TTAC commentator deanst writes:
I have a question about the windshield wipers on a 2002 Chevy Venture minivan. The wipers function as expected, except that when they are turned off, they park in an upright position – not horizontally at the bottom of the windshield. This first occurred two winters ago, and they miraculously fixed themselves when summer came. This winter they again started parking in an upright position, and continue to do so. My mechanic thought a new wiper motor should fix the problem, at a cost of three or four hundred dollars. A quick search on the internet suggest that there is some reset procedure which might cure the problem. What is the best course of action?
Sajeev replies:
When I started Piston Slap, I wanted to overstate the value of model-specific forums on the Web. They help your pocketbook, safety and general well being. Think of it as a Wellness Program for you and your ride. Well, maybe not.
Wiper motors that don’t “park” in cold weather stems from a problem with the ground. Sometimes the ground is internal to a wiring harness, other times the ground is built into a wiring harness. Or the case completes the circuit when it bolts to the firewall. I would clean your ground by removing “it”, cleaning the mating surfaces and applying a dab of dielectric grease to help prevent this problem from happening again.
This should be a quick and almost free fix. But you’ll have to do your homework as to where your particular fix is located under the hood.
[Send your technical queries to: mehta@ttac.com]
Oh my lord. Photographic evidence of the most asinine marketing idea ever from GM: a tie-in with Warner Brothers’ cartoons. Look, Bugs Bunny just loves his new Chevy Venture! It’s “synergy” of the most surreal, drug-addled sort. I had forgotten about this one.
Would Elmer Fudd drive a Buick?
OK, back to the topic…
The best course of action is to get rid of the POS.
99% of the cars/minivans that I see with windshield wipers “parked” vertically (incorrectly) are GM’s. This didn’t used to be, but it is now.
Delphi, how art thou? Poorly made, thanks for asking.
The Venture and all its badge engineered siblings are quite the paradox. The tried and true engine / drivetrains will last quite a while (since GM’s been making and installing it in most of its models for 20 years – you’d hope they’d knock out all the bugs). However they literally fall apart from the inside as you drive them (so many bugs and electrical gremlins – likely from bad grounds). It’s no wonder why you see a 3 year old Venture sell for $5k or less (when it was $25k new). It is one of those vehicles that just absolutely sucked the soul out of someone and helped reinforced the need for a mid life crisis.
The best thing you can do with a GM minivan is to sell it while it still is worth a few dollars. We owned two of them, which makes me a slow learner.
Have an oil analysis immediately because the intake manifold gaskets in those V-6 engines routinely leak coolant into the motor oil. Catch it soon and it is a minor problem, but let the contamination go on and the motor is toast.
To this specific wiper problem, I’m skeptical about it being caused by a poor ground. Check out this person’s cure:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_you_fix_windshield_wipers_that_will_not_go_down_when_shut_off_on_a_Chevy_Venture
How far can Bugs Bunny hit a soccer ball with those feet?
The 8-year-olds are now screaming “NOT FAIR!”
Not only are these minivans poorly engineered and poorly made… they were taken off the market in Europe (where it was sold as an Opel and Vauxhall) because it FAILED the NCAP crash test. Ummm, they continued to sell it in the US though. I copied a link to the IIHS offset crash test below. If you value your family or your own life for that matter I’d consider selling that POS as soon as possible.
My grandparents had one. It went through 3 sets of brakes in 40K, and there was ALWAYS something wrong with it. Still, they got in a minor crash where the sliding door was damaged. The resale value on them is so bad that having the door replaced exceeded the value of the vehicle.
I think there was a recall or bulletin on the malfunctioning wipers on these cars.
The cheapest solution to this person’s dilemma to me would be to ignore it as long as the wipers worked. If not, and it needs a new motor, you can easily pull one out of a junkyard and install it yourself.
These had the vertical finger problem due to the GM design department getting their way with insisting on wipers that would wipe away from the center instead of the sequential left-right system every other car uses. The engineering department never could get the formula right to allow the wipers to cycle correctly.
Off topic, but what the hey…
The tried and true engine / drivetrains will last quite a while
Oh yeah, sure, if you ignore the whole intake/coolant thing. I mean, if they’re rock-solid, they certainly wouldn’t have failure rates in the millions, nor a few standing class-actions against them.
The “GM OHV Sixes last forever” is one of those memes that really needs to die. At least Toyota eventually got around to admitting sludging issues—has GM ever offered more than a token amount to people who’ve seen their cars thoroughly damaged?
Back on-topic: my Saab used to do this all the time. It also used to blow wiper motors and lights with regularity until a very good mechanic went through the wiring harness and sorted a grounding issue.
I looked for recalls or TSBs for the wiper system, and could not find anything. It might still be worth a trip to the dealership so they can just run your vin, and see if there is something.
Windshield wipers? What are those? I even live near Seattle and never use my wipers. Rain-X rules.
–chuck
[quote=psarhjinian] Oh yeah, sure, if you ignore the whole intake/coolant thing. I mean, if they’re rock-solid, they certainly wouldn’t have failure rates in the millions, nor a few standing class-actions against them.
The “GM OHV Sixes last forever” is one of those memes that really needs to die. At least Toyota eventually got around to admitting sludging issues—has GM ever offered more than a token amount of people who’ve seen their cars thoroughly damaged?[/quote]
I never said the OHV v6s from GM lasted “forever”. But they last quite a while. You can easily get 100k miles out of it if you properly maintain and make sure it is in good working order (including fixing the various issues that crop up before they go terminal). Most people don’t really pay attention and that is mostly the cause of these problems. They are also really cheap to replace engines as the junk yards are full of them waiting to sell them at a substantial discount. But according to you they don’t last long even for the Venture my bro-in-law has that just hit 200k miles and has yet to have a headgasket fixed. Maybe reason why is he immediately had the dexcool replaced with proper antifreeze.
Chuck,
I’m with you on the Rain-X thing. I use the premixed Rain-X washer fluid stuff, and it is like magic.
I’ve driven through torrential downpours with my wipers on a slow intermittent speed – and have no problem with visibility.
I secretly poured some of the stuff in my Mom’s car. (2005 Toyota Avalon) Soon after she thought her eyesight was getting better during rainy night driving. She was surprised to hear that improved washer fluid made that big a difference in rainy night driving.
-ted
“…you can easily pull one out of a junkyard and install it yourself.”
Well, yeah. I had a wiper motor problem with my 77 Gran Fury. Went to the wrecking yard and found a 74 with no motor and the hood off; stood there in the engine compartment next to the firewall and had the motor off in about five minutes.
Then I took it out to my car, with the hood on, engine in, and all the ridiculous pipes, hoses, and wires that infested the engine compartment, and although I could barely see the wiper motor, I could see that it was different. Well, Mr. wrecking yard guy, here’s your part back in the car it came from, and off to the dealership! They had the wiper motor in stock, must have been a common problem.
Porsche986 : I copied a link to the IIHS offset crash test below. If you value your family or your own life for that matter I’d consider selling that POS as soon as possible.
I tend to be the type that overlooks older platform’s inferior safety because 1) they are old and 2) the owner probably paid the vehicle off…but…
Holy shit. That thing crumples almost as bad as the Astro van. Look at the roof! I’ll take a Freestar/Caravan over these GM vans any day. And not lose very much doing the trade-in.
This is my third favorite external indicator of how great GM quality has become. I notice the wipers mostly on Bland Prix and Cadavers.
No. 2- Rust on fairly new vehicles.
No. 1- High percentage of GMT800s with one malfuntioning DRL. A problem you can spot, literally, a mile away.
psarhjinian-totally with you on the “legendary” GM OHV V-6. Sorry jaje, annecdotes and blaming owners maintainence (do only GM buyers neglect there cars?) doesn’t get around the fact that they have a high failure rate.
Throw in the low power and mediocre mileage (save the annecdotes, bring stats) and you have an engine that should have been gone 15 years ago.
BTW, the stats I have seen on Camry sludge suggest a total of hundreds out of millions of engines…yawn.
Jaje,
I never said the OHV v6s from GM lasted “forever”. But they last quite a while. You can easily get 100k miles out of it if you properly maintain and make sure it is in good working order (including fixing the various issues that crop up before they go terminal).
100k miles isn’t really that impressive. As someone who has owned a number of non-GM vehicles, being able to get to 100k miles seems like like one of the “must be this tall to enter” kind of milestones.
My first decent car was a 1991 Honda Accord with 180k miles on it. It was a very nice car in 1997! It was in great mechanical condition until I wrecked it at 199,800 miles — I was 18, what can I say.
My Ford Ranger has 178k miles, and my wife’s Prius has 106k miles. Neither one has had head-gasket issues, though the Ranger has required the replacement of bolt-on accessories, shocks, ball-joints, and so forth. I hesitated pass judgment on the Prius until rolled over 100k miles without any drivetrain issues issues — but now I can say it’s a good car. :-)
Sorry to move the goalposts on you, but most cars have been getting better since 1991, so I’d say that 250k miles is probably the new 100k miles.
Thanks everyone for their comments on my unloved, “unsafe” minivan. The vehicle has actually been relatively reliable, with only the wiper problem and an air conditioning problem. (If you overlook the 2 radios I got under warrantee.) I had hoped to keep it another 3 years.
The funny thing is that last week I bought a new Saturn Astra to replace my old Saturn SL for safety reasons! (The new car has more airbags, abs, stability control. etc.) The old ’99 Saturn has been 100% reliable – I think it even has the original muffler. I have the old Saturn up for sale – perhaps I should keep it and sell the venture? We really only need a van for family vacations – other than that a small car would work just as well.
100k is expected for engines nowadays – thanks to improvements in engines. The 3.4liter ohv v6 that was GM’s mainstay wasn’t the best engine ever made but it wasn’t completely unreliable when you cared for it properly (like all engines). For those trying to exaggerate my original claim by inserting words such as “LEGENDARY GM OHV V6” and falsely claiming that I said it lasted forever are completely wrong (stop embellishing my original statement). Ironically we have the actual owner of the van in question noting that his absolute garbage ohv v6 engine has been “relatively reliable” (quite contradictory to the comments made here).
The Venture in all honestly is one of the worst minivans sold at the time. HOWEVER, if you buy one used – it is usually 1/4 the price than a comparable van from a competitor (the market is the best value of quality – not some JD report, etc.). And if you can get 100k out of its engine (even though that proverbial goal posts moved on to higher mileage)…that’s not a bad deal. Would I ever buy one over an Venture? – HELL NO – I’d rather buy a better minivan in the first place and bypass all niggling issues a Venture will have and get a much better engine from a power/efficiency point of view.
As for keeping a small economy car over a Van – you have to keep into account that part of a vehicles safety is also its mass – the heavier a vehicle is the safer it is with a smaller vehicle (but it does give a false sense of security – the soccer mom SUV craze).
The wipers park upright in the winter and down in the summer.
New Englanders have been wishing for that option for years so as to keep the blades from jammimg when it snows.
“GM: They sweat the details…”
(How many remember that advertising campaign?)
The Asian manufacturers espouse Kaizen, the Japanese philosophy that focuses on continuous improvement.
The domestic automakers seem to do it the other way around. If something doesn’t work, they ignore it. If it does work they cheapen it until it doesn’t work any more.
GM has been putting windshield wipers in cars for a very long time. You would think they would have the hang of it by now.
jaje- hey sorry to upset you buddy.
Actually the “legendary” comment is simply a reaction to the way many of the bowtie believer act about it.
I can see how you would think it applied to you as a misquote. My sincere apologies.
That enigne family is just, admittedly, a pet peeve. I consider it to be, not awful (see Vega alum block), but possibly the most overrated engine in history. Some GM diehards have built a stunning level of undeserved mythology around a lame, outdated lump. IMO.
Take care.
Best regards.
Back on the wipers-I guess a “two-finger salute” is an improvement over the number of digits many of their customers have received.
Thanks Bunter.
I’m definitely no fan of GM’s OHV v6 – they had a powerband of a tractor, had the fuel mileage of one too, would basically make a true car enthusiast take that car and engine for a along drive on a short pier. They were completely uncompetitive compared to the competition – but they were cheap/cheap to produce – GM could market we have V6 over your competitions little 4 bangers (even though those 4 bangers would embarass that V6 – but didn’t matter b/c most people are kinda stupid and figure v6 > 4 cylinder and there’d be no exceptions), and they were somewhat reliable and would last over 100k miles (almost running on pure spite of its owners wishes for it to blow up so they can get rid of the car with that engine).
@ menno: I noticed this phenomenon too, a long time ago. Damndest thing.
As for the original issue at hand: I seem to recall a Cartalk call dealing with this, and they suggested not worrying about it as long as the wipers still work when you want/need them to. I advocate as much.