1998 Chevrolet Venture from North America - Comments

Leaky Headlights replaced after 2 and 3 years, Rear van door handle broke in year 2. Radiator fan not working year 8 or 9, now eats coolant. Replaced the battery year 8+ and the drive belt at the same time. One of the "new" headlights is leaking water into it again. Van was always parked outside in Massachusetts and started to rust in year 8+. Very difficult to replace the air filter. The oil change companies never changed it till year 8 when I changed it myself. It was clogged and was reducing my mileage per gallon.

Van has been good to me, 160,000+ miles in 10 years mostly highway, 25 miles a gallon. The bad headlights cost me $500 to replace in year 2 and 3 just for the parts from the dealer, I did the labor myself. Never had a battery last 8+ years before this one. If your battery lasts 8 years replace the drive belt at the same time because you have to remove the battery to replace the belt and it is hard to replace the battery because you need to remove the brace bar over it, etc. ALWAYS check that your radiator fan is working. If it stops working and the engine overheads for even a short time the head gasket goes and it eats coolant constantly. This happened to a friend with the same van at 180,000 miles and it was not worth fixing. It happen to me to a lesser extent and it eat 4 gallons of coolant a year and it is increasing. A stop light or traffic jam will kill the engine if the fan is not working. Put your heater on before you overheat if you are in this situation. Pull over and stop before temp reachs red zone.

You are right on about the overheating causing some major problems. Too many people keep going after the engine overheats and ruin it. My best friend's sports car was 4,000 miles out of warranty when a radiator overflow tank hose got a pin-hole leak. Replacing the hose would have cost less than $1. The coolant leaked out and he ran the engine until it seized. The repair bill (for an entire new engine) exceeded $7,000.

If you paid $500.00 for the headlamps in your Venture then you were bilked. I crushed the left side headlamp on my 1998 Venture and was going to buy a new one from the local Chevy dealer and the retail price was $96.00. I found one in a junk yard for $30.00. Yes it leaked, as they all do. I found that the rubber O-Ring where the bulb plugs in at the back of the housing to be the culprit and replaced both of them with IEM parts ($4.24). Within a year I had two goldfish bowls again so with the help of some everyday bathtub silicon caulk I fixed the problem.