Hey Everyone;

Canadian Owner of '06 2LT with 86k km. Standard love/hate relationship with this car, hopefully can get some of the 'bugs' ironed out.. which is what led me to your site.

Cheers

 

Welcome!

How about sharing the problems and we can try and help you? :)

 

to the forum Lithoid!

Yes, please let us know what's acting up on your HHR, between the several thousand of us here, we can point you in the right direction.

 

Well, I thought I'd browse the site looking for answers to my issues rather than posting questions for things that have probably been posted several times.... however, searching the site turned into browsing cool mod ideas.

::curses all you inventive people::

Two major issues that I've been having with the HHR and I think I've found info on one of the two.

1) HHR Brakes..... are they made of paper?? I've had my HHR for 20,000 km (bought it used at 60,000). Brakes and rotors were replaced when I first bought the car (so at 60k) and I have done them twice since then, and am back to having squeeling/pulsing brakes when I apply my brakes again. So, basicly 4 complete brake/rotor changes within 20,000 km? (12427miles) for all you friendly Americans. Love the car, but this seems WAY excessive.

Now my chevy dealer tells me that there are "good, better, and best" brake pads and that I should buy the 'best' ones instead. Question: If the "good" and "better" equipment is so bad, why put it on standard in the first place.

Anyway, this last 'brake issue' seems to have shed some possible light on the situation. I had taken my car into have the winter wheels remove and my summer ones put on (I'd do it myself but illness prevents me). The car went in with no issues, came out with the horrible squeeling / pulsing issue. From what I read here on your site, this may be due to the dealership using an impact wrench instead of a torque wrench???

Anyway, I've '*****ed' enough that I have a meeting with the owner of the dealership... I'll let you know how that goes.

2) The second issue, and one that I am more troubled with is a huge hesitate/power loss when accelerating from a stop.

Example: Waiting to make a left hand turn, gap in traffic, press accelerator, car moves forward and then it is almost like the traction control comes on and cuts my power leaving me inching my way through the 'gap' hoping the on coming traffic doesn't t-bone me.

This doesn't happen all the time, and has occured when the car is both hot and cold, and when the weather conditions are either dry or wet. Dealership has no clue because they 'can not reproduce the incident'.

2006 HHR LT 2.4 Automatic

 

Hmm.

Well, the HHR brakes are notorious for being annoying to all.. Quirk. Some people don't have a problem others do.

Your loss of power problem sounds like a throttle body wiring harness that may be loose, or not properly attached.. Is it throwing any codes? If you have a "Motor" in your information center, it means there is a code stored. I don't know if there are AutoZone's or places similar up there, but see if you can find one that will allow you to use their code reader and pull those codes if there are any..

 

Again thank you. Unfortunately they (the dealership) tells me there are no codes. No "check engine" light, or any other warning lights (did get the infamous reduced power issue... but thats another story and not related.)

I've got my 'meeting' with the Dealership owner and service manager this week so hopefully things will get sorted out.

 

OK first the brake question.

Have you ever had the rear brakes adjusted? The rear drum brakes on HHR's have these little gadgets called "Self Adjusters" that in theory keep the rear drums adjusted up so they do their fair share of the stopping. While its only in the neighborhood of 30% of the total braking effort, when the rear brakes get out of adjustment almost all of the stopping power is provided by the fronts. When that happens the front brakes overheat and wear prematurely. The standard adopted by many of us here is to adjust the rear brakes every oil change or 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers). And as you pointed out, over torquing with an impact gun can also have a deleterious effect. See this thread....

https://www.chevyhhr.net/forums/brakes-%7C-suspension-%7C-shocks-%7C-struts-24/proper-rear-drum-brake-adjustment-procedure-36754/

The hesitation you feel my be from a throttle body that needs cleaned, when they get "gummed up" performance can suffer. Have you ever had the codes pulled by your local auto parts store to see if there is something that your dealer may have overlooked?

There are programming updates for the HHR that the dealer can "flash" onto the vehicle's ECM, our '06 felt distinctly "brain dead" until it had some updates flashed onto it.

But honestly, I think your first project should be firing your dealer since they seem to be a bit clueless overall.

 

To be honest, I usually have never gone to a dealership to get my work done, in the past I've always had the advantage of having a friend mechanic be able to look over my car etc.

Unfortunately I bought the HHR shortly after moving to a new city so, being that I didn't know anyone locally who I trusted, and being that the car's issues occured while still covered by GM's Used car coverage I chose to take it back to the GM dealer.

I'll be honest, I was very happy to find chevyhhr.net and look forward to being 'better informed' about things when going in to get any work done, anywhere. I wish I was more mechanically inclined and knowledgeable but I guess being blessed with stunning looks, loads of money and... oh wait.. no.. I don't have any of that either.... damn!!

 

"I wish I was more mechanically inclined and knowledgeable but I guess being blessed with stunning looks, loads of money and... oh wait.. no.. I don't have any of that either.... damn!!"

Thanks for making my day Lithoid!!