My Montana Hell

Just venting here.

In the last 12 months with my 2000, 82,000miles.

1) In-take manifold gasket
2) Front wiper "syndrome"
3) AC condenser leak *(EDIT: see link, service bulletin on this one)
4) Drivers side seat heater broken
5) air bag/seat belt light staying on
6) Rear wiper motor failure http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=430758


***edit

7) forgot another one, broken gas gauge sensor

*AC condenser:http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=3250653

Walk 80,000 miles and see what your body does. :)

1 and 2 are known issues. 3 and 6 has happened to a few others, but my view is it's an isolated failure related to age/wear. 4 & 5 I would look for a wiring harness that has wiggled off. Or at least check under the drivers seat. Those connectors have a tendency to wiggle loose and they aren't well protected from stuff rolling around under there.

I know you are just venting and I know your pain. I owned my 98 from 2002 until mid-2004 with really no major repairs. Then in the fall of 2004 all hell seemed to break lose. Mine was 6 years old when things started to wear out. Your is 5...same things happening.

...Walk 80,000 miles and see what your body does....1 and 2 are known issues. 3 and 6 has happened to a few others, but my view is it's an isolated failure related to age/wear....I know you are just venting and I know your pain. I owned my 98 from 2002 until mid-2004 with really no major repairs. Then in the fall of 2004 all hell seemed to break lose. Mine was 6 years old when things started to wear out. Your is 5...same things happening.....

Chris,

I think you have put some perspective on this, for me at least.

I was thinking about this the other day. Sure the van has its own unique set of problems, but what vehicle doesn't? If it was a Ferrari it would still break, right?

One can only identify the problems that are real and expensive early on and fix them before they become really expensive.

Ours has over 120,000 KMs on it. Any money I will spend on it will certainly be less than the depreciation on a new one. And as long as I stay on top of it, it should give reasonable service like any other vehicle.

The forum as a resource is a great place for those who need help or want to share their knowledge. A bit of venting doesn't hurt either; we just have to remember that we've all gotten to the point where we say, 'How am I going to fix that now?'

I've never believed in what I call polarization; the contentious idea that when two or more agree on an issue that makes them right and everyone else (including the manufacturer) wrong!

Thanks for putting your spin on it...

Bob
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I have to disagree with some of the statements made because with price of new vehicles these days they should provide consumers with good reliable vehicles with low maintenance cost for at least 7 years. This is what consumers expect and auto manufactures should meet. I would say 80,000 miles is not exactely high mileage provided it was maintained properly.

I have to disagree with some of the statements made because with price of new vehicles these days they should provide consumers with good reliable vehicles with low maintenance cost for at least 7 years. This is what consumers expect and auto manufactures should meet. I would say 80,000 miles is not exactely high mileage provided it was maintained properly.

you've got it right!! and it all relative, I drove a GMC Jimmy for 10 years and 225K miles with very few problems, my CHevy, Monte, my Olds cutlas all older model cars NEVER had the number of problems. PLus I was young and stupid and did little to maintain those at the time, with alot of off road with the Jimmy not to mention the mean streets of Manhattan!

anyways 80,000 with all these problems is just not right. I WILL not buy another Montana again, which is too bad because I really liked the vehicle, but thats just me

Everyone is entitled to their views on the vehicles. I'm not going to try to change your mind about wether or not you ever own another GM minivan.

I probably view things differently then some of you as I do my own work. My labor charges are "free". When someone complains about a dealership charging $800 or more for an intake job, the same thing costs me under $100 for all the parts. So in that respect, its more like (non) routine maitenance then a major repair. But I can easily see how others would view it differently. A broken window regulator or wiper motor I chaulk up to bad luck. If they all went or I had to replace it more then once in a short period of time, it would be different.

One thing that I think some people forget to remember is not all vehicles are created equally. Todays cars run more efficient, have more features, and have more power (well, in some cases) then vehicles from 10 or 15 years ago. With all the modern convienence of things we have grown accustomed to, such as anti-lock breaks, traction control, rear air conditioning, etc comes greater compexity of the vehicle. Greater complexity means that there is more potential for things to break. Engineers ask more for less. I had a 90 Talon TSi that was an incredible machine. It had an amazing amount of potential and was very overengineered. They were very conservative with the factory setup from what they could have gotten away with and still had an "acceptable" failure rate. Now a days with automakers cutting costs any place they can, the same level of overengineering isn't found because it costs more....by not overengineering, the vehicle costs less.

I typically expect new models, or models that have been recently designed to have more "growing pains" type of repairs then later models. The '97 was essentially a complete redesign for our vans. With that came a lot of new equipment that engineers at the time felt was sufficent. As those vehicles aged, they realized that there were some unforseen problems (e.g. intake gasket) and have attempted to correct the problem. Your 2000 fishhead65 still had some of those problems from the redesign as the '97 vehicles were just starting to exhibit the problems from the intake leak. If you look at the 2003 or 2004 cars when they are 5 years old, I bet you they won't have the same problems that yours do now.

The intake manifold gasket issue seems to haunt many different GM vehicles, not just the 3.1, 3.4, and 3.8L V6's. I have heard of many problems on the V8's as well.

As for the air bag light staying on, these vans have problems with the seat belt pretensioner mechanism that causes this. It may or may not be a recall item, I can't remember.