Sounds like the dealer is trying for some last minute Christmas Bonus!
Find yourself a garage that's been around forever, with a good reputation.

And we wonder why GM has all these problems. Their service departments are HALF the problem. No honesty there. Service departments are where the dealers make their money, not in sales.

 

Yeah, I liked this dealer because when my steering line blew I heard $2-300 from all sorts of people. Took it to the dealer and they had it done in an hour and it was only about $100.

Anyway it'll be the first weekend of January before I make it back to Laramie to work on it so I'll let y'all know how it turns out

 

LOL $400. If it is just a regular thermostat do it yourself.

 

Yeah, either way I'm doing it myself

 

Let's go with Chibi being right?

 

Garret,

Literally the EXACT samething happend to my car last November. I took it to the dealer, and they cleared all the codes, and did updates to the computer...said it was all fixed. Two days later, samething.

Took it back, and it was the T-stat, thats all it was. All kinds of crap was happening all because of a stuck T-stat. They replaced it under warranty for FREE.

But the T-stats for our V6 are expensive. If you go to the dealer to buy an OEM on, you will pay $50bucks. Autozone wanted $75 and it was special order only. Replacing it is SUPER EASY. two screws, and it pops right out, the gasket is just a rubber seal that is part of the T-stat (no scraping needed). The only somewhat pain is that coolant will go all over when you take out the T-stat, most of the block will drain, so make sure you have a pan under the car. The t-stat is located toward the bottom end of the engine, where the lower radiator hose goes into the engine block. $50 bucks for a genuine AC Delco T-Stat, and your set. I hope this helps a little for future refrence, or anyone else that has this issue. DONT freak out.

 

Thanks, that's exactly what I was wanting to hear (well minus the $50-75 T-Stat). You say they did yours under warranty, is that the 3 year/36k miles, extended warranty, or was it covered under the 10 year/100k powertrain warranty?

 

Mine was covered under my extended warranty, and the dealer waived my deductable on it since it was the second time in for the same problem, so it cost me nothing.

This past summer I ended up replacing the T-stat again because it seemed to be heating up just a tad more than normal. So I bought one at the dealer, and did it my self. The part was $49 and some change...took me about an hour. And thats because i'm very particular and take my time doing things like that. Plus I decided to drain the radiator while I was at it, and do a complete coolant flush. Ever since its been perfect!

 

Hey man, how much coolant did you have to drain when you swapped out the t-stat? I'm going to need to find something to collect the dex-cool in so that I don't cover the snow in poison.

Thanks,
Garrett

 

Well first I drained the radiator, if not coolant will come out of the lower radiator hose when you unbolt it. Draining the radiator is easy, and pretty clean, I just jack the car up, and put a bucket under the radiator drain plug (toward bottom passenger side of the radiator). Chevy engineered it so that the drain plug does not come all the way out, and it drains down a plastic channel, making it not so messy.

After the radiator is drained, then you need to unbolt the lower radiator hose from the thermostat housing, this is where you need something with a wide mouth to catch the coolant (I used an oil pan that is like 18inches wide). When you unbolt the hose, coolant may, or may not come rushing out. It depends on which end the thermostat decided to stick to. Mine stayed pluged into the block, so I was able to hold the pan, and pull of the thermostat, once you pull out the thermostat, coolant will come rushing out of the block.

I wanna say about 3 gallons of coolant came out in total. I could be wrong. But I'm pretty sure I used a whole gallon of coolant, and ended up braking into another new gallon as well to completly refill. Then the other half I used DISTILLED water. Yes, I highly recommend going to the store and buying a few gallons of DISTILLED drinking water, its worth the 3 bucks to keep water deposits out of your radiator.