Yesterday I purchased an 05 velocity yellow beauty from a Chevy dealer in a neighboring state. I noticed that upon initial startup I could hear a belt squeak that quicly went away, that led me under the hood where I noticed a new looking serpentine belt and a wobble in the harmonic balancer. When I mentioned the new looking belt the salesman told me that the belt as well as the tensioner had been replaced by their technician to fix a different noise it had in the same area. I proceded to test drive and purchase the vehicle thinking to myself that I should keep my eye on the savarity of the wobble going forward. I then drove just under 200 miles home where I heard the squeal noise return, the severity dependent on rpm. From there it didn't take me very long to read up on the 05 issues with balancer bolts so I walked out to the car and sure enough...I was able to loosen it by hand. My thoughts last night were "oh no please don't tell me the balancer has spun on the crank and damaged the snout", followed by "how/ why did they miss this when replacing the belt, tensioner as well as diagnosing the noise the salesman spoke of?" That leads me to today, the Chevy dealers shop is closed in my city but it will be towed there tomorrow. The dealer i bought from is open today and will hear from me soon. Yes I purchased the car as is but was reassured that their certified tech had inspected the vehicle and that it had no issues. Maybe I have no case for any compensation if there are damages but I have a hard time getting over the fact that their tech was in that area replacing a tensioner and belt that were very possibly not the source and missed the real issue in that hand tight crank bolt. Bummer

 

I would as soon as possible call the selling dealer and advise them that their tech had missed the cause of the squeaking belt and reiterate that they had a certified tech assured you there were no issues with the car.
I always have a fear about this kind of issue and in the past, but most dealers assured me that if the car was not right when driving off the lot, that they would honor a good faith policy for these kinds of circumstances.
Was anything written down on the sales contract pertaining to the squeaking sounds?
Hopefully you can get this resolved, and keep us updated.

 

In some states you have a 3 - 5 day window to cancel a contract. I would investigate this with an attorney tomorrow if not sooner because my 1st thought was that they knew exactly what was wrong with the car and chose to get the car sold and off their lot ASAP.

 

Going to get speedy real quick ,and make sure that the dealer that you bought the car from, will work out the cost with the other dealer to fix the problem.


Short version, car has to go up on the lift, front cradle dropped enough to pull the steering rack, the HB pulled, the front oil seal for the HB pulled and replaced, and if the HB is still good/new and does not need to be replaced, it can go back on with the new diamond washer and new HB stretch bolt (both a one time use only). From there, it all has to go back together, then sent the alignment shop to have the wheels (front) realigned.
Note, the dealer will not install a Powerbond HB PB1117SS as part of the repair 99% of the time (even if you bring them the PB HB to install), they will only install a OEM HB if needed instead. As for a New OEM HB, they last around 50K miles on the average before they go south again.

As for once you have the dealer do this work and the selling dealer to pay for the $1K plus bill for the needed repair, your next job is to pull both adjuster pulleys, the idler puller, then to re-grease them once you get the car home.
Note, the selling dealer may have replaced all three when they worked on the HB, but GM does not grease the bearings very well to start with, so even brand new, you want to pull the bearings to give them more grease to solve problems down the road isntead.

With these three greased correctly after the fact, they will last 100K or more. If you don't re-grease them from the start, may only get 30k out of them with the spares amount of grease the bearings have new isntead.

 

I just did a HB with a Powerbond replacement two weeks ago. I can do it w/o removing the steering rack. Don't accept any nonsense that a little wobble is acceptable. It's not. Replace it.

 

How do you get the bolt in there without removing the steering rack when the rack is directly in front of the hole?

 

I move it, but not remove it.

 

Steering rack has to moved out of the way. To replace the balancer that means unbolting it/pushing it to passenger side wheel well to get it totally out of the way

To just re-tighten the bolt it's possible to raise the engine/lower the cradle which will get you enough clearance to get to the bolt (but not enough to remove the balancer altogether)

 

I was thinking that you have at least 72 hours to reverse a sale.

 

Thanks for all the input! Talked to the dealer first thing when they opened and with a basic explanation of what had happened they decided to take the bill for whatever it ends up costing. I have to say it was nice to hear that they would take care of us, it's almost like I just get so accustomed to mediocre customer service and expect the worst. It's getting towed to the dealer in the morning and it should be a wrap from there if all goes as planned.

 

Glad to hear that they'll stand behind the car.

 

Good to hear they are taking care of you, and thanks for the update, hopefully things will look brighter for you and the new car...

 

So I realized last night that I hadn't even looked at the coolant over flow tank... rookie mistake, i should have done that at the dealer! Anyhow I had a peek and noticed that it was nearly empty, I topped it off and it only took enough to fill the overflow so the motor and radiator were still full but i hope that isn't a sign of things to come. That said i will have the dealer to a block test to make sure there isn't any hydrocarbons in the coolant.

 

How many miles are on this car and manual or automatic?

 

It is a manual with 100k on the clock.
I had yet another look and wow I defiantly overstated how low it was, I didn't realize that the front had a fill line and that from the cap it wouldn't look full when it is. That said it was lower then it should have been but only by a bit. Fail

 

I've got an update: I was scheduled to pick the car up yesterday, the dealer said the only replacement pulley they had in stock had a defect so they ordered another. This worked out to my advantage because I was able to remind them to use a friction washer as it calls for in the tsb for the early 05 c6 (which my vin falls under). Ive read that its a must when replacing so at this point I think I've covered myself by asking for it and dropping off the the tsb printed off and underlined showing to use the washer. That said if it for any reason comes back without a washer someone forgot to do their job.

 

if by chance they find an original 05 balancer it wont have a dew washer on it as they were not machined from the factory to accept a dew washer.chances are that 12 years later they will never find an original 05 hb.you wont be able to tell if it has a dew washer on it as the dew washer is installed on the back side of the hb that is now inside the engine front cover

 

They gave me a call back this morning and left me a message saying the tsb has been updated many times since the one i supplied and that balancer they ordered comes with the friction washer so I'll be saving that message just incase I have future issues. I guess im just paranoid like that but better to have ammo if for any reason I don't get the parts I requested and it leads to the same issue.