Lameonade's 2002 Buick Rendezvous CX

[Lameonade]

It has come to my attention that making one of these threads would be largely beneficial to me and others that wish to discuss my car. So without further ado, here's a picture of my car!

Background

I got this car after totaling my '05 Ford Focus SES ZX4 late 2016. There were 147,000 miles on it at the time of purchase (it has recently tipped over the 300,000 km mark which is 186,412 miles). This car was originally sold in Canada, thus the gauges are in kilometers and it possesses a front license plate mount (in Michigan, a front plate is not required). From rolling off the assembly line in the Ramos Arizpe factory in Mexico, this car has traveled three countries before I even laid eyes on it!

This is the most basic model Rendezvous. Front wheel drive, 16" steel rims, 5 passenger seating, fabric seats, no sunroof or other creature comfort options. Probably the only exception are the roof racks. It has the LA1 V6 engine (3.4L - 185hp).

I'm also a college student working a $10/hr job, so money is tight. My current goal is to keep this as long as possible and fix any major issues. Then later (granted I graduate and find a better paying job) I can purchase a second vehicle and start seriously modifying this one.

Issues

Here is a list of current known issues with my car (This is mostly so I can record and refer back to as needed):

• Front passenger side ABS sensor malfunction
• Knocking in the front driver's side area
• Keeping revs just above idle and then letting go of the throttle will stall the engine
• Parking brake doesn't work
• Throttle position sensor malfunction
• Not turning on headlights before shifting out of Park will turn on parking lamps, lowbeams, and dash/gauge cluster lighting, as well as throw out a code. This is because of my aftermarket headlamps.
• Dashboard lights only partially lit at night
• Strong vibration at speeds greater than 65mph
• Rear window defogger doesn't work
• Air conditioning doesn't work
• CD player will not accept disc media
  
• A lot of OBD Codes

Fixes

Here is a list of fixes that have been applied to my car:

• Replaced all disc brakes
• Replace fuel pump
  
• Replaced power steering system (pump/reservoir, high pressure line, rack)
• Replaced heater core hose
• Replaced fuse to radiator fans
• Replaced timing belt
  
• Re-adhered rearview mirror to windshield
• Replaced control arms and bushings

Modifications

Here are some additions/modifications that I've made to my car since purchase:

• Installed 2 channel dashcam
• Applied GTPlanet decals to side triangles
• Applied front moustache license plate
• Installed new headlamp fixtures
• Installed chrome Buick grill emblem

Plans

Here is a list of potential modifications I would like to make to my car. This list is not final; any item can be omitted/added at any time. There is no deadline for any item (preferably before the car falls apart though).

Items with a "+" are things I definitely will do. Items with "-" will only happen if the other item with the same marking doesn't.

• + Respray (Purple on top, silver on the bottom.)
• + Rims/Tires (KONIG, NICHE, or TSW. I'm thinking 17 or 18 in.)
• Exhaust (Dual exit chrome exhaust instead of the single potato-skin pipe currently installed)
• Suspension (Air suspension would be purty neat. Would be even more neat if I do end up going with a ute conversion as mentioned later)
• Custom exterior lighting (Think 2005 BMW M5 in the front and 2015 Dodge Durango in the back)
• Engine swap (I initially wanted to try an Inline 6, but might end up going with a V6 instead.)
• - Convert roof into window (Not unlike how the Tesla Model 3's roof is configured, the only difference being a single pane of glass instead of a split layout.)
• - Pickup/ute conversion (Kind of like this.)

FAQ

Section reserved



The subsequent posts by me will largely consist of vehicle updates and user discussions.

 

[Katiegan]

Here is a list of current known issues with my car (This is mostly so I can record and refer back to as needed):

• Front passenger side ABS sensor malfunction

Same!

• Throttle position sensor malfunction

Also same!

The joys of used car ownership.

 

[Lameonade]

Same!


Also same!

The joys of used car ownership.

Sensor malfunction buddies!

 

[Lameonade]

So this month I've found out two more problems and one of those reminded me to add a few issues that I've encountered before, but forgot about.

• There is a very noticeable vibration that is more intense as vehicle speeds increase.

I noticed this issue this past Saturday after I detailed my car. There was also a scraping sound for a moment but has since disappeared. The vibration is most noticeable at speeds above 65mph. Expressway driving is terrifying now; it feels like the car is going to fling itself apart with the amount of interior shaking going on. Of all the issues on my list, I think this is top priority. I'm looking to get it checked out Thursday/Friday.

• The rear window wiper will become stuck on if the right conditions are met.

This one I noticed only today and just for the duration of my commute to school. It was particularly rainy today (still is) and I had to use the fastest setting on my windshield wipers, plus the on setting for my rear (it's only on, off, and clean). After having the rear one on for maybe ten minutes, I saw that the interval was very short, almost no interval at all. I thought this was strange, so I tried turning it off only to have it still on, just less frequent. Puzzled, I came to a stop [light] and turned the car off and on again, but the issue persisted. Only after parking in the parking lot at school, going to class (1½ hours), and starting the car up afterwards did it behave normally. It's definitely electrical, so there's no way I'm going to try and remedy it on my own.


The issues that have been brought to my attention are as follows:

• Rear defogger doesn't work

This is something I noticed near when I got the car. It was working at first, but stopped working after about one/two months. It's annoying that I can barely see out the rear window when it's all fogged up or is layered with ice crystals, but I've since learned to deal with it.

• Air conditioning doesn't work

This is something that never worked and I didn't really care that it didn't work. I only remembered it because we had some particularly warm days lately and when the car isn't moving with the windows down, it also gets fairly warm inside. I'm not sure if this is a fuse issue or if the AC needs recharging. I don't notice the compressor kicking in every now and then when the AC is "active" so that makes me think fuse. Although I've looked at the fuse and it looks unbroken, so I don't really know.

• CD player will not accept disc media.

I don't actually care about this because I don't ever listen to music in my car. I much prefer to listen to the engine . I'm only putting it here because it's broken and it'll remind me to get an aftermarket stereo anyway.


At this point it seems like this car is more trouble that it's worth (and that'd be pretty much true), but I want to keep it and make it so much better.

 

[20832]

So this month I've found out two more problems and one of those reminded me to add a few issues that I've encountered before, but forgot about.

• There is a very noticeable vibration that is more intense as vehicle speeds increase.

I noticed this issue this past Saturday after I detailed my car. There was also a scraping sound for a moment but has since disappeared. The vibration is most noticeable at speeds above 65mph. Expressway driving is terrifying now; it feels like the car is going to fling itself apart with the amount of interior shaking going on. Of all the issues on my list, I think this is top priority. I'm looking to get it checked out Thursday/Friday.

Unbalanced wheels perhaps?

 

[Joey D]

You're in Michigan, your wheels probably dented from a pothole which is causing a vibration. I had it happen to more than one car when I lived there.

But ya, try getting them balanced first.

 

[Lameonade]

You're in Michigan, your wheels probably dented from a pothole which is causing a vibration. I had it happen to more than one car when I lived there.

I just did a quick visual evaluation of my rims and they look fine, however that doesn't mean it just isn't a thing I'd be able to see kneeling down. There aren't many potholes in the pavement where I live, although when a local railroad crossing was closed a couple weeks ago, I did have to take an alternate route on a dirt road to get to work/school. I wonder if I hit one there?

Unbalanced wheels perhaps?

But ya, try getting them balanced first.

Now that you both mention it, this is what I think it's most likely to be. It feels like it's coming from the back because I recently had passengers in my car and they told me that they felt it in the seats. That makes me think it's one of the rear wheels that needs rebalancing. Ultimately when I take it in I'll find out what's up, but at least I know what to expect.

Thanks!

 

[SVX]

Vibration sounds a lot like warped discs as well.

 

[Lameonade]

Vibration sounds a lot like warped discs as well.

At first when I heard the bit of scraping on Saturday, I thought it was something going on with my brakes as well. Although when braking the vibration neither increases or decreases (inherently it decreases when my speed drops, but there's no immediate effect when brakes are applied). I got all four disc brakes replaced just last year though. I'd hate for them to wearing out that quickly.

 

[Lameonade]

Update time!

I figured out what that intense vibration was – it was dirt. About a week before I noticed the issue, a few local railroad crossings were closed, so I had to take a dirt route to get to and from school/work. That's about when I took this photo. Little did I know that dirt got caked up in the rear wheels and threw the balance off, resulting in the very noticeable vibration. After figuring what the issue was, I took a screwdriver and scraped all the dirt out from the wheels and viola! No more vibration, yay!

I also got some new tires, check it out:



The old tires were so worn you could barely see the tread. It's strange that they were like that though because I just got brand new tires November 2016. When I took it in to Belle Tire to get a new set of tires + front end alignment, they found out that I had completely worn out bushings and needed new control rods as well; those are the reasons the old tires were worn as fast as they were. Goodbye $1,200! Although that also did fix a different, more subtle vibration that I had known of, as well as eliminating this "clonk" sound when driving in and out of steep driveways. Now it rides X-tra Smooth™ on expressways.

Also, I'm not getting the ABS sensor fault anymore after the trip to Belle Tire, so maybe they did something with that. I doubt it and expect it to come back, but for now it's gone. It's still here. Just less frequent.

I think I'll just strikethrough items on the OP that aren't an issue anymore, so I still have a record of them.

 

[Lameonade]

Happy New Year! (Only a few hours late...)

Nothing major really happened between the last post and now but I did want to have a fresh post for this brand spankin' new year. I don't know if I'm going to do a monthly re-cap sort of thing; it seems that's only be useful if A) this thread had enough traffic, which it doesn't, and B) if my car had enough issues/fixes/modifications to warrant such, which, thankfully, isn't the case as of posting this.

So here's some stuff about my car that I haven't addressed here before:

• Sometimes when moving at very slow speeds (≈1-2mph) there's a slight scrape and then a "pop" that comes from somewhere in the rear. (I know... my stomach turns every time I hear it. Doesn't seem to immediately affect the drivability of the car though )
• The rear center light assembly has a crack on the left portion of the lights. See the below image:

​

This crack (as well as the three little holes beneath it) lets in moisture and dirt and ultimately makes the light appear dull in comparison with the other side (and even other Rendezvous). I want to replace it but a decent assembly is anywhere from $100-150, which is quite frankly money better spent elsewhere.​

• A very minor and inconceivably minute detail; There was a screw cap missing from the front passenger side rim, and after it went to Belle Tire, it's now missing on the rear passenger side rim while the front one has all five now.
• There is a small spiderweb crack in the top corner of the windshield on the driver's side. You can't see it from inside but standing next to the side mirror you can clearly see it.
• My car's birthday is in March (I think)! One of these days two months from now will be its 17th birthday, only four years younger than I. Here's a photo of the door sticker:

​

 

[Joey D]

• The rear center light assembly has a crack on the left portion of the lights. See the below image:

This crack (as well as the three little holes beneath it) lets in moisture and dirt and ultimately makes the light appear dull in comparison with the other side (and even other Rendezvous). I want to replace it but a decent assembly is anywhere from $100-150, which is quite frankly money better spent elsewhere.

I used to go to Fox Auto Parts in Sumpter, which should be relatively close to you. It's a junkyard where you pull your own parts and you can probably find a tail light for like $25 and then polish it.

 

[Lameonade]

I used to go to Fox Auto Parts in Sumpter, which should be relatively close to you. It's a junkyard where you pull your own parts and you can probably find a tail light for like $25 and then polish it.

The one on Rawsonville and Bemis? I've passed by there plenty of times but have always felt too intimidated to go in by myself (even though I know how to take off the assembly on my own. Sometimes I don't like being such an introvert). I've watched a couple videos to get an idea of the atmosphere; I still haven't worked myself up to actually visit. I know I'm going to end up going there eventually, so I might as well do it now. Thankfully I can afford $25 . It's nice to have a recommendation from someone who's actually been there though. 👍

 

[Lameonade]

"Last edited: Jan 3, 2019"

OK.

So it's been a while since I last updated this thread, as you can tell because the image still contains snow. I can't even remember all the stuff I wanted to include here earlier in the year, so for now I'll do the major events.

Not too long after I updated the OP (January 16th, to be exact), I hit a pole. Not a very large pole, but it did cause some damage.

Spoiler: Here's a gif

Basically, it was icy and I was travelling too fast. I ended up damaging my power steering, cracking my bumper, and scuffing up my passenger headlight, but nothing making it undrivable. Here are some close-ups:



I'm actually surprised how well it took the hit, to be honest. It was really loud when I hit the pole. It doesn't even flap around in the wind or anything either. It does, however, cause my passenger tire to scrape up against the inside of the well when it's at its max steering angle. Since having the minor accident, the power steering has been "fixed". And I say "fixed" because the mechanic that I've been going to and that did the fixing just ended up being fairly disappointing. I'm not here to bash him or anything because he's probably a hard working individual, but I had to take it up to him about 3 times for the same issue because he didn't actually fix it the first two, and it's still not quite right after the third. And two of those times while my car was sitting outside waiting for attention, a mouse got into my car and tore up papers and cloth items I had, as well as leaving droppings here and there and... everywhere.

So, I don't go there anymore.

Something else that I'm not planning on fixing soon even though I know I absolutely should is what I think is a lifter tick. It's been very quiet for a while, but it's quite noticeable now and will probably get worse if left alone. I'm not sure if it's affecting my performance yet (if it has then it's indistinguishable from age-related power-loss). I just simply don't have the money to fix it now nor the knowledge or confidence to do it myself.

One other thing that's been going on since then is something (perhaps the dust shield?) on my rear passenger wheel has been scraping occasionally at low speeds. For a period of like a month or two it stopped, which kind of made me more worried. Recently (probably around the start of August), it started scraping again, but my rear brakes started grinding as well. I tried ordering new pads and doing it myself since it seems like something I should very well be able to do on my own, but the bolts holding the calipers on were super rounded and rusty and whatever I tired to get them off probably made them worse. So I had to take it somewhere to get them replaced. They were actually seized, so that's why they wore down so quickly compared to the fronts.

Also found out fairly early that my window washer fluid reservoir leaks either around where the sensor is or where the fluid is drawn from. Sooooo I've been driving with zero washer fluid because I'm lazy and don't feel like keeping the reservoir at the very low level of fluid that I can safely have without wasting fluid.

And I also lost my only key fob while I was out and about, so I ordered and programmed two new fobs. The quirk is that I have to firmly squeeze the center of the casing in order for the remote to send any signal. It's slightly inconvenient; not the end of the world though.

Other than that stuff, it's pretty much been the same since January 3rd. I'll get around to updating the OP picture and all the issues and fixes and stuff, but I'm doing all this before I got to go to class, and because I live somewhere else, my commute is an hour instead of 20 minutes, so... I have to go lol.

I feel like I have a blog now, so that's kind of fun. ok bye I guess.

 

[Lameonade]

Oh dear, it certainly has been a while since I last updated this thread. And quite a lot has happened since then, too. I was putting off coming here and making a post because I didn't exactly know where to start or what to include; plus I don't even remember everything that's happened to it since 2019. But I guess the best thing is to just start.

So sometime in late 2019/early 2020, my battery/alternator was giving me trouble. Turns out they were both bad, and I got them replaced. However, I think Belle Tire installed the wrong alternator, because afterwards the lights would dim if the RPMs were low, which hadn't happened before.

Also, sometime in early 2020, the engine started overheating. I initially didn't know why for a few reasons:

• My heat worked
• Coolant was still making its way around the system (which means the thermostat and pump were still working
• The radiator was undamaged
• The reservoir still had sufficient coolant
• I was able to "cool" the engine down by raising the RPMs, either in drive or in park (which is what I did until that method didn't work anymore)
• There was no different colored exhaust being emitted

After a while, I assumed it was a head gasket for the reasons above AND for the fact that when it would overheat, I would look under the hood and see that the coolant reservoir was full to the top, which meant to me that something is pushing it out of the engine. So I got some stuff that was supposed to seal gasket leaks and poured the recommended amount in and hoped for the best.

It worked... for a day. Then it would overheat again and my heat stopped working. At this point, I didn't really know what the issue was, so I started looking to purchase another vehicle. I didn't want to replace the Rendezvous, because I liked it so much, so I basically parked it at my parents house until I saved up enough money in order to fix it. It is still there and I am still saving up money. I estimated that it would cost maybe $2000–3000, which is a lot to put into a car that's 2 decades old and is steadily deteriorating. That's just how much I like the car.

The car that I got is a 2006 Jeep Grand Cherokee (I'll create a page for that later). I won't talk about it here, but I do have things to say about it, especially in comparison to the Rendezvous.

So, after a few months of leaving the Rendezvous stationary, I tried to start it up. And... it did! It started (albeit after charging the battery) and ran until I manually turned it off. What was funny is that it never once overheated (I should say the car never said that it was overheating). It got really hot, but it stayed below the max temperature line. Before, it would steadily rise in temperature and overheat very quickly. I left it like that until about a week ago.

I again started it up (this time I had the intention of moving it a little bit), and it did, but this time without any power steering. Plus it was leaking a dark-ish fluid from a tube in front of the block/just behind the radiator. It looked like oil, but the location it was coming from didn't make sense to me for it to be oil. Where it was leaking from is where a power steering line passes through, and I didn't have any at the moment, so that's what I'm assuming it is. But I looked in the power steering reservoir and it still had fluid in it. So I don't know what it is, is what I'm trying to say.

Also, whenever I use the key to unlock the door, the alarm goes off (this has happened forever though). But what that means is that when I unlocked it with the key and jump started it, the alarm went off. As it went off, one of the two horns used to create the horn sound failed, and now it sounds like a Ford Focus. I ended up taking out the fuse for the horn so it would at least not make any sound every time I went to unlock it (because the battery reliably dies after a few hours of sitting without the engine on, ergo I can't use the fob which doesn't sound the alarm).

Also a mouse has established residency in the car. I had a bunch of stuff in the Rendezvous that I neglected to clear out before leaving it to sit, and so a mouse decided that environment was the perfect spot to start a family. I have since cleared all the stuff from the Rendezvous, but the mouse remains, as evidenced by new droppings in spots where I've vacuumed.

Oh yeah, and the rearview mirror fell off again.

Coming back to this quote from the OP:

I'm also a college student working a $10/hr job, so money is tight. My current goal is to keep this as long as possible and fix any major issues. Then later (granted I graduate and find a better paying job) I can purchase a second vehicle and start seriously modifying this one.

So, I've graduated college and have found a slightly better paying job. I have the second vehicle, and I am on track to fix the major issues. It sounds like things are actually going to plan. Speaking of plans, I made this little image to demonstrate what I intend the Rendezvous to end up as:

It has deviated slightly from what I have listed in the OP (mainly color, rims, and engine), but the main idea is still there.

Anyway, that's what's happened to the Rendezvous in my absence from the Planet.