I thought I'd check back in to make sure this forum is still around. Has been a great resource for years. I have had the worst 3 years of my life. Drove my Cavalier down to Florida and parked it in a garage in mid 2021 and it has been sitting there ever since. I charge the battery every once in a while and go for a drive around the block but the registration in NC expired 3 years ago and I can't renew it without an inspection (not to mention an address) up there. I need to change all the fluids for sure. The brake fluid has never been changed in 23 years - still the stuff the dealer sold to me in there. Have been afraid to mess around with it and not sure I can bleed it alone with no pump. But by far the biggest problem is the same one I had for years before coming down here - it continues to leak power steering fluid really bad from the rack. Have to constantly keep pouring more into the whining squealing pump - and even then it smokes like crazy. I'll have to figure out how to get some of that stuff done but I've got so many other nightmares going on right now. It has been so long since I did any serious work on it I cant even remember what i did. Like - the transmission fluid - I think it was just regular Walmart ATF but I'm not sure. Both times I changed it I just drained it all out and put 1.8L up top. That quieted the rattle for a while each time.
Anyway, happy to see the forum is still here. Not many miles put on the Cavalier these last 3 years so stuck at around 265k. 2001 2.2 5-speed manual coupe, It is really falling apart. Driver's door hinge got destroyed a few years ago and now won't lock from the inside and door sags so bad it barely shuts at all. Visors look like they're from the 1800s and driver's seat has a big hole in the middle so you basically sink to the floor when you sit in it. Good times. It probably won't pass any inspection unless I can do something about that power steering leak. I had to wait until the hottest day in summer last time. Do any of those stop-leak additives do anything for that or will they just destroy the pump?
I still have my wife's 1996 Chevrolet Cavalier Convertible (2.4L) with 168k miles. I came to this site just now to see how hard it would be to replace the power steering rack. The power steering high pressure line sprung a leak a couple months ago when my wife was about 15 miles from home and so the power steering started to grind. Rather than calling me, she asked some guy in the parking lot what to do, and he told her to just drive home. That was stupid because it caused the rack to leak (which I found out after I replaced the leaky high-pressure line). In order to try to slow the rack-leak, my mechanic flushed the power steering fluid with some fancy red power-steering fluid with leak-stop, but that didn't work. I guess I'll have to replace the rack.
I have never replaced the brake fluid on any of my cars. My mechanic said not to bother unless it has absorbed so much water that it's causing a problem or you're racing.
I also had a 1996 Chevrolet Cavalier Convertible (2.4L) with 95k miles but sadly, it got rear-ended and totaled last summer by some guy who wasn't paying attention to the upcoming traffic jam on the highway. I love these cars so I replaced it with a 1998 Chevrolet Cavalier Z-24 (2.4L) with 78k miles.
I don't plan on ever getting rid of my Cavalier convertibles so I'll probably continue to visit this site for as long as it exists.
Good to hear from you, Dean. Good luck!
