Long story short, my lady friend's 2002 Sunfire's subframe snapped and she needed a new (different) car immediately. I helped her find one, so now I have to help her sort the damn thing out. We got 4 new tires thrown in the deal, and her brothers put front brakes on it about 1000 miles ago. It needs a right front wheel bearing, rear brakes eventually, and the intermediate steering shaft is doing the clunk-clunk dance they're known for and has bound up once. None of this is too concerning or matters. They are known defects and should be easy and relatively cheap to fix.
Problem is, I can't read codes off it. I need to check the grounds (if I can find their locations), but I stuck my electroprobes into pins 4 & 5 grounds, & 8 or 16 whichever the positive power hole is, and it's reading 13.92v steady at idle (which is too high) I didn't rev the motor or anything to see if voltage jumped with engine speed (would this jumping mean it might need a new alternator/voltage regulator?). I still need to trace wires under the hood to make sure nothing looks screwy if you guys don't tell me to throw an alternator on it. I haven't done a lot of electrical troubleshooting, so if there's a process you recommend, please tell me which setting to put the multimeter on. Thanks.
It's in pretty decent shape otherwise, with a new alignment, and only 69,954 miles on it when she got it. It has the 3.5 v6 (the recent evolution of Chevy's 60-degree v6 series of motors, I don't trust the 3.9HO v6 because I've seen a few late-model GM front drivers Lacrosse/Lucerne? with blown trannies with that motor, may just be dumb people didn't service it and it nuked the trans, but I've seen multiple instances of nuked trannies with the 3.9), and 4-speed automatic transmission so it should hopefully run forever. I know it's basically a car for people who don't give a shit about cars or how they drive, but it was probably the best choice available at the time (that met her standards). One thing my dad pointed out at the time, your hip will hit the b-pillar getting in and out if you have the seat all the way back for tall people, guess that's the price for a decent back seat. It's basically the Malibu Maxx style car without the station wagon/hatch or w/e.
Problem is, I can't read codes off it. I need to check the grounds (if I can find their locations), but I stuck my electroprobes into pins 4 & 5 grounds, & 8 or 16 whichever the positive power hole is, and it's reading 13.92v steady at idle (which is too high) I didn't rev the motor or anything to see if voltage jumped with engine speed (would this jumping mean it might need a new alternator/voltage regulator?). I still need to trace wires under the hood to make sure nothing looks screwy if you guys don't tell me to throw an alternator on it. I haven't done a lot of electrical troubleshooting, so if there's a process you recommend, please tell me which setting to put the multimeter on. Thanks.
It's in pretty decent shape otherwise, with a new alignment, and only 69,954 miles on it when she got it. It has the 3.5 v6 (the recent evolution of Chevy's 60-degree v6 series of motors, I don't trust the 3.9HO v6 because I've seen a few late-model GM front drivers Lacrosse/Lucerne? with blown trannies with that motor, may just be dumb people didn't service it and it nuked the trans, but I've seen multiple instances of nuked trannies with the 3.9), and 4-speed automatic transmission so it should hopefully run forever. I know it's basically a car for people who don't give a shit about cars or how they drive, but it was probably the best choice available at the time (that met her standards). One thing my dad pointed out at the time, your hip will hit the b-pillar getting in and out if you have the seat all the way back for tall people, guess that's the price for a decent back seat. It's basically the Malibu Maxx style car without the station wagon/hatch or w/e.
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