hi my name is dave and this is my first time posting here i was a member of a forum for front drive GM cars (monte,GP,etc). I am about to buy my first monte carlo and i have some questions you may or may not (i am hoping for the may ). it is a 2004 monte carlo ls coupe. my dad bought it used in late 04 with only 12k miles on it. my dad comuted to work 24 miles one way 5 days a week and drove all over the county for his job. he put on 100k miles on the car before the warranty ran out. currently the car has 136k miles on it but it is all highway miles and he changes the oil 3-4 times a year and uses full synthetic. my questions on the car are: on the steering wheel mounted cruise buttons the black paint is rubbing off letting the semi clear green plastic that makes the lettering apear. can these buttons be replaced and if so, how do you do it? on my last car a ford thunderbird you could pop off the acess panels behind the buttons on the backside of the wheel and then you unscrewed them and then unplugged them from the rim. my other question is the HVAC panel under the radio. he has the dual zone climate control with the vertical sliders for the hot to cold settings. i heard you have to replace the whole panel when the bulbor bulbs burn out (currently both bulbs behind the temp controls are burnt out, one just burned out a few days ago). I can get a hold of a new one but how do you get the old one out? ditto for the gauge cluster as one of the bulbs that light up the right side of the tach gauge is out too. can you replace the bulbs in the gauge cluster or do you have to replace the whole cluster? i hope you can just replace a bulb as a new cluster would be way to $$$. i am sorry for the long post but i just wanted to get these questions answered. i am looking forward to buying the 'monte' as it is a darn nice car and other than a few burned bulbs in gauges and HVAC everything else works like a charm. and by driving this car you cannot TELL it has 136k on the clock it is in THAT good of shape!



not my car but mine is IDENTICAL to this down to the color and rims

 

Welcome, hopefully some members will step up with answers to your questions, just give it a few hours.

 

welcome! maybe you could carefully paint the steering wheel controls instead? not sure how much steering wheel dissasembly required, but I woundn't attempt that myself because I'd be paranoid about the airbag

 

well the black is so rubbed off you cannot read the letting on the set/resume button on the right spoke the on/off with the green dot that lights up when the cruise is on is only slightly chipped and can be touched up. also being my car is only a LS and only has the speedo/tach/fuel/ temp gauges how hard would it be to swap out the gauge cluster out of a SS car? and would the odometer still read what was on the old cluster? in my moms stratus she had her cluster stop working and we swapped it and all the milage info (along with the trip miles) were still there when i swapped it out.

 

Moderator Mickey has personal experience taking his steering wheel apart on his 03 model, which has the same steering wheel as your 04. He should be able to answer your question.

If you do start taking the steering wheel apart, I'd disconnect the battery and pull the fuses for the airbags first. Don't want to accidentally get an airbag in the face.

I believe the guage cluster gets the mileage info from the computer. I had to have my guage cluster replaced (guage went bad under warranty) and they didn't have to reprogram it as far as I know.

Sorry I can't answer your other questions. Hopefully someone will step up soon.

Welcome to the site!

 

dang, i have to take the steering wheel apart? well i guess i should live with the buttons as they are. i had a feeling about the gauge cluster i found a cluster out of a 00-02 SS with the full gauges i read from another monte site i used to visit that you can swap out the LS for the SS with no problems i hope this is true.

 

u shouldnt have any problems if ur gonna swap the clusters, hook up should all b the same

p.s. i would love to hear mr obvious do anICE lol it would b awesome

 

WELCOME to the MCF! The cluster holds the milage. A dealer needs to do the replacement, or at least the milage update, as there are laws concerning odometer tampering. As for the paint on the buttons, they are painted and then CNC laser engraved for the lettering (paint burnt off). I thought about using rub on lettering for masking the lettering, and then painting, but I don't think that you would find the letters under the paint.