1999 Pontiac Montana EXT review from North America

53000 transmission rebuilt (only took 3 visits to get this done...)

Low coolant light and check engine light have caused several visits...

Within 2 months of purchasing the vehicle we were in the dealership 3 times for the same problems. Each time the check engine light would come on, the coolant level light would come on, vehicle was having wide swings in temperature, and the transmission was up shifting very hard. We had purchased an extended used car warranty ($200 deduct.) and each time they attempted to sidestep the problem IE: "we don't see a problem", "we reset the computer and it didn't do it for us". The third time they overhauled the transmission.

Now I have been putting coolant in as needed in the fill bottle and noticed a coolant smell when the vehicle has been running. My wife complained the heat wasn't working so I did a little investigation of my own. This vehicle has 2 air bleed screws for the coolant system installed on the intake so we bled the upper system to relieve the problem which was an "airlock" condition which caused a lack of coolant to the heater core. I noticed this had been done previously, but didn't think it was anything insidious at the time. Now the vehicle has began leaking from the upper intake and a freeze plug and I now note all of the posts on this site and others for this problem with this vehicle. I have also noted many service bulletins to GM dealerships about this problem and am "fit to be tied" that they bled the system to try to cover the problem until the end of the extended warranty. I should not have continued to refill the coolant and ignored the problem as I did, but I was convinced the problem was minor at best and not the epidemic I see it really is with this vehicle. Have a knowledgeable person show you where the airbleed screws are for the coolant system so you can see if your dealer ship tries this "trick" with you. I am appalled that dealerships are actively "limping" cars past warranty periods especially when they are known problems that they are doing this with. This is a known challenge and I cannot believe that this is being dealt with in this manner. This is as bad as the mismatched main bearing challenge that GM had in the mid 90's that they tried to cover up by increasing the amout of time the engine took to cold start to cover the main bearing rattle. I would never ever buy another GM product ever... and my father was an executive there for 37 years (read executive = uncoded in GM speak not just an engineer etc.). My father ate slept and breathed for that company how sad to see how far it has fallen since he left in '86.