1999 Pontiac Montana from North America - Comments

Low coolant sensor needed replacing.

One front left front turn signal bulb replaced.

One rear right brake light bulb replaced, had to clean socket to work.

Radio lights are out.

Loud Rear Wiper Motor.

A bit of front windshield noise on highway.

This van handles like car, with luxury and an astounding amount of power. Excellent traction control and with FWD it ploughs through anything. I enjoy the airbags and high safety ratings too.

The engine ticks at start up (I hear is due to piston slap although it sounds like tappets/rockers and GM says this is normal having nothing to do with longetivity, but my mechanic begs to differ telling me to put even more Lucas in the crankcase which I'll stop doing) and it runs quite very smooth and quiet when warmed up so I do believe GM.

Very luxurious and barely moves on the road with ultra comfort.

The sound system and CD is to be heard to be believed, excellent, no distortion.

I changed the plugs (heck of as job needing a hoist, long arms, and air power wrench) and antifreeze as the previous owner already did the intake gasket. I hear all require replacing this intake gasket at some point, a real flaw and drawback as it is expensive and can damage engine if left unattended to.

All it all, I love it, ultra reliable, quick, comfortable, I even like the way it looks.

Re Radio Lights Fix

I should have added, here is the fix no dealer will do short of swapping out the radio for 350 to 500 bucks from what I hear.. Maybe you can cut a deal with dealers and make money fixing other people's blown LEDs, as common a problem as the intake gasket blowing, these 2 items I find are the most common. I also understand the newer gaskets are of a different material to prevent this from happening again.

Anyways this is what some one else did to alleviate an expensive radio repair:

I just repaired the display in the CD/Radio. As suggested in another forum here - It is light bulbs soldered onto the circuit board. The whole thing start to finish took an hour (including a drive to buy light bulbs) and has ended a year of frustration over not knowing what's on the radio or what track the CD is playing.

In a nutshell:

I've got a 2000 Montana.

Open the ashtray - (drink tray on later models)

Remove the two 7mm bolts on either side of the ashtray slider

Pull the console faceplate out at the bottom. The top hooks to the dash with tabs.

Remove the three 7mm bolts that hold the radio in. Unplug the wire harness and the antenna wire. (Ignore the Theft lock) - I suspect that's just a flashing light!!!

Remove the bottom plate of the radio with a flat screwdriver. (No screws -just snap on tabs around the edges.

Remove the plastic faceplate - snap on tabs around perimeter.

Unplug the two wire ribbons that connect the faceplate inside the unit. (Remember which is which as they look like the same plugs...)

Remove the circuit board from the inside of the faceplate. (5 tiny bolts)

Don't let all the control buttons fall on the floor like I did...

The control display is a metal box attached with metal tabs through the board and bent over on the backside. Flatten out the tabs and remove this display. You'll see three ligh bulbs that resemble LED's. Go to Radio Shack or somewhere that sells electronics, and match them up the best you can with something 12volt.

Re and Re the bulbs with a pencil soldering iron, and put the whole thing back together the way it came apart.

I bought clear bulbs and wasn't sure about colour. The display came up red to match the rest of the dash - Just like new!

One of the more annoying things crossed off the Montana to do list.

Thanks to everyone here for the advice I've received and I hope this helps someone else out.

For such an annoying problem, this was a really easy fix.

You have very little things to complain about.