Stewy

See what the service location says regarding your rear wiper - a little experience coupled with a little bit of an educated guess says that the wiper motor needs to be replaced as it's trying to "park" (i.e. the wiper arm is trying to go into its "rest" position) however due to a failed motor assembly (could be the motor and / or the gears in the assembly), the wiper arm is not able to achieve the "rest" position. Typically, wiper motors will try for a length of time (several seconds) to "park" and if it can't, it will pause for a length of time (maybe several minutes) and then start the process all over again which all results in draining the battery. Also, when the wiper arm is trying to "park", it very well may not be noticeable by observing the arm on the outside of the hatch, just a FYI.

Regarding the $7EA and $7E8 codes, those appear to be hexadecimal codes and admittedly I am not able to convert the codes to the standard "P", "B" or "C" codes (I did some searching on those codes but my interwebbing skills are currently failing me). Not sure if anyone else can chime in with more information regarding the codes.

Hi Wyne! Welcome 😀. Your LeMans is beautiful 😍

Friday I went grocery shopping (🤯) and when I drove by the Shell I usually go to (I'm south of Flint, MI) I saw prices were $1.99 for regular (price for regular in my area has been, for quite a while, over $2.20-$2.30/gallon). After I got back home and unloaded from shopping, I took the truck out and filled her up. Was only at a half a tank but at that price...

I was talking w/ my wife's dad (who is in the Midland, MI area) and he said regular, for them, was currently going for right around $1.50/gallon (and I thought $1.99/gallon was a good price).

With the "Shelter In Place" order Michigan has, my wife and I have been pocketing a lot of extra $$ lately as our fuel line item in our monthly budget has hardly been touched.

On one hand, the "shelter" orders that have gone out throughout the country are good (from a financial view) in that people are saving more (can't go out anywhere to spend) but on the other hand it's bad because economies are stalling. This makes me very curious to see how much the (both local & national) economy surges once these "shelter" orders have been lifted. I am theorizing that many, many people are going to be like, once the orders are rescinded, a sailor who just got out of the service and has been saving their military pay for the past two years... eateries, especially, I think will be absolutely PACKED!

8 hours ago, Frosty said:

I've been reading Mike Rowe's book, The Way I Heard It.

I LOVE his podcasts! I've been a big Rowe fan for quite a while and the way he does those podcasts - well, I'll just say that they don't drop anywhere near frequent enough!

9 hours ago, Frosty said:

Also the wife is in her last week of radiation treatment for breast cancer. Friday is her last treatment. That will be a joyous day, to have that over with.

👍 Happy to hear!

The best suggestion I can give is look into a comparable year Buick Rendezvous rear brake setup (I know that in at least 2005 the Rendezvous' had rear disc brakes) and since the Rendezvous and Aztec are the same vehicle (at least mechanically), that may be the best way to go.

I've been 100% work from home for the past 15 / 16 months so... I'm working from home 😀.

Otherwise, I have been getting things in / around the house ready for spring. "summerizing" snowblowers, waking lawn mowers up for the season, that sort of thing. All the while, I am continuing my switch bank project (for Ren) that I've been working on and off with for the past little over two years now. The project isn't a very big one but life keeps getting in the way. I recently change the circuit layout so I ordered two more momentary buttons and they're going to take a month to ship (because of the whole illness issue currently taking place) - I do realize, though, it's a small price to pay in light of everything - so the project is starting to stall again.

In a couple of weeks I'm expecting to be starting the spring detail process on the vehicles so that will dominate all of my free time for a while.

Somewhat of an odd question, but when the S/C belt comes off around mid+ throttle, how are you accelerating to that point - are you slowly applying throttle (i.e. "babying it" to mid+ throttle) or are you accelerating hard (i.e. "punching it")? The first (of a few) line of thinking I have involves engine torquing.

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My Torrent started up and ran without a problem after sitting overnight so I think the poor grounding connecting was the  culprit.

Great to hear! 😀

If you're still interested in the thermal gun process (it would be best to do this in a garage where all doors of the garage can be closed for a length of time):

1. Open hood (I don't recall if the Torrents have an under-hood light. If so, remove or otherwise disconnect the bulb
2. Open front driver and passenger door
3. Close both rear doors (including lift gate)
4. On both front driver & passenger doors, on the door side, engage the door catch (so the vehicle thinks the front doors are closed). You will need access to the cabin but opening the door(s) will wake the vehicle network up so engaging the striker catch allows you to have the door open while not disturbing the vehicle network
5. With key out of the vehicle, press the lock button on remote such that vehicle chirps. By locking / engaging the security system this does three things: 1) it tells the vehicle that you are away from the vehicle and to go into "sleep" mode earlier than if you simply allowed all modules to timeout on their own, 2) it gives a more robust reading in that the security system is drawing battery power and 3) allows whatever suspect circuits to heat up (a warm fuse is what will show up on the thermal reading tool).
6. Allow ample time for all modules to enter standby / sleep mode (rule of thumb, I give 30 mins) - hence the need for having the vehicle in a garage
7. **OPTIONAL STEP** If a clamp meter is available, connect it around the positive (red), set it to read milliamps and note the reading on the display. If a standard multi-meter is used, between steps 1 & 2 above, disconnect the positive (red) cable from the battery and connect the multi-meter in-line with the positive (red) battery cable. Note that putting the multi-meter in-line with the battery positive cable will require the meter to be in the "on" position during the initial "go-to-sleep" phase  as, depending on the meter, if the meter automatically turns off it may cause a disconnect with the battery-to-vehicle connection
8. **OPTIONAL STEP** With a secondary meter set to "volts", with the appropriate leads, begin back probing the fuses in the under-hood fuse relay center to determine if any fuses are current energized more than a few millivolts.
9. Using your thermal gun, point it at each individual fuse in both the under-hood fuse relay center as well as the cabin fuse relay center (make sure not to press any buttons or open anything while in the cabin - this is why the door striker catches were engages in step 4). If you are using a thermal tool that shows you the "warm" and "cool" colors on the screen, this process is even easier. However, if you're using the thermal gun style where is just gives a number on the screen (i.e. a temperature reading), simple point the tool very close to the fuse, get a reading, and move on to the next fuse. With either thermal tool style, if you notice one fuse or a few fuses which are warm compared to its respective neighbors, this is a good indication you have found an energized circuit. Additionally, you can use a multi-meter at this step to measure the voltage across the "warm" fuse and compare that reading to a "non-warm" neighbor of the fuse(s) in question to get a somewhat-reliable (note "somewhat") baseline.

I think that pretty much sums up the process (it's actually easier than what I may have made it out to sound like above). If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Welcome 😀. Love the body style of your LeMans. She's pretty!

Hi Sabrina,

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One other suggestion is to replace the alternator as a remedy but have not done that yet.

The majority of box-auto stores (Auto Zone, O'Reilly, etc.) are able to perform alternator tests both on, and off, the engine. I would suggest having the alternator checked (regardless of where) before replacing it.

Do you have access to a thermal heat gun (even a cheap-o unit would be fine)? If so, there is a simple process you can go through to help determine which circuit(s) have the parasitic draw (let me know if you do and I'll write out the procedure).

If you have access to a clamp-style amp meter I would put it around the positive cable coming off of the  battery to see just how much of a draw there is (I want to say 50 mA or less is normal but I cannot confirm that right now - but it's definitely below 1 A / 1000 mA). If you do not have access to a clamp style amp meter, a standard multi meter will work however you'll need to disconnect the positive cable from the battery (which is just an annoyance but will test the system just fine).

My last point is, and this is really easier with two multi-meters, is with one meter connected to the battery (so you can see how much of a draw there is), you take the second multi-meter and begin manually testing each fuse in the under-hood relay center as well as in the interior / cabin electrical relay center. You check the fuse (no need to remove the fuse) and, if you see voltage, pull that fuse out and then check the meter connected to the battery to see if the draw has changed. If so, you  found the, or one of, the circuits that is causing the draw.

Hope that helps at least a little.

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That is not the case with the 2020 Cadillac XT6. The XT6 is so late it feels obligatory, like it had to make an appearance because its siblings—the Chevrolet Traverse, Buick Enclave, and GMC Acadia—dragged it there, and is now skulking to the outskirts to nibble the broken crackers left on the cheese tray. 

L. O. L.

Thought I'd share that the calendar arrived today (thank you again 😀) and I knew right where to put it before it arrived (where I had a 2019 calendar last year but didn't replace for 2020 because of not having another calendar to put in it's spot... until now, at least). Sorry for the picture being a bit blurry - phone camera didn't want to cooperate.

Hey, cool - thank you @Ringo64! Totally unexpected but very appreciated none-the-less. 😃 Even though I haven't been around long, it has been an enjoyable time! Looking forward to many miles yet to come.

Does anyone else feel like watching this restoration process is like watching a baby being born? Exciting! 😀 (nice V-Star, btw! Looking forward to winter breaking and starting to ride again myself)

*Tosses hat into ring*

Welcome! Love the car! (I'm partial to the GP's myself 😊)

Seen this on a grand prix forum, thought it would be cool to start one here
Anything you did to you're car. even just washing it.

I'm a bit sad to say, nothing more than saying "hi" as I walked by Ren as she's been hibernating in the barn. However, on my truck, I have have been doing a LOT of work over the past few week ("B.T." - my F250) is in the bay next to Ren and I've been working on running wiring harnesses down the length of the truck to make my life easier when it comes to hooking B.T. up for battery charging, battery warming and block warming. Almost done - yay! 😊

Once I'm doing working on B.T., I have all the material needed to get back to wiring Ren's switch bank... maybe in the next week or two I can turn my attention back to her!

Although, just yesterday, I did take Bleen (my wife's daily) through the car wash... does that count? 😁

Hi John! I love that color! Very nice! 😃

If interested, an email to ZZPerformance (https://zzperformance.com/) may yield something. They started out as a GM 3800 (series 2/3) exclusive shop (quite a while ago) and have since morphed into multiple GM, Ford and even Slingshots aftermarket parts manufacturer. The 3.6 engine is not specifically listed on their website however, again, it may be worth a couple minutes to shoot off an email to them to see if they have anything for the G6 / Malibu platform (https://zzperformance.com/pages/contact-us).

On 7/8/2019 at 10:43 AM, GFrazier2016 said:

Does anyone know of a reliable & trusted source for custom tunes on a 2005 GTO?

We are located in the southeastern US. 

Thanks,

Gerald

For my '05 Grand Prix, I used Will (owner) at Overkill Performance (http://getoverkilled.ca/). It's a Canadian company (I'm in Michigan). It was a few years ago he did my tune but, depending on what you want to have done tune-wise, you can send in your PCM, he'll flash it and send it back (or you can eat the cost of the core, like I did, and keep your current PCM).

That said, even though his website doesn't list, specifically, GTO's (check his website, he does / has done a lot of different GM platforms as well as a lot of non-GM vehicles), I would still drop him a line ([email protected]) to see if he's open to a GTO tune.

For what it's worth, when I installed the tuned PCM he sent me, I literally had only driven the car a quarter mile and I was already smiling at how much the tune woke things up. Event though comparing a given tune / vehicle to another tune / vehicle isn't necessarily apples-to-apples, I say this to say that I have been very pleased with his work and, from other Grand Prix groups that I know of first hand, so have many other customers.

Hope that helps at least a little.

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GM planned to build a new group of premium electric pickups and other vehicles such as SUVs at its Detroit-Hamtramck plant, beginning in late 2021

I remember this being one of the (many) settling points from the GM strike last fall. Didn't realize the platform was going to carry the "Hummer" badge, though. The Hamtramck location is already tooled for the Volt that the location makes sense.

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Jeep-like pickup for off-road enthusiasts, the person familiar with the new program said. 

It will be a low-volume vehicle, the first of many large, all-electric SUVs and pickups GM will roll out over the upcoming years.

GM has been playing catch up to to Chrysler for a while, now. The (current generation) Chevrolet Blazer (also low volume production) is GM's response to the Jeep Cherokee so, and I'm only venturing a somewhat educated guess here, I'm thinking the "GMC Hummer" (as an aside, that just sounds weird) will be GM's response to the Jeep Grand Cherokee... ?

I am, however with reservation, looking forward to what the automakers bring to the table over the next some years in the form of an all-electric pickup platform. I personally cannot ever see owning a part/full electric truck myself but I am certainly curious as to what is on the  horizon in the form of performance, longevity, serviceability, functionality and so on.

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I have 2 Hummers

Zombie Apocalypse conversion on one of them!! 😁

I've never been much of a basketball person (in any form) but I, too, was shocked and saddened by the news. Heartbreaking that his daughter was with him along with those who are left behind.

On 1/21/2020 at 11:52 AM, Frosty said:

You think he STOPPED using it! Dream on !

*slowly backs out from room*

Thank you again, @Last Indian! Appreciate the nicely-done write up; this has certainly helped me in my thought process on how I would like to do something similar. Thanks again!