Hey guys,

I have a very strange problem on TWO of my cars, and want to know what the heck is going on. Okay, here it is.

I have an 89' Dodge Shadow coupe with a turbo and an 06' Buick Terraza Versatrak Limited Edition. Both vehicles have identical problems and idle rough. Here's the description of the idle.

When I have the Buick in Drive, it's just fine, but when I put it in neutral or park, it starts to intermittently vibrate, almost like it's misfiring. But it fires just fine with no misses and doesn't even blip on the tachometer (idle speed 660 rpm). But it still idles rough. VERY MADDENING for a van with only 12K on the clock, and not to mention that it was damn expensive. It only does it when it's in neutral or park, and when the headlights are on, it flickers every time the car vibrates. I would like to fix it, but I'm afraid that anything I might do will void the warranty.

Then my Dodge does the same thing, and I've had room to experiment because it's got 167K on the odometer. No warrranty issues there! Anyway, I've replaced the plugs, wires, injectors, oil pressure regulator, vacuum lines, turbo feed lines, all filters, and the serpentine belts. No change. So what could it be? Any help would be appreciated, but it's mainly the Buick I want to get back to running. I could care less about the Shadow.

 

Kinda sounds like a motor mount problem.

 

Motor mounts at 12,468 miles? I can understand the Dodge at 167,500, but the Buick is what's getting me. Well, I guess I can check it out.

 

Or maybe you're not getting enough power to the plugs when it's idling I'd pull the battery and take it to AZ and get them to test it for you. If that checks out try the same with the alt.

 

An '06. Don't you have a warranty on it? I would think you can take it to a dealer and say, "Fix it," and they would (have to) fix it, or at least find the problem. Thats what I would do, at least if my vehicle had a warranty.

 

The dealership gave me the run around "nothing is wrong, have a nice day." I told them what was happening, but they again told me that nothing was wrong.

 

Ugh.. why does that *not* suprize me?
Oh, thats right, its because there wasn't a stored code saying "hey, somethings wrong here buddy," so, *obvisouly*, nothings wrong. (Not something I would like to hear about my ~$30K+ vehicle).
Of course, I can't tell you what it might be (not too much experiance, but I don't make my living off this ), and, obviously, the people paid money to know these things can't/won't do their job. [:'(]

 

No one knows what it is?

The motor mounts are fine on the Dodge, but I haven't looked at the Buick yet. I didn't want to get a smudge on the engine compartment and void the warranty.

 

I would go to another dealership and have them look at your Buick, have them pull the Technical Service Bulletins for it. The fact that is has 12k on it has nothing to do with whether or not the motor mounts or tranny mounts could be bad, a ****ty part can fail no matter how long it has been on the vehicle.

 

I'd also be there and demonstrate to the technician what the car is doing. Don't just let them tell you that nothing is wrong with it. SHOW them what's wrong with it. MAKE them resolve the issues that you have with it. If you take a problem like this in and just leave it there, they'll tell you everytime that there's nothing wrong with it. They're very hesitant to do any warranty work, because they don't get a very good reimbursement from corporate for it. Sad but true [&:]