My wife & I purchased a 2008 Outlook XE in Sept. The "lemon" ran fine until New Year's Eve when some disturbing problems began. First, the throttle body iced up. This caused a reduction in power which gave us a max. speed of about 20km/h. This happened in -25C weather on the highway, not the kind of weather to be stuck waiting for a tow truck. Luckily, Onstar was able to tell me to shut off the car for about 10 minutes and it would reset itself. This worked, but on 2 more occasions while I was driving in the city it happened again. Again, not the time to be losing engine power in city traffic. Our dealer had to take it apart and get all the moisture from inside. Come on, I live in Alberta where it can get cold for 5 months! What climate is the Outlook designed for? The second time the engine light came on (and second appointment with the dealer), it was due to what they thought might be a problem with the oxygen sensor. I drove the car for 5 days and the light came on again, so the third trip to the dealer ensued. This time they determined that the injectors were clogged and needed flushing. Come on, the vehicle has 7000kms on it! They recommended to only use gas from "Top Tier" stations. Petro Canada and Shell are on their list of recommended stations, and that's the only place we've filled up at since the car was new. I have owned 4 new vehicles now, ranging from a 1995 Plymouth Neon, 1998 Dodge Dakota, and most recently a 2001 Honda Civic. None of these vehicles has caused me the inconvenience of visiting the dealer 3 times in a 3 week period. We bought the Outlook because we are starting a family in a few weeks and I liked the ride, power, interior space, and safety ratings. I assumed the mechanical quality would be fine, but I've since changed that opinion. I feel I can't trust our Outlook and am more than a little uneasy about my wife and newborn using this as the main vehicle. I'm curious to know if anyone else out there experienced any of these problems. Oh, and the GM hood deflectors are junk. I had ours installed at the dealer, they didn't tell me anything about not going through automatic car washes, and the air dryer ripped it off. The 2 screws that hold it under the hood are not enough, it's too flimsy. Again, my 7 year old Honda has went through dozens of automatic washes and the hood deflector has had no problems.
Interested in comments from Canadian Outlook owners
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I have now had the Saturn to the dealer 4 times, the last time being some problem with the fuel again. Our dealer is doing what they can to fix what their code reader is showing is wrong. I do agree that they aren't digging deep enough to source out the problem. I'm willing to leave the vehicle there for a week so they can really do some tests, but they only have 1 courtesy car and it's booked out until next week. We'll see what happens.
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Maybe it has to do with the chance of getting bad fuel? Weathertech makes a air deflector you might try. I have the GM one and it's been fine. :thumb:
Maximus,Maximus said:
SOrry to hear about your bad experience. We live in Toronto and the last two winters were tough, cold and long. We also drove to Florida for March break twice with our Outlook and had a pleasure to go from -15 C to +20 C within 24 hrs. We never experienced any fuel related problems or condensation of any sort.
J33
Hi J33.
That's great you haven't had any problems. We have an update with our Outlook. We left it at the dealer's for a week and a half about a month ago. I had installed a K&N air filter right off the bat when we bought the vehicle. As it turns out, oil from the K&N filter dripped onto the Mass Airflow Sensor, which caused some of the codes to come up. They figured this out after about 7 days of checking different things. Thankfully they took the sensor apart and cleaned it at no charge, which they said isn't normally a warranty issue and is usually chargeable. They put a standard GM air filter back in and ever since then it's been working fine. We are very relieved and pleased, and will cross our fingers that nothing else will come up.
That's great you haven't had any problems. We have an update with our Outlook. We left it at the dealer's for a week and a half about a month ago. I had installed a K&N air filter right off the bat when we bought the vehicle. As it turns out, oil from the K&N filter dripped onto the Mass Airflow Sensor, which caused some of the codes to come up. They figured this out after about 7 days of checking different things. Thankfully they took the sensor apart and cleaned it at no charge, which they said isn't normally a warranty issue and is usually chargeable. They put a standard GM air filter back in and ever since then it's been working fine. We are very relieved and pleased, and will cross our fingers that nothing else will come up.
Wow ! Who would have thought ! Glad to hear it's been fixed.Maximus said:
Just to clarify, I said I had not problems with anything similar to your fuel issues. However, we had a small sunroof leak but it got fixed right away as I luckily literally spotted the leak a night before. I also replaced the left headlamp as it was getting foggy from inside - warranty covered that. That's it, nothing outside of recalls. I have 50300 kms on my 2007 Outlook - use Mobile 1 synthetic oil, sounds and drives like a dream. It ages beautifully and everything still works it worked the day I bought it - it has every available option so there are quite a few things that can go wrong. We truly love the ride, the space, and the utility it offers. It tows our travel trailer great, no sway and I enjoy the "manual" tranny option while towing. So far, I have not seen anything comparable on the market that I would consider as a replacement - GM really came up with a great product but they committed a marketing suicide with the way they handled the entire Lambda platform intro..... Hope you will have now more opportunity to use it and enjoy it
J33
Thanks alot, and we hope to use it to its full potential as well. The interior space was a big reason we bought it with a new baby on the way and our love of camping. I really love the beefy body shape with the 18" tires. I have the towing package as well and have hauled many loads of soil, sand, lumber, and garbage up to around 3500 lbs. with no issues pulling it.
Thanks for your comments and continued good luck with your Outlook.
Maximus
Thanks for your comments and continued good luck with your Outlook.
Maximus
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