I purchased my first cavalier in 2011 with roughly 103K miles Its the 2.2L OHV. The only things i have done since was the front brakes twice New Rotors/Pads both times. 2 sets of tires first set only lasted my 58K miles, I recently just bought some Michelin Defender's. The car had some weird wiring issue where my DRL's never worked and my left headlight was dim, well i managed to fix that issue and hard wire them and wrap it nice but my headlight is still dim??? In '12 my idler pulley snapped off from the bolt on the engine and had that replaced as well as a new serpentine belt. Just recently as of last week my starter went out, so I had it replaced and came to realize my old starter was a High Torque starter.... that seemed weird for a Cavy. I also replaced my fuel filter as I am sure it never was replaced, I also put it in new spark plugs (Every year I change em just to be safe) NGK Iridium IX is what I use. I also replaced both ignition coils they seemed to not spark thoroughly. As well as a new set of BWD wires.

As of last week I replaced all these things as my car ran into problems, I first replaced the plugs with some ACDelco's to try OE, and BWD wires and she wouldn't start, i had to flood it and hold the accelerator down and it was clanking and sounded like it ran on 2 or 3 cylinders. I got out and took all 4 plus out and they were all full of carbon....Pitch black...just fried out after 1 start. So I replaced the plus with what I normally go with, which is NGK. And it still didn't run, so I switched the Coils and whalaa she ran. However at any time I was idling it felt like it was going to stall and deliver fuel so it wouldn't. Apparently the cause was a crack in Spark Plug #2. So it got replaced and it was good, till I needed to replace the crankshaft position sensor. Then after all that I decided to then change the Fuel Filter with a Fram filter as it probably needed it as well. So far Since a couple days everything has been running great no issues. Regardless of all that she still was able to get 42MPG on a road trip to and back from Austin last year with about 150K on the motor. Lets see anyone else beat that i now only a couple people who possibly could haha. Mind you this Cavy is a 4 Speed Auto lol.

I just have concerns on what I should possibly do from now?
The Transmission every once in a while will slip only into 2 gear if i change gears too fast from Park to Drive. If it takes longer than 3 seconds to go into gear and I can feel it change a little hard and once I start driving it feels like it pops out of gear and revs up higher like its in Neutral and then kicks into gear again and once it does that it wont do it again till I shut her off.

The coolant has never been flushed, nor the radiator, nor has the transmission been touched with fluid and such, but it never really overheats even though I live Ft. Worth, TX. I'm concerned now if i go ahead and change the coolant and flush it all out it might break something like the hoses. same with the radiator. But the Transmission might be scary as if i do drain it out and replace new fluid it wont be used to it, and now it might die out in a few months as its used to the sludgy fluid, so if a thinner fluid gets in there, it might slip through any spots that had sludge and screw something up worse.

I also change the Oil & Filter every 4500 Miles with Penzoil High Mileage Conventional.

Any advice would be much appreciated, I am new as a member however I have been following this forum for a couple years. Sorry for long post but this is serious matter for me.

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Well when i had my transmission fluid changed at 200,000 i took it to the dealer. They drained the fluid (no flushing as it could cause damage) replaced the filter and installed a new pan with a revised magnet design(old pan wouldn't seal) and 80,000 miles later it's about time to do it again. So my advice would be go ahead and do it worse thing that could happen is it still slips. I cant say much about the coolant as mine has never been flushed and the only time it's been changed is when i had the thermostat replaced.
But i do have a leaky radiator that needs to be replaced so maybe i should have flushed mine. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable than me can give you a better answer.
Good luck!

Change/flush the coolant. Dexcool will get nasty and clogg stuff up if not flushed.

Tranny. I would leave along just make sure it is full.



FU Tuning

Trans is tough-I'd almost throw some maxllife ATF in there and she how she does-seen this work for a few people.....


Coolant-Being in Texas-Dexcool for sure....


http://www.autorentalandsales.com/images/2004Cavalier005.JPG

Mate, who is in Australia, the rsgpfast servers are in Russia and EU. Please tell me other game with "great netcode" wich allow you to play normal with 400 ping?This reminds me of the time when our community had BF servers. So many times there was people from US who Runescape Gold joined there, and the servers was located in Stuttgart. So they play round or two on EU server (they have filters and know...or dont know may be...where they join) and start to moan: This server is laggy! And so on...

Well seeing how it has never been changed i talked to a few mechanics and they all said to leave it alone as new fluid will clean out all the sludge which is what keeps it staying together right now. Just changed Strut torque mount the (dog-bone). And well it clanks now when i put it in to Drive and its coming from the differential. But a rebuild is what seems to be next on the list and i have been quoted for a low of 1200 to a high of 1900, by Multistate Transmission. But who knows it may be something simple and less cost effective and repair wise finger crossed.

If you look at my post from my first owning my 00 Cav in 2013, I would of taken many of the choices you have, plugs, wires coils and even my anti theft(which is turned off atm). I would first at the soonest moment inspect what you can of your wiring harness. Inside drivers side compartment under your dash to the BCM. Than I would check the engine harness to PCM, for damage. A lot, well every big issue I've had for the past two years was resolved due to repairing poor placement of the harness in my 00 Cav.

Fine example of bad harness trunk placement,

Admittedly I was ready to do again everything you did to fix issues with my Cav. I spent so many hours pulling on my hair and thinking about how much fun it would be to just buy a new car. I even inspected my ignition coil, cause at this point humid weather was giving me so much grief in just going an starting my car.

Well my wiring harness was fixed last year when i took it to a shop so my DRL's would work they hard wired the headlights and supposedly wrapped it all up nice. not sure about the trunk lol. My power steering pump is making whiny noises like a bearing, so that's next on the list. And my top mount broke again ahaha, yeah getting it fixed for free now.

Shoot i almost feel like buying a Grand Am GT For 3K and sell this for 1K, the hell with it. J-Body has done me good in almost every race I've been in, past 3 years but now problems are just persistent on happening more often. Motor seems good just everything around it wants to act all crippled all of a sudden