GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

Hello fellow Vibers. First off, I love this car as I'm sure many of you do as well. Mine has just about 309,000 miles. It's a manual trans, believe it or not with the original clutch. Pretty much all highway miles on it. Most of those miles were put on in Maine/northeast, but I moved out the Colorado (Denver area) a little over a year ago. Maybe the change in altitude/much lower humidity has some effect (maybe on the o2 sensor?)

Background: I probably put on 1500 miles a month. I spend a significant amount of time driving on dirt roads (partly for work, partly for pleasure)

Since I moved out to Colorado, I definitely have noticed the engine lose a bit of power. Just pretty slow acceleration in 3rd and 4th gears. I figure that's a combination between the altitude and the fact that it just has a ton of miles. So the CEL went on about a week ago. I went to autozone and used one of their code readers and pulled PO171.

I've read several threads on this board about the topic, seems like it could be a number of things (MAF sensor, intake manifold gasket, etc). I'm really not looking to spend too much on it. I would be willing to do some work on it myself, I just don't really have any tools.

I'm honestly not too worried about the CEL. The car seems to be running normally. I just passed CO emissions this summer so I've got 2 years until I need to do it again. And if worst came to worst I could just clear the code before going in for testing. The clutch still feels fine for its age. I just want this car to keep running. Isn't there somebody on this board who has over 400K on his?

My gas mileage still seems fine, I get about 30 in the city and 35 highway.

Sorry for the rambling. Would running a bottle of techron or something be a good idea? I know there is no such thing as a "mechanic in a can" but I figure it can't hurt. I really just need to find a good mechanic who won't try to charge me for stuff I don't need. In the mean time I'm just trying to educate myself. "Fuel system lean" seems like it could mean be due to many things.

TL;DR
CEL came on, car has 309K, don't want to spend much money, transmission still feels fine. The car runs somewhat sluggishly (maybe due to altitude in Colorado, probably just the crap load of miles.) Would running a bottle of techron or some fuel injector cleaner be a good idea? I realize that probably won't fix the problem, but I figure it can't hurt.

If it throws a code it is NOT running normally. "Running lean, bank 1" is almost always a vacuum leak. To detect it you need not much in terms of tools. check Youtube for a variety of methods to find vacuum leaks. Try several of them and don't give up. Also don't worry about bank 2. We only have one bank.

Nice Vibe, by the way!

A common vacuum leak location is the manifold intake gasket. The original ones get crumbly over time and fall apart allowing for a leak. They even redesigned them because the originals had so many problems.

You can do it yourself with a basic mechanics toolkit, a new gasket is inexpensive too.

Thanks for the advice guys. I will definitely take some time to try and find a vacuum leak. thanks for the compliment vibrologist.

Sideshowalan: I understand that the redesigned gasket is orange, the old is black. Is it possible to see the gasket at the edge somewhere? I like to determine if I have an old gasket myself without tearing into it.
TIA....

I doubt it's visible without taking it apart, the gasket sits in a recessed channel.

The part is so cheap you might as well replace it as maintenance, just be sure to mark the vacuum hoses and put them back in the correct spots.

sideshowalan wrote:I doubt it's visible without taking it apart, the gasket sits in a recessed channel.

The part is so cheap you might as well replace it as maintenance, just be sure to mark the vacuum hoses and put them back in the correct spots.

Thanks, sideshowalan! This is exactly what I will do. I had some minor rough idle last winter, only in the warm up phase. The computer was still in open loop. Once it was in closed loop and using the sensors it was able to correct for what ever caused the rough idle. The same thing happened with my old Windstar and in that case it too was a vacuum leak in the intake manifold area.

Well I brought it in for an oil change and had them check for a vac leak and they couldn't find one. Maybe I did just forget to tighten the gas cap once. They cleared the code and it's been about 200 miles and it hasn't came back on. They did find a small exhaust leak at the donut and said the serpentine belt may need to be replaced soon. They quoted 230 for both of those, with a new air filter which I need to do soon anyway. I'm gonna keep my eye on the serpentine belt and probably do that before the exhaust leak.