Hi Jeff, I have some personal experiences with my '97 Intrepid with a 3.5l engine bought in Apr/04 that may or may not be useful to you. I found that last winter it would usually rattle and/or whine when it got really, really cold (-10 celcius and colder).
The few things I discovered were: a) the whine was due to the power steering pump. I tried Lucas power steering fix which seemed to make it worse not better. I ended up siphoning out as much p/s fluid as I could from the main unit with a turkey baster (around 350ml) and put in Valvoline's synthetic p/s fluid. I then repeated this a week or so later and reduce the whining noise from 20-40 seconds in severe cold down to about 3-4 seconds, much, much better. In my opinion this is the Valvoline synthetic power steering fluid is excellent and would recommened it to anyone. b) regarding the rattly engine I found the Intrepid was much noisier upon start-up last winter when I was using 10W30 oil. I researched this and found a couple of things. Some oil filters, whether cheaply made or perhaps too old can have problems with the by-pass valve and oil could flow out of the engine into the filter. Thus, you could have perhaps 1/2 to 1 litre less oil in the pan upon start-up to flow around the engine until the oil starts to move out of the filter. I would recommend in investing in a high quality oil filter like NAPA gold or the regular Mopar filter and have it installed aroudn October/November to ensure you have a good one ready to go when it gets cold. Most likely is that the engine oil you are using could be the issue. A 10W30 oil is generally thicker than a 5 or 0W30 oil. Also, some oils which are very thin at high temperatures such as a few of the MOBIL 1 products could conceivably "run-off" the engine when its shut off thus leaving less of a protective film when you start it in the morning. Thus, for your pre-winter oil change you might want to choose a 5W30 or even a good 0W30 oil which flow better and more quickly at cold temperatures but paradoxically can be slightly thicker at high temperatures which is a good thing as well as it can leave a better film around the top of your engine after vehicle shut-off. Synthetics also tend to offer superior flow characteristics over regular dino oil. You could research a high quality synthetic oil that has very good cold flow qualities whether that be a high-end oil like Amsoil or Redline or other Mobil 1, Halvoline, Valvoline etc oils. Here are a couple of links to oil articles that were very informative: http://bestsyntheticoil.com/amsoil/technical-data-bulletins/Specs-Ranked-June-17-2003.pdf http://theoildrop.server101.com/cgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=009478;p=4 (scroll down to Jan 30th, 2005 and you can see a great comparative chart. The lower the viscosity# at -20 the better the oil flows) For the record I use the 0W30 XD-3 synthetic oil along with a 1/2 litre of Amsoil 5W30 because the XD-3 cold flow viscosity is a bit high which is Amsoil's strong point here. The XD-3 is a great oil and I like the fact that it is thicker than most oils at high temperatures but unfortunately it is only available in Canada. Lastly, it doesn't hurt to add a bottle of gasline antifreeze to your next fill up to keep the gas lines flowing well. I am definitely no expert when it comes to all this stuff but my Intrepid seems to like the fluids I'm using as it starts up quickly without problems and is far quieter than last winter. This may not change your belt noise issues but by lowering or eliminating all the other noises it could help you isolate and pinpoint the source of those problems. Richard --- Jeff Van Dyke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I've had my 98 ES for about 10 months now and all is > well except there's a few noises that bother me. > When cold something in the engine compartment rattles something fierce. Can't pin it down. It only lasts about 30 > seconds, then is gone until she gets cold again. ...................... __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/46t0lB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Web: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dodge_intrepid> Subscribe: <mailto://[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Unsubscribe: <mailto://[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Moderator: <mailto://[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dodge_intrepid/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
