2003 Envoy Electrical question/comment

[SportsPhotog]

I am new to the board (second quick post) and I read some posts on sporadic electrical issues with Envoys which I have been and continue to deal with one. I have an issue that will affect starting randomly and more frequent as the part gets closer to failure, the part is a switch, I believe an ignition switch and it is part number 2.188. Once it gets so bad the vehicle will not or barely start and if it does it will not even idle, this is when I get it to the Dealer. To make a long story short I am on my 4th one over 5 years and decided to get the extended warranty due to the continued issues.

It is very frustrating because the Envoy will not start or run right sporadically and then when I get it to the shop it runs perfectly so I have to deal with it until it gets so bad that it will duplicate the issue at the dealer. Each time they change out this switch and tell me all is well. I told them last time if it happens again they are looking deeper as there is something causing this switch to fail if I am on my 4th one over 5 years. Now that I am on the extended warranty they will only pay to replace the switch and not any investigation as to what is causing the problem.

Envoy is hard starting now but not bad enough to take it into the dealer. I wanted to see if anyone else has had issues with this switch.

[maxwedge]

You need to explain exactly what hard starting constitutes.

[SportsPhotog]

Sorry about that. When the issue is present the vehicle will act like it does not want to start in that it will have to crank extra long to fire or sometimes when it starts and I let go of the key it will continue to crank for a second or two after I have released the key. As time goes on the issue gets worse and the above noted problems continue to get more frequent and be present longer.

As the problem gets worse when it finally does start it will idle extra rough, barely enough to keep running. I relate it to a banana in the tail pipe. If you push on the throttle the RPM's will not come up and it will just cough and flub and eventually die. As I said this has happened multiple times and when it gets this bad I shut it off and call for a tow. The odd thing is that each time I wait about 15 minutes and it will start, idle and run perfectly so I cancel the tow and drive it into the dealer, once I get there and shut it off. They go to restart it and it normally goes into the failure mode and will not start and/or idle which ends up being diagnosed as the switch, they replace it, tell me all is well and send me on my way.

[maxwedge]

Ok you are on your way with the new switch, does this fix it or does the condition reoccur shortly? Seems about yearly?, The old switch should be de-constructed to see what is happening internally, high voltage/load caused pitting or burning, or what appears to be a poor design, I can tell you this is not an across the board issue here, so something is differnet about you truck.

[SportsPhotog]

After I get the switch put in all is well for about 9 months and then it kicks in with the random hard starting and as time goes on the hard starting gets more frequent until it gets so bad that I can get the issues to duplicate at the dealer. I would love for them to take apart the switch and see where it failed but as I said I am onto the extended warranty and less is best for them. Although I would assume it is not the switch as I have been through 3 of them so I assume there is something in the electrical that is causing the switch to fail after a period of time.

I read some older threads and some of the issues noted sound very similar to what I am going through just explained a bit differently. I responded to them to see if the original poster can provide me an update as to what happened with them.

It is a pain in the butt and something I have been dealing with but can live with it and wanted to see if anyone else ran into the same thing.

[maxwedge]

I would be looking at the inside of the switch as I said ,next time get the old one and see what is what, might want to replace the starter relay in the under hood relay panel, check starter connections and grounds also.