don't believe the missing backing plates were t...

vibedrivermatt

Miguelpyroman wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2024 9:02 am I’d like to get another 150,000 kms (she’s at 258,000)

Wow. That's incredible milage.

vibedrivermatt

Thanks. Yea, I don't think I could have done without those guys. This sort of part replacement ended up being difficult in the end. I was glad for their help. Hey that's an awesome G8! :) I always liked those. Has it been a pain to get parts for it being a holden? Those are such neat cars, also neat...

vibedrivermatt

Do you still have the vibe. I bought the cheapest clutch I could for the 2.4l from autozone. Its the Duralast Clutch Set NU72456-1. Flywheel was LUK LFW245 from rock auto. I've probably passed 20k miles on this new clutch and it's been perfect. I did notice the pressure place was a little easier tha...

vibedrivermatt

Old thread I know but I'm bumping becuase this is an interesting topic. I know how tight to torque my wheels as I change them twice a year. I used to use a torque wrench but that takes a long time. Lately I can guestimate pretty well when I have about 80 90 ft lbs. One thing that irks me is when I f...

vibedrivermatt

I have had bad experiences using cheaper tires. Lately I only buy continental. Cheaper tires tend to wear down too fast and have a higher chance of going flat. The conties last way longer. There's Michelin, Good Year etc...

I order from discount tire direct too. Nice tire website.

vibedrivermatt

I'm curious what the average life of a starter is on these vehicles. I have a 2007 vibe with just over 100K miles. So far it has been reliable with no issues. The other day it refused to start while I was at a mall Tried multiple times and could only hear clicking. The mall is within walking distan...

vibedrivermatt

Glad to read you bought the car. My 2.4l has treated me well. The 2AZ-FE is the camry engine. It's known for legendary reliability. Mine drinks a little oil too in between changes. No big deal. I've switched to mobile1 high milage oil. I guess it has some extra additive in there.

vibedrivermatt

The car is back to running great now. I'll finish off with pic of starter chunks. That was fun. :roll: I appreciated those guys for lending me their time.. I swept my friends garage for him after that was done. Least I could do right? The car was in his garage for about 4 days.. when things were get...

vibedrivermatt

Things started going more in our favor at this point. Here's the new flywheel and pressure plate. I torqued the flywheel on nice and evenly with my electronic torque wrench and gave a good blast to brake clean to wipe the packaging residue off with a towel. The one pic shows the green jack which we ...

vibedrivermatt

Here's closer pic of the transmission. There still one peice of the starter in there! We had to gently pop that out with a hammer.. I ordered a new starter off Amazon for $80.

vibedrivermatt

So to get the trans out a whole bunch of stuff needed to get taken apart. At this phase I became more of a helper with the job. Now, I can do basic stuff with cars but doing a full clutch job was going past my skill level of what I can do on my own. I had two very talented guys to do the job here. O...

vibedrivermatt

So at about 107k miles my clutch was slipping. The clutch would hold well enough to still drive but it would slip the whole way until it got up to speed. It didn't feel nice to drive the car like this. It's a weird feeling of being disconnected to the road. The clutch replacement was necessary to co...

vibedrivermatt

Hello, I found some pics from the clutch install we did on my 09 24.l vibe. This wasn't a fun. It's really tight underneath the 2.4l vibe. There's wasn't a lot of room for our wrenches. We also did this laying on our backs as it was a diy situation with stands stands. Heres the pics!

vibedrivermatt

I just checked mine 121614 on the odo. Its a 2009 2.4l. My car has lower than average milage becuase of my job on a tugboat. It sits in a parking lot for 6 months out of the year. You see, we work for 14 days and then have 14 days off. Or you could say we work for a fortnight like in that popular ne...

vibedrivermatt

Hey joatmon you've been here a long time dude! Well, I'll be picture posting over in the repairs section. It's been awhile. That should be fun. I don't want to make detailed how-tos but just show some pics of parts going on car. I need new front shocks installed too. My struts are shot. The cars a l...

vibedrivermatt

Nice to see Storm. She's lives in a garage. That's nice. My Earl Grey is an outdoor cat... I mean car. We struggled to find a name fir my vibe. We were stuck between old Grey and Earl Grey. We like star trek so Earl Grey was what we settled on. The 2.4l with manual is nice. When i give the gas it go...

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