GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

Hello, folks.

Just bought a pristine 1 owner (older lady) 2007 Base with 72kmi on the clock. Look forward to gaining the knowledge from and becoming a contributor to the board.

Welcome to GenVibe!

A 15 year old car will require some maintenance, but with that low mileage it should serve you well for many years.

Thanks!
Have already gone through suspension and brakes else the car would not have passed the PA inspection.

The front pads were 1-2mm but the rotors were fine (residual thickness ~24.5mm), no vibration under hard braking, no pulling to side so I just threw in a set of ceramic Akebonos (ACT923) and called it a day.

The rear shoes (now that's a flashback from the 1980s) were ~4.8mm with the residual allowance of 2mm per the service manual so I did not touch them. Just washed off the dust with brake cleaner and blew them dry in order to see if there were any sweating on the hydraulics. The drums had a little lip on edges so I kissed them with a 60 grit flapper wheel and left them alone. A mental note to self - need to research the available rear disk retrofit options, perhaps from some larger vehicle.

The front struts are gone. Pulled the RH side out - the shaft didn't even expand. This explains why that bump stop was completely smashed. Frankly, a bit disappointed with the OE KYB, I thought they made decent shocks. Ordered a set of gas Sachs (could not find Bilsteins for this vehicle), now waiting for the bump stops and dust boots. Might order a couple of 6302 bearings from McMaster and rebuild the top mounts since they will be out anyway.

Oh, and replaced the stabiliser link on the RH side with a Moog since the OE hex was predictably rusty beyond salvation and rounded off at the first attempt of holding it with the 6mm Allen. Had to cut off the nut with a side grinder. Actually might be a good idea to do a write-up with pix if I ever get around to it.

Welcome to GenVibe. We don't get too many new members here anymore so your future input and comments will definitely be welcomed. Looking forward to anything you can share with the rest of us

With that little mileage, I think you'll be happy with it. Even if they were short haul miles, the engine does well with them.

The one thing I'll say is make sure to flush (not just drain and fill, unless you do it several times) the coolant system. If your heater core starts to corrode, it's a nightmare, due to very poor design choices by Toyota/Pontiac. (They _could_ have made it an insert through the firewall, held in place with bolts or sheet metal screws, instead, it's a dismantle the ENTIRE dashboard process. 8 hours vs 20 minutes)

It's very likely that the coolant is factory original.

Same with the power steering fluid, although that's less 'risky', and you'll see benefit to bleeding the brakes (it's a bit trickier if you have ABS. Some 'base' models had it in 07, some didn't)

BW

tpollauf wrote: ↑Tue Apr 26, 2022 5:21 pm Welcome to GenVibe. We don't get too many new members here anymore so your future input and comments will definitely be welcomed. Looking forward to anything you can share with the rest of us

Thank you. Unfortunately this seems to be happening to all forums across the board. The forum in which I have been involved the most since the early 1990s when it had started as an email list (ASCII art for electrical schematics and all that) is a far cry from what it used to be at the peak of its glory days. Kids prefer FB for reasons that are a mystery to me. Most of us old timers who still stick to the traditional forum format just don't see a reason to post heavy technical content that is doomed to sink into the abyss of FB never to be seen again much less benefit future users.

Bookworm wrote: ↑Fri Apr 29, 2022 5:18 pm With that little mileage, I think you'll be happy with it. Even if they were short haul miles, the engine does well with them.

The one thing I'll say is make sure to flush (not just drain and fill, unless you do it several times) the coolant system. If your heater core starts to corrode, it's a nightmare, due to very poor design choices by Toyota/Pontiac. (They _could_ have made it an insert through the firewall, held in place with bolts or sheet metal screws, instead, it's a dismantle the ENTIRE dashboard process. 8 hours vs 20 minutes)

It's very likely that the coolant is factory original.

Same with the power steering fluid, although that's less 'risky', and you'll see benefit to bleeding the brakes (it's a bit trickier if you have ABS. Some 'base' models had it in 07, some didn't)

BW

Noted, thank you for the pointer. I typically replace all fluids wholesale after acquiring a new to me used car assuming the worst, regardless of the mileage.

Yes, I do replace brake fluid on a regular basis in all of my cars. Braking from high speed before a tight corner with boiling brake fluid saturated with air moisture is akin to trying to catch a dropped greasy cast iron skillet between your palms. Leaves quite a lasting impression. Although I no longer do track events them old habits die hard.

Speaking of bleeding the brakes... Years back, long before Motive came out with their pressure bleeder I had built one out of a half-gallon garden sprayer from Ace hardware, a piece of Tygon hose, a spare reservoir cap and a quick tire valve disconnect. Did this out of necessity - it is impossible to bleed the clutches of the car brand mostly driven in my family w/o a pressure bleeder due to the inverted position (under the dash) of the master and the specific design of the slave. The brake reservoir on the Vibe does not have a screw-on cap like in the cars that I am used to (I am not very familiar with Japanese cars) - how do you secure the cap of the pressure bleeder to pump in 15psi of pressure w/o splattering the brake fluid all over the paintwork?

I did it the other way. I didn't put pressure on the reservoir. I put vacuum on the bleeder nipples. That's where having ABS makes it slightly more difficult (my new-ish one isn't an ABS car, so no problems)

Never seen anyone do a push bleed without having someone use the brake pedal, only a pull bleed.

Bookworm wrote: ↑Tue May 03, 2022 7:17 am I did it the other way. I didn't put pressure on the reservoir. I put vacuum on the bleeder nipples. That's where having ABS makes it slightly more difficult (my new-ish one isn't an ABS car, so no problems)

Never had luck with the above method. There always was a train of tiny bubbles in the discharge tube giving out a false positive on the air in the system which in actuality was not there. I found that when you apply negative pressure downstream of the bleeder nipple and break it loose a small amount of air would be sucked into the tube through the gap and mix up with the fluid being discharged. This is never the case when you apply positive pressure to the top of the master cylinder because the air pressure in the said circumferential gap would be positive thus pushing the air out, not negative sucking the air in.

Never seen anyone do a push bleed without having someone use the brake pedal, only a pull bleed.

Here you go. In the pix below the yours truly is doing the annual brake and clutch fluid replacement in the daily driver using the DIY bleeder described above. The fluid is ATE Super Blue (280°C dry boiling point) hence the colour. I alternate it with Penstosin which is green to catch the moment when the old fluid is completely displaced by the new one.

The key on a pull bleed is that you _have_ to close the bleeder while you're applying vacuum. Those bubbles you're seeing are from the bleeder valve itself. As long as you close the bleeder while under vacuum, no air goes back in the lines. For example, I did a full bleed on the front and back brakes, (I could tell when the new fluid hit because it was a MASSIVE colour change), and felt a noticeable difference before and after, with no problems.

If yours works for you, then go for it! For me, it was easier, because I could shut the bleeder off, refill the reservoir, etc, without worrying about anything getting back in - I was just one person doing it. With your system, it looks like you either have to build some sort of lock-on extra large reservoir of fluid, or run the pressure, lock all the bleeders, open the reservoir, refill, pressurize slightly, open the bleeders, full pressure, and repeat.

Without the ABS, air bubbles aren't as much of a problem anyway - they migrate back to the reservoir. It's water vapour that's the big concern. (Houston, high humidity. Yes. )