Question to chevy venture owners? Are they really that bad?

I wanted to ask how you gm mini van owners how have you liked/not liked
your vans. I have a 01 honda odyssey in shop right now on its 3rd tranny
at 53k miles. Before this I had a toyota sienna that was a POS! I have
not had good luck with the so called highly rated over priced japanese
vehicles. I wonder how much honda and toyota pay CR to rate there cars
so high every year. According to CR the chevy (or any American car) is
not that good. I have a friend that owned 3 ventures that went well over
125k with no major problems, my pastor has one with over a 100k and
likes it so good that is fixing to get another one. I have only met a
very few folks who were not happy with theirs. Just wanted to get
differntent views. What really ticks me off is when I bought the honda I
could have got a ext. venture for the same price at 0% interest for 5
years that made 99 dollars diffenence in my payment per month. But no I
thought the honda was the best ! Yeah right!


Danny

<SED-93@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:21944-408F1941-38@storefull-3132.bay.webtv.net...
> I wanted to ask how you gm mini van owners how have you liked/not liked
> your vans. I have a 01 honda odyssey in shop right now on its 3rd tranny
>


Danny,
We have 2004 Venture and Love it, absolutely no problems, runs great, has
all the toys we need, gets decent gas mileage.

Dale

<SED-93@webtv.net> wrote

> I wanted to ask how you gm mini van owners how have you liked/not liked
> your vans. I have a 01 honda odyssey in shop right now on its 3rd tranny
> at 53k miles. Before this I had a toyota sienna that was a POS! I have
> not had good luck with the so called highly rated over priced japanese
> vehicles. I wonder how much honda and toyota pay CR to rate there cars
> so high every year. According to CR the chevy (or any American car) is
> not that good. I have a friend that owned 3 ventures that went well over
> 125k with no major problems, my pastor has one with over a 100k and
> likes it so good that is fixing to get another one. I have only met a
> very few folks who were not happy with theirs. Just wanted to get
> differntent views. What really ticks me off is when I bought the honda I
> could have got a ext. venture for the same price at 0% interest for 5
> years that made 99 dollars diffenence in my payment per month. But no I
> thought the honda was the best ! Yeah right!

You will hear a lot of horror stories about intake manifold gaskets on
the 3.4 in the Venture vans. And they are correct, but with a bit of
planning and preventative maintenance and repairs...that's about the
only big ticket item that seems to go on these vans. We do lot's of
the intake gasket repairs, and some head gasket failures, but other
then that, they seem to be fairly reliable. Both of the above issues
could be dealt with easily. Either by watching for the signs and
fixing it before it develops into something major, or by buying a
good extended warranty to cover the problems when they do
fail.

Ian

"Dale Peterson" <dale_peterson@charter.net> wrote in message
news:108ua7d3r6vab24@corp.supernews.com...
>
> <SED-93@webtv.net> wrote in message
> news:21944-408F1941-38@storefull-3132.bay.webtv.net...
> > I wanted to ask how you gm mini van owners how have you liked/not liked
> > your vans. I have a 01 honda odyssey in shop right now on its 3rd tranny
> >


The only significant problem we had your our '02 Olds Silhouette
(essentially a high-trim version of the Venture) is that the intake manifold
gasket developed a leak and needed to be replaced.

It seems like just about every Honda Ody. out there is going to need one or
more replacement transmissions due to design flaws. Our friends '01 Honda
Ody. is in the shop for it's first transmission at 48,000 miles. They care
for the vehicle very well and there is no reason it should have had an early
tranny failure other than a design problem.

Honda just recalled 600,000! newer model Odysseys and Pilots for
transmission "repairs".

John

Be wary of "Piston Slap".. Mine has it bad and I'm going through the motions
of making GM do something about it. Check out www.pistonslap.com for more
info. Other than that, nice vehicle.

Steve

"Me" <me@udont.com> wrote in message
news:HmXjc.34187$kc2.489002@nnrp1.uunet.ca...
> Be wary of "Piston Slap"..

Me,
Try thinking about it this way, greater clearance at the piston skirt
creates less drag and less fuel consumption, more available
power...................

Dale P............
Former GM Service Rep...
>