2002 Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS at 250K - Why Do I Still Have This Car?

Well, it finally happened. The Dale crossed the magical if not mysterious 250,000 miles mark this week. My feelings are an odd mix of a sense of accomplishment and, "why the hell do I still have this car"? 

I've owned this car since September 2010, and I don't think I thought about how long I would have it or what my plans for the future for it were at the time. Does anyone have truly long-range plans for any vehicle they purchase? I believe some do but many don't stick to whatever loosely drawn up plan they may have for it. At least leasing has succinct bookends but that's a whole other animal for a different blog. 

I felt somewhat guilty for ditching the 2002 Ford Taurus SEL we had at the time when I first got this car so to some degree, I know I'm still flogging myself for buyer's remorse, I need to lighten up as some murderers don't get twelve-year prison sentences. Good thing I really like this car. 

Buyer's remorse, or fear of it, can be crippling. My wife has it too to some extent but not nearly as bad as I do. While that fear has done wonders for our bank account and nest egg, it does come at the expense of perhaps not enjoying life to its fullest. We look both ways and stress about all major purchases not just automobiles. That said, though, I sincerely believe that the literal road to a happy, fulfilling life will not be found through a vehicle purchase. Or lease. To that point, I know we're not missing out on much. 

Would I like a new car? Sure. Who doesn't like a "new car" although, honestly, there's not a lot "out there" that really strikes me as "gotta-have-it" these days. I love the current Ford Mustang, but a 2018 GT with 14,000 miles on it is for sale near our home here in Cleveland, Ohio with an asking price of $37,500. That's insane. I'm not paying forty-grand for a car. Especially a used one. And a brand one? Give me a break. 

We do have some decisions to make regarding The Dale. We have a diagnosis that the upper and lower intake manifold gaskets need to be swapped again and the front wheel bearings are shot. Again. I've yet to replace the soggy rear struts too. The bearings are easy to replace but the intake gaskets scare me and that could be a pricy repair. Still, the cost of the repair will be a drop in the bucket compared to paying for another car. 

Looks like I'm stuck with this thing for the foreseeable future. 

2002 Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS at 240K (Take Two) - How Did it Make it This Far?

The other morning, I got to thinking about how I've been able to put almost two-hundred forty-thousand miles on my 2002 Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS. Obviously, I have to be doing something right. Right? 

There's the cliche about "changing the oil regularly" which of course I do. And I do myself. I don't do it to save money - that's all but a wash these days. I do it to make sure it's done correctly and thoroughly. Seriously, you think those five-minute oil change places are really letting all the old oil drain out before they put the new stuff in? You sure they changed the filter too? I've always felt they spend more time up-selling you on stuff than actually doing anything. Speaking of which, are you sure they actually did any of the work they claim to have done? 

There's bunk too about changing your oil every three-thousand miles too. I think that's excessive and expensive. Unless you're an Uber driver or whatever and most of your traipses are local or are "city-driving". Most of my driving is interstate and I rarely if ever change my oil with anything less than six-thousand and most often seven-thousand miles between changes. Hey, just saying. Remember, I'm the guy with (almost) 240K on his twenty-year old car and it runs as smooth as the day I first got it back in 2010. 

I've stayed on top of things that needed repairing as well. And the one or two times that major repairs needed to be done that I opted not to do myself, looking at you upper and lower intake manifold gaskets, my wife and I weighed the pros and cons of footing the bill for the repair or fixing a one-thousand-dollar problem with a twenty-five-thousand-dollar or more solution. 

I also, despite its age and mileage, still love this car. And, no, it's not because it's a "Dale Earnhardt" either. I could care less about NASCAR and have very little knowledge of the man my car is decorated after; may he rest in peace. I love my car, in lieu of all that. I do, honestly, still get a kick out of all the attention it continues to get. 

All that said, and this has not been a Japanese built bastion of automobile reliability, the single most important thing about vehicle longevity is...(dramatic pause), the way you drive it.  

Again, most of the miles on my car have been highway miles and not the grinding, stop-and-go of city driving. At seventy, seventy-five miles per hour, my engine, GM's wonderful 3800 Series II V-6 (not supercharged), is loafing along around twenty-one or twenty-two hundred rpm's. Shoot, darn thing is hardly breaking a sweat. Stress kills but it's not going to kill "The Dale". Rust might, but stress? No way. 

Around town I never jack-rabbit away from stops either; I've never "floored it" (the gas) as well. What's the point of that anyway? Sure, "The Dale" may look fast but trust me, while the power is adequate, it's far from generous. 

Furthermore, I never slam the doors or trunk lid although I can't say my family does the same. A gentle, fatherly admonishment follows anytime one of them slams a door, the trunk lid or even the hood. What did my car ever do to them anyway that would make them slam it as hard as they sometimes do? Slam a door on my hand but don't slam a door, hood or trunk on my car. 

Luck also plays a role in this too. Knocking on injection molded plastic, I've never had an accident that took the good old boy out of commission permanently. An occasional minor fender bender every now and then but nothing serious. That and catastrophic, random mechanical failure as well for certain I'm not the only person who changes their own oil and drives like a ninety-nine-year-old. Shit, as they say, happens.

Who knows how far "The Dale" will go. I have no intention of getting rid of it in the near future and would even consider an engine rebuild or swap if need be. The check engine light is on and it's due, last I deduced, to a faulty catalytic converter I can have swapped that out at a muffler shop in Cleveland for around $250. If it's more than that I can always drive through the ridiculous Ohio loophole that allows us owners of older, high-mileage cars to get a waiver if we've spent $300 or more trying to fix our emissions systems so our cars pass the bi-annual echeck. 

Seems like a pretty good investment to me, don't you? 

2002 Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet Monte Carlo at 240K - Better The Devil You Know

The dashboard on my 2002 Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet Monte Carlo glowed like a Christmas Tree last Wednesday when along with the omni-present CHECK ENGINE LIGHT, the "ABS" and "SERVICE TRACTION NOW" dingers came on. Merry Christmas to you too, Dale.

To make matters worse, my gas gauge was stuck on full despite more than two-hundred fifty-miles driven since last I filled up. It's since "fixed" itself but we know these things only get worse. Along with my soggy rear struts, creeping rust issues and staring down the barrel of two-hundred and forty-thousand miles on the digital ticker, it got me thinking about how long I can keep this twenty-year old good old boy rolling. 

Like someone who won't change their fashion sense or hairstyle, I did a quick search on Facebook Marketplace for, you guessed it, Chevrolet Monte Carlo's. I found several in varying degrees of distress within 500 miles of my home on Cleveland, Ohio's west side but this one outside Dayton was the most compelling. General Motors hasn't built my vintage of Monte Carlo since 2005 and none since 2007 so ones in decent shape or are fixable at least are getting harder and harder to find. Us beggars or those looking for a solid bargain can't be too choosy. 

It was far from perfect but with just  under  one-hundred and twenty-eight thousand miles on it I could do worse. Especially for $3,100. The seller said the only major issue it had was that it needed an oil pan gasket. No big deal given that I'd done the one of my car myself at the start of The Pandemic thus side-stepping an absurd repair tab; it was at least $800. It's not a complicated job but because the passenger side engine mount is in the way of getting the pan out, it's a fairly labor-intensive one. Messy too. 

 

I don't mind so much that it wasn't a "Dale" but I chaffed somewhat at no sunroof, no heated seats, the lack of a cassette deck and no power passenger seat. I could swap everything over from my car, save for the sunroof of course. Still, it was an SS with the F41 suspension and 3800 Series II V-6; despite the oil pan issues, I believe it to be one of the best engines GM has ever built. Right up there the lordly Chevrolet small-block.

The very responsive owner of the car and I messaged back and forth several times late last week and we left it that I'd be in contact with them after Christmas. If it wasn't so far away I probably would have made the trip but a four-hour if not four and half hour drive to kick the tires of a car I was luke warm about from the start didn't seem to me to be the best way to spend my time. 

My wife also had a pearls of wisdom. Yes, my "Dale" has a significant amount of mileage on it but I've put all but fourteen-thousand of the near two-hundred forty-thousand miles on it over the last eleven going on twelve years. Who knows how the one-hundred twenty-eight thousand miles or so were put on this car. On older cars, seriously, it's not so much how many miles are on them, it's more like, "how were the miles put on?"

"Better the devil you know", she said. And I couldn't agree more. I'll swap the wheel bearings if and when the ABS system becomes a recurring issue on the Dale. Same with the gas gauge relay. Rear struts too. 

Better the devil or Intimidator you know. 

 

New Struts for the 2002 Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet Monte Carlo - The Struggle Is Real

Every time I finish a job like swapping out the front struts on my 2002 Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS, I begrudgingly thank my late mother for her steadfast determination to block my aspirations to pursue a career in automotive repair. I also feel sorry for people who wake up every day and go to work where their employ consists of grueling and fairly dangerous tasks. I at least have the benefit of knowing this project is probably a one-off; for folks who do this kind of work for a living, or any job that is physically taxing, it's onto the next job. More power to all of you. Seriously. 

It all started easy enough. I found 1AAuto's video on strut replacement on 2000-2007 Monte Carlo's and it seemed like a very straight forward, dare I say simple job. Five bolts, some lifting, hammering and yanking. How hard could this be? Well, the very well-produced video here glosses over one very important fact - getting the new strut in is a major pain in the ass. Speaking of which, with all my grunting and squatting I think I may have a hemorrhoid. The struggle is real. 

In hindsight, it's not that anything "went wrong", per se with this project. It's that these suckers get heavy, they're unyielding and lining up the bolts connecting the lower part of the strut to the steering knuckle is way, way more challenging than the guy in the video makes it out to be. Then again, nothing ever goes wrong in DIY Youtube videos, you know? 

I did the passenger side strut earlier this week and that was bad enough. The driver's side, for reasons I will probably never determine, was ten times harder. I mean, if I didn't know better, I'd swear my "new" strut was not the correct size. The damn steering knuckle would not move down low enough and the strut itself could not go any higher. What was worse, the knuckle kept jumping up like it was on a spring. Well, it was and that was the anti-sway bar which is huge on my car with its F41 suspension and all. The car worked on in the video is a 2000-era Monte Carlo "LS" not an "SS" like mine. Less thick sway bar thus less spring action and easier to move the knuckle down and keep it there. 

I had thought about disconnecting the sway-bar links to help lower the knuckle, something the guy in the video didn't do but the bolts were rusted and to undo them would have taken at least another hour. So I fought and fought with the strut and the knuckle and eventually got the bolts in just far enough to whack them the rest of the way in with my trusty five-pounder. Phew. Remarkably, the threads on the bolts weren't damaged. 

Much like discussing a serious car accident you almost had but thankfully didn't, in the end my "new strut" story on "The Dale" is an anti-climactic one. Once my anxiety dialed down over possibly not being able to finish this project I found my car to ride like it hasn't in years. Shocks, struts and springs deteriorate slowly; you don't realize how bad things had gotten until new ones are in. Who's up for a roundtrip to D.C.? 

Now, onto the rears which looks to be somewhat easier to do than the fronts. Bring it on and long live "The Dale". 

2006 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS - The Last Monte Carlo

This 2006 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS popped up in a Facebook ad on me the other day and bit I on it. Despite it's age, a cloth interior and no power adjuster on the passenger side front seat, with a fairly minimal 62,000 miles on the clock and an asking price of $9,994 I did the mental gymnastics necessary to to convince myself that it would be worth my time to make an appointment to take it for a spin. These days, finding anything I like for ten-grand is a gift from the used-car gods. 

This car is part of the last run of Monte Carlo's that began in 2000 and wrapped up in 2007. When GM pulled the plug on them they didn't just end a production run on a venerable GM nameplate - they sealed shut a once stolid market segment that began, arguably, with the 1958 four-passenger Ford Thunderbird, that GM jump-started with the 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix and 1970 Monte Carlo and one that, good, bad or indifferent, defined 1970's domestic auto-mobilia. The worst was when GM stopped making the Monte Carlo it made nary a headline; the only folks crying afoul where ones, like me, who love personal luxury cars. 

For 2006, Chevrolet updated the 2000 model redesigning the dashboard fascia, ruining the idiosyncratic look of the original design in my humble opinion, and replaced the polarizing\oddly shaped sheet metal forward of the B-pillar's with the far more conventional if somewhat staid front end from the Impala. They had to massage the doors since the character lines on the previous model blended in with the fenders. Everything aft of the B-pillar remained the same. All that front end work doing away with a lot of the distinctiveness of the 2000-2005 Monte Carlo making "The Last Monte's" two-door Impala's akin to 1995-1999 Monte Carlo's that where four-door Lumina's. There's nothing wrong with that seeing that I've always thought the front end styling of my car, a 2002 Dale Earnhardt Monte Carlo, more than a tad cluttered in the designer's attempts to ape the lines of the swoopy, 1973-1977 Monte Carlo. Those cars you either adore or abhor. As pleasant and almost innocuous as the reskin was, us coupe lovers do like a little more zing in our meatloaf rather than our cars being just two-door sedans. 

The biggest difference GM made for these cars for 2006 was under the hood - especially on these SS models. This thing here stuffed with a transverse-mounted version of the GM LS3, 5.3-liter V-8 engine that I have in my Tahoe. Dubbed "LS4", to make it fit, GM cast a unique shorter block and crank for it and moved the starter mounting from the engine block to the transmission. Things are tight enough in my car's engine bay I can't imagine how difficult it is to work on this thing. GM put these into these cars through 2007, the Impala SS, Pontiac Grand Prix GXP and Buick LaCrosse "Super" from 2005-2009. 

If this car does anything right it's that it's fast. Really fast. Or feels really fast. And sounds great going fast too. Thanks to a mountain of torque at the slightest tap of the gas the big V-8 doesn't just move this car it catapults it in a way my son's 2017 Camaro with it's trick 3.6-liter V-6 and eight-speed automatic  doesn't. For the record this car has one-hundred and three more horsepower and a whopping one-hundred eight more foot-pounds of torque than the well-worn 3.8-liter V-6 does in my "Dale" so the difference in power, at least at first, that I felt to my backside may have been exaggerated since my car feels woe-fully under-gunned in comparison. For certain, learning not to launch the car like a fighter jet from stop-lights would be part of the fun of owning this. 

Through it all though, my take-a-ways with this car the other night were eerily similar to what I experienced years ago when I test drove one when these first came out - it's just ok. If that. Yes, it's fast but there has to be more to a "sporty" car than just being fast and\or good looking. It has to be rewarding to drive and the 2006-2007 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS is disappointing in ways that my car, as rusted and decrepit as it may be, makes me happy. My car continues to cajole and comfort me with  just enough edge to make it fun-to-drive. It's crudely satisfying in ways that this car attempts to be refined in; this overpowered SS anesthetizes rather than excites. Despite new struts and other front suspension hardware the dealership put into this car that they said would preclude any negotiation of the asking price, it's numb and loose - not a good combination for a car with "SS" badges all over it. This car may be fast as hell but who cares since it's not fun to drive. Yes, my car is a really old shoe but it's my old shoe and I love it for how it rides and handles more so than for the fact it's a sporty coupe. That, friends, is saying a lot. 

It's interesting how different this car is behind-the-wheel compared to Pontiac Grand Prix GXP's I've driven and loved that it shares so much DNA with. Whereas the GXP is an all-out blast to drive and feels like it encourages you to do things you normally wouldn't do, the Monte is soft and disconnected from the road. It wallows and swallows up bumps and rutted Ohio roads like a '70's Buick - who wants that? The Grand Prix is aggressive and responds like a go-cart - fun! It comes up short in the "gotta-have-it" department because it's a sedan; after all, I have my principles. From what I understand the Grand Prix GXP is fitted with Bilstein shocks the lower it and it has off-set, larger front tires than the rears but there's got to be more to it than that. And if there isn't, I'd be hard pressed to spend ten-grand on this car and immediately drop another two-thousand if not more updating the suspension and tires. The wife would kill me. 

Gas mileage would be a bit of a concern too. Even with a Grand Prix GXP.  I have a two-hundred mile a day commute (when I'm  actually in the office) so I really need something even more efficient than my Dale that gets a consistent twenty-five miles per gallon. Our Tahoe gets as little as twelve to thirteen miles per gallon around town and maybe cracks nineteen on long trips. The info center on this car said "21.1 AVG MPG" but you know those things are always calculated generously. Gas mileage propped up perhaps because the engine in these cars have "Displacement on Demand" that shuts off four-cylinders under light use to help save gas. I hate the feature because all cars I've driven with it stumble when the cylinders shut-off and on; my son's Camaro stumbles like crazy going between three and six cylinders and it's awful. This car didn't stumble so that tells me someone shut the damn "DOD" off. That makes driving it smoother although I'm sure gas mileage suffers. How much? I'll never know. 

In the end, I passed on this not because of the malaise-like seat of the pants handling but because of northeast Ohio's gift to cars and trucks - rust. Although squeaky clean compared to my Dale, I needed this car to be absolutely, 110% clean to really take it seriously and these tell-all rust bubbles reveal everything I need to know. That it appears someone had the gall to touch them up is telling to me too. Stay. Away. Just as well. 

I knew I made the right decision as I drove home in my rusting away old Dale Earnhardt. I feel many a road imperfection in the wheel and the the pot and chuck holes jar my kidneys just enough to keep me engaged with what's going on and make everything fun. The big-ole 3.8-liter V-6 may not sound as delicious as a V-8 but it pulls with all it's heart and I use every pony and foot-pound it has every chance I get. The big V-8 is excessive. Fun but it's too much; who needs that much power especially with as little tactile control of a car with so soft a suspension as it has. Besides, as they say, it's more fun to drive a slow-car fast. 

2002 Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS - Crazy Ohio Emissions Loophole

This week I finally renewed the registration on what is referred to affectionately if not colloquially in some circles as "The Dale"; that being my 2002 Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS. It had expired way back in March but with The Pandemic the BMW (Bureau of Motor Vehicles) and all emissions centers where closed in Ohio so anyone who had to renew registrations or needed an e-check got an extension through December 1st. Nice. Although, it felt like a stay of execution since this good old boy had some emissions issues to jump over if he was to get renewed.  

Here in the greater Cleveland area, which encompasses seven geographically gigantic although somewhat sparsely populated counties, vehicles under twenty-six model years old need to pass an "e-check" every two years.  The rest of the state? Apparently they're scot free. The frequency of e-check testing varies greatly from state-to-state based on population density and in many states, like Ohio, it varies from region to region. I think that's bull shit - there should be one very stringent federal standard for emissions and it should be adhered to every year. Sorry, that's the bleeding heart liberal in me. Sometimes, not often, it rears it's ugly head. 

I also think all vehicles produced after 1975 should be required to adhere to the emissions standards they were required to originally pass. That hypocritical of me? Oh, absolutely seeing that I'm the owner of a 1977 Chevrolet Corvette that's sans a catalytic converter and could use a valve and ring job and probably a carburetor rebuild. Hey, if  I'm guilty of being one of those "do as I say, not as I do" kind of  people then, your honor, I'm guilty as charged. 

The recent drama with The Dale stems from its forever on check-engine light and failing e-checks as often as I flunked chemistry tests in high school. It got pretty expensive with me dropping almost $500 to diagnose and swap out the exhaust gas recirculation valve  (EGR) and vent solenoid during my first foray into trying to get the check engine light to stay off. The bad vent solenoid diagnosis coming after I had a pricey "smoke test" done. That's where a vapor, they call it smoke but it's not, is injected into the emissions system and to find a leak. I have a small shop that does work for me that I can't do myself and, obviously, even he gets expensive after awhile. The big commercial shops look at old bombs like my car and they salivate. 

Best is, after you have any work done on your car that involves "resetting" the emissions system, you have to drive your car for awhile for the system to run through a litany of driving situations. Cold starting, idling, running at different speeds and on and on. Takes a while these days to do that too seeing that as far as myself goes, I drive but a fraction of the amount that I used to. Oh, and you take your car to the e-check-o-rama before your car has vetted itself completely and they'll look at you like you've got a dead body in your trunk. "You clear out them codes? What you tryin' to pull here, Mister?"

A couple of weeks ago, convinced I had driven my car through every possible scenario that it's OBD-II heart could muster through I went back to the emissions place to get a test so I could finally renew the registration. Wouldn't you know it? In the parking lot of the darn place it was like there was a honing beacon summoning cars with shaky emissions systems to flick their check engine lights on. Son of a gun. Of course, The Dale failed again. 

It wasn't all bad. The upside was the, "we love to tell people bad news" gang at the emissions joint told me specifically what was wrong - bad catalytic converter. Uh, geez. That sounded expensive and indeed to swap "the cat" would be to the tune of around a grand. I know a muffler shop in Cleveland that'll do it for under $200 but the point is that's even more money to be spent. When would this end?  

I brought The Dale back to my mechanic and told him what was going on. He said, bluntly, "well, you don't want to replace the cat on this car", implying that with almost two-hundred and twenty thousand miles on its nineteen year old clock, The Dale wasn't worth the expense.  Then he added, "...you know, if you've already spent more than $300 on emissions work on your car and it still fails the e-check, the state of Ohio will issue you a waiver allowing you to register your car with a failed test result".  What the what? I know. Crazy, right? And it's totally on the level because I went back to e-check world, showed them receipts for work that was done, The Dale failed another e-check and they gave me waiver not only on the spot but when I went to the BMV the waiver was already in their system. 

Thus, The Dale lives on. At least for another two years if I decide to keep it that long. I've recently tried to unload it for about three grand but got no serious biters so I guess I'm stuck with it which is fine since it still runs great and is as comfy as an old pair of jeans. Although, once more, I feel like a hypocrite driving a car that runs perfectly fine except for the fact that it's a smoke belcher (you'd never know). That fact I'm reminded of with a permanently on check-engine light I need to figure out how to live without feeling guilty about.