Question for an auto tech..

[JohnsonM50]

My Daughters car burned yesterday, lit after she parked Thank God. Im now considering a Chevy with the 3.8 V6 engine. I read a testimonial that stated it had plastic intake gaskets that fail & leak antifreeze into the engine. Other testimonials said it was great.. Any info would be helpful Thanks.

[stvracing]

what kind of car and what year?

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

Check your PM's

[JohnsonM50]

what kind of car and what year? Its an '01 Impala. -3.8

[stvracing]

Not a bad car or engine. Everyone will have their own opinion. The local PD uses them. Ive never heard any of my buddies who drive them complain. Decent on gas and fairly quick. As far as intake leaks are concerned I personally havent heard of any.

[Mark75H]

There is a problem with early Dexcool antifreeze and the plastic gaskets. If it is in that early range and has not had the gaskets changed it will need it sooner or later.

I don't know when the additive change was made, but later Dexcool doesn't eat the plastic.

You could google 3.8 and Dexcool problem and learn the years

[JohnsonM50]

Thanks for the replies, Ive read testimonials, one said no good because of the gaskets, the rest gave it a high rate. Ill look into it from here, it is at a price that's half 'book' & dealer so I'm likely to go for it.:)

[PIP]

they are an awesome motor, but, i had a buick lesabre, 1998, i think, with the awesome 3.8, and the only problem with those was the intake. i don't remember the specifics, but it was a problem, and i believe the fix was somewhere around $700 if the intake cracked. also, i think i remember that the time in which it would fail was around 70,000 miles and this happened on something like 1 out of 3 of the 3.8 vehicles.

they are excellent motors, in fact, when they were going to pull the plug on the 3.8, i remember that they got a lot of flack from people and kept making it for another year or two.

[zul8tr]

Here is some info on issues with the plastic intake manifold used on the GM 3.8L V6.
http://bernardsblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/gm-38l-plastic-composite-intake.html

Look for the Here in Orlando there is a local mechanic that has 25+ year shop (The Magic Mechanic) and a 20+ year old radio show and he has seen many issues with these GM
V6 plastic manifolds. When they fail they leak coolant into the engine require replacement og the manifold with an updated version.

Another example of cost cutting and Beta testing at the expense of the cinsumer.

[88workcar]

Plastic intakes are the future weather we like it or not, all brands of cars and they are on outboards too. We don't have to like it but that how it is.

[JohnsonM50]

Plastic intakes are the future weather we like it or not, all brands of cars and they are on outboards too. We don't have to like it but that how it is.
True, that & ceramics, getting it right is fine, under engineering's another story.