My 2004 Vibe has the shudders....

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cbusenke
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Apr 28, 2019 8:14 am

My 2004 Vibe has the shudders....

Post by cbusenke »

I have a 2004 Pontiac Vibe, on its second engine, close to or over 100k on engine #2, #1 maxed out at 299k and went to pasture... does a small oil leak primarily because I took off the engine valve covers you know the one that's just for show and I lost a couple of bolts and I think that's made a little opened up small oil leak but that's not a problem as far as I know. The problem right now is that it shudders a lot when it's idling in a gear. There's no shuddering when it's in park or neutral. I'm thinking it's the engine mounts or the transmission mount, could be due to be replaced, the engine mounts seem to pass inspection but I'm not a pro. probably transmission mount then and that's not quite so easy to get a look at it. This car owes me nothing, it runs awesome, still has great gas mileage. The only thing that kind of bothers me is when I start it especially when it's cold the engine I mean and I shift into Revere there's a loud clunk and then we take off no problems. I told her the engine is the more pronounced the sound and the feeling it generates the shudder in the car. Been working on car a long time, nothing too complicated, but is this common ? am I missing something? Years back the gear shift cable became loose and needed tightening, I remember the symptoms of had or what prompted me to have to change that, so when I knew who is mechanic identified it for me. I do the test where you drive the car forward and backwards and look down through the windshield to see if the engine is moving or there's any shifting...nothing. All the belts are tight. It always sounds like it's running rich yet the OBD2 is telling me it's getting great gas mileage and so is my wallet. Now the car is old and yet seen a lot of miles but these changes seem like they came about fairly sudden but it's been a couple months now they haven't gone away haven't gotten worse by just focusing on an engine that's old?
Cbusenke
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cbusenke
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Apr 28, 2019 8:14 am

Re: My 2004 Vibe has the shudders....

Post by cbusenke »

Oh yeah, I m currently using 5w-30, full synth in it. I read somewhere reliable and in more than one place that this particular engine especially given the number vvt 16v setup to not use conventional. I dont think thats the issue but if I was sure on that I wouldn't be posting this
Cbusenke
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Sorry if I'm slow to reply to email, posting on here is prob best
Vulcan
Posts: 64
Joined: Sat Jun 06, 2020 5:53 pm

Re: My 2004 Vibe has the shudders....

Post by Vulcan »

I'm not very experienced with engines, so don't listen to me.

I don't think conventional oil will cause that. The only difference IMO would be the conventional will last a couple thousand miles less than the synthetic.

Since you know its running rich, I would then check the spark plugs. That might identify a problem on one cylinder. I don't know about the fuel injection system. If one injector is clogged, will the ECU try to compensate by sending more fuel, then the excess causes the "rich" condition? So wouldn't that look like one spark plug being different than the others, one would be very pale or burnt out with no carbon, and one or more others will look carbon'd up? Changing spark plugs might temporarily fix that. Maybe clean MAF sensor and throttle plate, lube the cable, make sure those aren't sticking.

I would also maybe give it the lacquer treatment, or other fuel system cleaners.

I also think, that bonking into Reverse might mean a low level of transmission fluid. I've had that happen with a few cars and have fixed it with adding or changing fluid, and in one case, backing the car up to the garage in Reverse and leaving it in gear for a while that way. Crazy. but it was a recommended procedure on that car (Saturn), and it worked.
2006 AWD, 207k
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joatmon
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Re: My 2004 Vibe has the shudders....

Post by joatmon »

It shudders when idling in gear, is it more pronounced when the engine is cold or warm, or is it the same all the time?

How low does the idle speed drop when you idle in gear?

You said it sounds like it's running rich, does the OBD scanner give you an indication of running rich?

The clunk when shifting into Reverse, you said "I told her the engine is the more pronounced ..." Can you get her to shift between drive and reverse while you are looking into and around the engine to perhaps figure out where the clunk is coming from? The only time I ever had a clunk like that was on a rear wheel drive vehicle, with a bad driveshaft U-joint. Don't know if a bad CV joint can cause that, never had one go out, people say they sound like clicking on sharp turns.

The plastic engine cover is originally held on with two easy to break plastic pins and two acorn nuts. One acorn nut screws on a very short stud in the top of the valve cover. The other screws on a long stud, and this long stud is the only once of the four original engine cover attachment points that also serves to clamp the valve cover. It's possible that whatever you lost when taking off the engine cover is not causing a valve cover oil leak, could be that you need a new valve cover gasket. It is likely on a 16 year old engine.

Running conventional or synthetic oil should not cause the shudder. I only ran conventional in my first Vibe, it had 288K miles on it when I got rid of it for other reasons, the engine was still running fine. General consensus seems to be that once you go with synthetic, you shouldn't go back to conventional
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