1997 GMC Safari SLT from North America - Comments

I purchased a 1993 safari 6 years ago with 188,000 miles on it. It has been a very good van to me, up until the transmission started slipping, and finally burned out overdrive and third, and reverse is questionable at best with 238,000 miles. It runs very good, but has the famous blue cloud of smoke when it starts up, and uses about a quart of oil every 500 miles. I had replaced the fuel pump, water pump, front brakes, idler pulley, tires all the way around, Air conditioning quit, so I wired a switch under the dash that when I wanted Air, I turned this switch on, and it gave power to the pressure sensor, and worked real good. I did also have trouble with the heater selector switch only wanting to work on high. I took that apart, and rebuilt the contacts on the switch, and it worked good after that. Anyway, after burning the transmission, I parked it, and bought a 97 with all the goodies on it, and 92,000 miles. So far I have replaced the heater blower resistor on the fan, recharged the air, and now the trans has lost reverse, 2nd and overdrive. it now has 112,300 miles on it, and I am going to have to tear into the trans to see if it needs a new sun shell cage, as these were high failure on the 4l60e. I'm just not having good luck with transmissions in my two Safaris.

I bought my 97 GM Safari $1500.00 110,000 miles clean runs great

yea it has problems 1st 2nd shift thing I don't know what it is. Only happens when I drive it hard. If I let it cool off it won't do it.

Yea my inside lights work when they want to its kind of like clap on clap off or something. Yes I had the window problem not wanting to go up or down bought the part at the junk yard works fine now.

Yes the driver handle is broken I will fix it when I find a use one for cheap. as for the A/C whats that? Never work since I bought it, but what can ya say for 1500.00. As for the front end brakes and tires I expect that as I'm a paper carrier hauling buns driving lots of miles.

I can get 489 miles on hwy (tank of gas) and 389 in town miles it don't burn oil.

I'm happy with it makes me money runs good!! I would buy another.

I suppose I save because I do all the work on it myself.

Best 1500.00 I have ever spent on a van.

My 1997 Safari has also been more or less a nightmare. So far A/C replaced 3x. Idle arms 2x. Transmission. Motor mounts, steering loose. Fixed once, loose again, fixed twice, loose again. Sigh. Handle on front seat passenger side, broken. Many other plastic pieces broken. Wish I could afford a new car. Gotta go. Tow truck here again.

I have a 2000 Safari AWD and yes the front pads go quick, but remember to follow the owner manual instructions to adjust the rear drums and the front pads will last much longer. Also if you are replacing the idler arms to get the really expensive ones. There are lots of cheap ones around and you will go through them. The ones I bought are guaranteed for life so I'm keeping the receipt! Of course I have the transmission hard shift. I will try turning off the vehicle as soon as it happens next time and them back on again and see if it goes away. I really love putting a whole 4x8 sheet of drywall or plywood inside the van and closing the doors. I love it.

I own a 98 Safari. Bought it used from a dealer with low mileage (50,000km) in late 2001. It was a lease buy-out from family, so I know it was dealer-serviced from new following manufacturer's specs. I've only ever had it serviced by the dealer - and get the annual and semi-annual inspections done to mitigate risks (money in to avoid bigger money later!), and have 138km on it now.

The first two years were great - not a cent into it. Then things started to go:

- front pads have to be replaced every 40,000km (other mini vans can go 80,000km plus...). Glad to hear they have vented brakes - will look into that.

- intake manifold gasket went - luckily I caught it before cooking the engine. If you are losing coolant with no visible leaks, the gasket is the problem. Someone earlier asked about a class action lawsuit - there is one underway for this problem - all the 4.3L vortex have this problem due to the Dexcool coolant corroding the gasket. If you haven't had yours checked, go see the dealer. In Canada, many dealers are automatically changing the gasket if the vehcile is under warranty to avoid higher costs later...

- I just dumped $1400 into the van to get the real main seal, oil pan seal and transmission seal replaced due to leakage. The rear main oil seal is important - as someone noted, you can cook your engine if that goes so keep an eye out.

- had to do the oil coolant lines at 115k - the vehicle was under warranty, but GMAC did not cover it as they didn't consider it part of the "power train". I learned not to waste money on the extend warranties - put the cash away in a GIC and use it to cover all the repairs they won't cover!

- interior fan vaccum lines went twice - the comment about changing the lines is a good idea - the second time, the dealer put a high-temp casing over the lines to protect them and no problems since.

- the front end is poor - Idler arms were replaced at 50,000km - and I was told they need to be done again. Lower ball joints were done too...

Having read the comments, I'm interested to see that those with pre-mid 1990's love their vans, while owners of the newer ones generally don't. They made a variety of design changes in the later years that, in my opinion, weren't good. The Dexcool coolant is a good example - standard two year coolant would not have eaten at the Intake manifold gasket... and generally costs the same as five year coolant when you cost it out. Repair of the older vans is also easier - the rear main seal is a classic example of that. I see lots of older GMC vans on the road - they are tanks - it was when the redesigned that things went wrong.

I often wonder what will be coming next in repairs - our van is still low mileage (16,000km a year) - if we were using it more, I suspect the vehicle would degrade much faster.

Although I got a pretty good deal on the van ($18,000 taxes in and four year warranty), when I look at the repairs I would have been better off to buy a Toyota Sienna for $10k more - and avoided making any major repairs for the first 200,000km.

Thanks for sharing.

I had a 1987 astro van and had NO problems with it. So I decided to purchase a 1997 gmc safari AWD (All Wheel Drive) & I have had no major problems with it either. I had the shifting problem from 1st to 2nd, but I put a transmission cooler on it and have had no other problems until recently. I need some info on charging system on it if anyone knows where to get it I would LOVE to hear from ANYONE... Now of course I have done regular maintenance on it like changing the oil every 2500-3000 miles & made sure all the fluids like the transfer case and differentials were full, Transmission & everything else, but have had no problems until recent with the charging system on the 97 Safari...

Thanks,

Patrick.

I have a 1997 GMC Safari. It was good for the 1st 100,000 miles, but between 100-200 we found out about Dex cool drop out at the cost of a radiator and an intake manifold gasket. Which by the way is not easy to fix, 2 Fuel pumps, a tran, windows are not working regularly. It has a regular hesitation when starting out, engine light comes on and does not give a repair code. To start it I have to tap the key. If I hold it like any other car, it won't start. Trying to fix the window motor started out easy, but when I finally got to it the screws holding it in place just turn and turn. I got behind one of them and held the nut to get the screw out, but as always, the other 3 are not accessible. I will probably have to cut them off and tap in new ones. But, it is all wheel drive and seats eight, so I will keep on complaining and fixing.

I own a 1997 SLT rear wheel drive. It's been great until last Saturday. It died at a stop sign, and would barely turn over as if the battery was low. Repeated tries got it to turn over fast enough to start, and it had spun a bearing. Now it has a horrible rod-knock in the front end of the engine. This one is toast. Anybody got a good engine? I've got a decent body for sale in Northeast Oklahoma. rick@thurstenson.com.

I also own a '97 which was made into a conversion van. I did have to replace the power window motors. I did it myself at $30 each and it wasn't hard once you realize you just have to cut the 4 rivets and rerivet the new one in. First one took about 3 hours, 2nd one about 30 minutes. I also experienced the idler arm going when I was towing a heavy trailer from NJ to Alabama. I'm interested to hear that is not uncommon. Transmission had an issue when the high pressure line broke at about 90,000. I was driving to Alaska and didn't want to risk it so I had the whole trans replaced. Aside from that, just regular maintenance. Since it is a conversion, it remains very comfortable...110,000 and going strong.

I have a 95' GMC Safari SLX. I've done quite of bit of work myself, as far as the usual... Alternator, Water Pump, 3rd ECG valve, control arms, idler arms, fuel pump, window motors, distributer and plug wires. Now it has 240K and it still runs as good as the day I bought it. No problems with the transmission at all. In fact, I hate to admit it, but it still has the original tranny fluid in it. I did just replace the A/C compressor this year... did that myself too. All in all, the van has been good to me. I really can't afford to sell it now. The value is so low, I wouldn't be able to replace it with anything.

I have a 97 GMC safari (150m) that I just bought less than a year ago. I am fed up with this van already. The first six months I had this van everything was pretty much good except for the fact that it basically wore out my tires and I had to get new ones. But now things have turned for the worse. The power steering pump, fuel pump, windows motors on both sides, thermostat, and the water pump have all gone out over the last six months. As soon as I fix one problem another one comes up. I have no problem with fixing on a car that has some miles on it but the problems are steady coming and having it towed every time is a problem(3 times WP,FP,PSP) The money it is costing me to fix it is steadily climbing while my wallet is steadily shrinking. I'm ready to just trade it in and let somebody else mess with it. I see now that I should have done research on it first and I would have seen that everyone else is having the same problems. But I learned my lesson and I will research my next car before I buy it. Also whose brillant idea was it to connect the power steering pump with the brake system. I couldn't turn and I didn't have any brakes because it wanted to go out while I was driving. I at least would like to have one of them if the other goes out. But thank God there was no accident.

Inherited a 1997 GMC Safari from my parents. Same problems that I have read so far. Aircon keeps running out of freon. Already tried to have it fixed twice. Worked for a little bit. Then broke again. Power windows inop. Had issues with lighting. When you put turn signal to right, hazard lights come on. Anyhow, seats eight so I can live with it. The problem I am having right now is the grinding noise somewhere in the rear end. can't really tell where its coming from cause its loud.