Discussion Forum - Northstar Chevelle Club

The replacement Malibu I bought for my son has turned into a PITA. He called the weekend before I was leaving to ask what would make the heat not work. After getting background info, I told him I thought it was the thermostat. He didn't have the tools to replace it, so took it to a couple shops in Duluth for estimates. The DEALER kept it overnight and called the next day and said it had coolant leaks and a bad water pump and it would cost $920 to repair. I had just replaced the very gaskets they claimed leaked 3 weeks previous. Now I'm not infallible, but I tested that repair and he drove the car for 3 weeks and all was good, before the heat loss. This was during the period of minus 27 degree temps up there. After a few more crazy estimates, he bundled up and drove it down here while we were gone and took my HHR back.

The thermostat on this car is in the lower rad hose... which I had never seen before. During the valve cover gasket chaos of a month ago, which involved needing to remove a coolant crossover manifold, I was down to that hose and the neck that the stat is in. I didn't know that at the time, or may have thrown a new stat in while it was so easily accessible. As it was, it took 2 HOURS to remove enough "stuff" to get back down to it and change it... And yes, the heat works great now.

Then it was on to replacing the exhaust resonator. I had bought 2 different replacements and neither were an exact fit, but the second one had the right contours, but the wrong mounting flange, so I proceeded to butcher it to fit. I cut the original flange off the old resonator and welded it to the new one. I then cut the fit new pipe to fit the rest of original system. Got that done.

This car has had the electronic ps fail on him twice and I found out this is a very common problem with '04-09 GM products, not just the Malibu. GM had a recall to replace the torque sensor on all these models EXCEPT the '07 year Malibu ???  I called GM directly and they refused to replace it under recall.

So, I bought the $200 sensor coil and proceeded to install it per much research from on-line info. Too many of these infomercials simplify the procedure and I thought I was careful, but the part failed and the steering wheel spun all the way to the right immediately upon start up and stayed there. After many calls to the dealer and their techs about this, it was determined I somehow installed it wrong and it was now junk and I would need to buy another one and try again. I then made an appointment with Merit, where I bought the part, to have them replace it so it would be done and any further part failures would be their problem.

The car was undrivable as it was, without unplugging the electric motor and manhandling the steering to get the car to them. Being who I am, I was curious and more than a little pizzed about this whole thing, so I called Chris and asked if he had run into this. He said he had heard of this happening and that the techs always got a new sensor and started over. He did email me a 24 page bulletin from GM on how to do this procedure. After reading thru that. I had an idea what was wrong and took the sensor out again. There are 2 rings to this and they need to be in sync, or the wheel does what happened to me. I found the lower ring lug was off-set about 1/8" and was the cause for the failure. I manage to get it back aligned with the upper ring and installed the metal lock pin, that was in this from the box. I never removed the clip until the sensor was seated in the housing, but the shaft this slides onto has a slot for the lugs and the lower slot is narrower for the lower ring. The lower lug must have, somehow, not gone into that slot straight and off-set itself to cause the problem. The positioning of that shaft in relation to the housing for this to slip in the correct position is extremely critical and needs to be exact. None of the vids I watched made that reference, The just said make sure the UPPER mark is aligned and slide it on. After getting the engagement lugs lined up with each other again, I was super careful to make certain it went in correctly, re-assembled the column and it WORKED... Apparently, no one has done this before, they just believe the bulletin, to scrap it and get a new one. That would be the safe road for them, because of liability issues with a "damaged" sensor.

I'll be driving it to my Doc appointment this morning, as a test. Hopefully, it doesn't fail while driving and the steering wheel spins wildly to one side...