3800 Park Ave Intake Plenum Repair Kit

[Crummey]

Does anyone have experience using an "Upper Plenum and Lower Intake Repair Kit" sold by Ken-Co Industries. Ken-Co sells a kit that includes a Relacement EGR port tube, upper plenum reinforcing sleeve, and some fast cure epoxy. The cost is $50 and the kit will allow you to forgo the process of replacing the upper & lower manifolds. The GM dealer wants $900 to fix with new parts. The dealer won't sell the Repair Kit I told the dealer to jump in the lake when I found out about the kit. Needless to say, the dealer wasn't to happy with me questioning why they wanted to sell me $900 worth of parts when a $50 kit is available. Just looking for some input.Thanks

Link to the Kit info:

http://www.ken-co.com/manifold/

[Jed Rule]

I bought the kit for insurance but haven't put it in yet. I only have 24K on my 95. The kit looks simple but it should solve the problem. I replaced just the plastic upper on my son's Bonneville at 112K and it has lasted 3 years (60K) so far.

[Flatrater]

There is a reason GM will not and never will sell a patch kit for this problem. Its because people love to sue companies. GM has to worry more about getting sued than about fixing it. The head people can't go to the bathroom without clearing it with legal. Don't blame GM or the dealer blame the sue happy people.

[Crummey]

Flatrater- I agree..

The interesting thing is, a GM dealer in central KS, had the repair kit available for purchase, the parts mgr. said he would mail it to me. I declined since I found it locally. My point is I think the dealer should atleast tell customers its an option, even if they don't want to touch it for fear of a lawsuit.

[aarcuda]

shoot, i bought a new GM manifold off Ebay for $150. I could have saved a hundred bucks with this kit.

I guess I can get it when it goes out on me in another 100,000 miles

[Jed Rule]

GM should be sued! Don't any of those over-paid engineers know that plastic melts when it gets too hot? They should admit their mistakes and fix it right so the consumer will start trusting them again.

[Shrocat]

Originally Posted by Jed Rule

GM should be sued! Don't any of those over-paid engineers know that plastic melts when it gets too hot? They should admit their mistakes and fix it right so the consumer will start trusting them again.

Perhaps, from GM's point of view, they did everything right. Afterall, the engines run for a long time, then need a fairly easy, but fairly pricey, repair.
But, overall the engine is quite good.
All that aside, the engineers may have thought that the plastic would last longer than it does, and they are always under pressure to save money.

[Jed Rule]

If they were saving the consumer money I could understand it. If they priced the manifold at $100, I could understand that. I love my PA and bought it with full knowledge of possible problems but the average owner is gonna be pissed and think FOREIGN next time. I know. I listened to pissed off GM owners for 27 years. They vote with their checkbook. GM has lost sight of the consumer and only sees the $$$$.

[Shrocat]

From the time Henry Ford built his first assembly line, until the oil crunch of 1974 Detroit was able to get away with stuff like this. American auto makers had no foreign competition until the 60's, and that was pretty minor until the late 70's when the Japanese started to import real cars. They were hit hard in the 80's but apparently never really learned the lessons that they needed to learn to get out of the hole they had put themselves in.
Post WWII Detroit based their marketing on people replacing their cars every 4 years. And they had no need of worrying greatly about cars lasting longer than that. On the other hand, cars today are lasting longer, for the most part, than cars of 30 years ago.
To have a car last 150 to 200 K miles was pretty good in those days. Now, they routinely go over 200K miles.

[aarcuda]

Why can Dorman make an aftermarket upper intake and sell it for $100 but the SAME EXACT THING from GM cost $300+ dollars. thats what pisses me off.

oh ya, Dorman sells an upper intake for these cars if you dont want to pay GM's outrageous price.

http://www.northernautoparts.com/Pro...ctModelId=9088

[Shrocat]

This is true through out all of industry. Years ago I was working as an electrician/electronics technician in a cement plant. We had some O2 sensors and associated electronics that would occaisionally go out. We had spares, of course, but when they went out I would try to repair them. I could replace every part except for one, which naturally was the part to go out most often. It had a special proprietory marking on it, and the manufacturer would not sell it to us. We could only send it in to them for repair. So we did at several hundred dollars each time. And the one part I couldn't repair cost something like 50 bucks. One time the screwed up and put in the part without their special label on it. Turned out that the part was really a 50 cent op amp. Did I say I could repair the equiptment? They never saw the equiptment again. And our repair costs dropped immensely. The only thing we ever ordered from them was a very rarely needed oxygen detection piece.
Every owners manual in everycar made tells you to use only their brand of replacement parts. But you and I both know that the majority of parts can be purchased aftermarket for a lot less, and oftentimes are better quality. Its the nature of business.
Some people will never go to anybody but a dealer to have work done on their cars, no matter how poor the service, how costly it is, and how old the car is. And that is why the dealers and car companies can get away with charging several times what the part is worth.
And if you think that the problem is only limited to Detroit, tell me why Canadian pharmacies can buy the same drugs we get, then ship them back to the US and still charge a lot less than you or I will pay in our local drug store.

[b1y2]

the plastic upper intake , failed on my 1997 park ave. it cost me $963.00 dollars to get it repaired dealer put new upper and lower intake, on mine, then i found out from a thread and a lawyer in ala. there was a recall on them so i got a form from the dealer and buick refunded $900.00 to me, they would not pay for my new spark plugs, but i was pretty happy about it. i think about all the 3800 models had a recall, 2004's have metal upper and lower

[b1y2]

to sharocat, don't mean to disputew your word about cars lasting longer, now but, real cars from japan, please do not tell my brother that, he bought a datson, truck and a datson auto, almost broke him up keeping them repaired , he now drives fords, and dodge, at that time you could buy a good used car for the price of a starter , or an altinator for a datson, or toyota, yeah my son owned two mazada rx 7s, he trashed them with about 45.000 miles. but he drove hard, and i rode in a chevy van for about 7 years 200 miles a day,5 days a week same engine, minor problems of course but was still the same engine, when i retired it was still going

[Shrocat]

I said, and you repeated, that cars are lasting longer now. This is 2004. The Datsun name was dropped over 20 years ago. That was then, this is now. And cars are lasting longer now than they did then. So you proved my point.
And even back then, cars lasted longer than your brothers. It sounds like your brother was very hard on cars, and you said your son was very hard on the Mazdas. I assume that you take care of your cars, since you put over 200,000 miles on a van.

[sjspicka]

Where can I buy the Plenum Repair Kit (Ken-Co) for the 3800 GM motor? The manufacturer doesn't do retail.