I don't really appreciate your suspicious tone. Why, of all places, would I choose to take time out of my day to cook up some story about a freaking HHR and to take it to a HHR specific forum? Not even the craftiest of guys on 4chan could make this into something funny. I understand the whole "well, it's the internet" thing, but come on.

If you read through my posts, you can see the issue has ALWAYS been:

• Noise coming from engine, check oil, and it appears the HHR ran dry
• Added close to 4 qts of oil, noise goes away. No time to take car in because I'm headed out of town.
• While out of town, the car makes a similar noise as before for maybe less than a minute. Stop, check oil, oil is full, maybe over full.
• When I get back home, I drop my car off overnight at a repair shop to have them look at it the next day. I should also note that it was below freezing that night
• Mechanic calls me the next day and says the CEL was on, but he couldn't find an oil leak or damage. There was no CEL before I dropped the HHR off. I'm also suspicious as to why the mechanic didn't check into the CEL at that time.
• The mechanic also thinks I went 9000 miles in between oil changes, which is why I saw that the oil level was so low. I explain that I change the oil myself and the sticker on the window was old. He's still hung up on me going 9k miles in between changes. I have him change the oil just to be safe, in case I did overfill the crankcase.
• When I drive the car home, along with the CEL, the car rough idles at stops, but drives fine otherwise.
• I change out the crank and cam sensors. Auto Zone clears the CEL, but the CEL comes back on the next time I start the HHR. The rough idle is still there. Auto Zone re-checks the error code, and it's still P0016.
• Take the car back to the same repair shop, they look at the car again. Oil pressure is fine at idle and while driven. Sensors are aligned when the car is driven, but not at idle. No noise coming from engine. Everything else checks out.

As for the oil change mileage, I have never, ever, heard a mechanic say it's ok to go that far in between oil changes. In fact, the first place I saw that was on various forums. The most I've heard is 5,000. I should also note I'm still using dino oil, but I plan to change to synthetic once this whole issue is over.

 

The algorythm the DIC uses will make each oil change interval different. Personally, I get around 7500 miles before I'm at 5%. But that's based on my driving. Mechanics, quick lube places don't like this. And there is a reason why they don't like it. They don't get you in as often to make money off you.

You've got some very odd occurances that have happened. I'll be curious to the outcome.

 

You and me both.

Also, for the warranty, if it's a 2007, that's 6 years ago, so the 5 year warranty is moot at this point, right?

 

A) GM recommends that you change the oil when the onboard computer tells you to. They have reasons: to wit the ECO in ecotec means that you can use less oil, and dispose of less used oil. The engines of today are not your grandfather's engines, they are made differently.

B)The warranty starts on the date of first title, you could have a 2007 that was purchased in 2008, you did not say.

 

Well, it was purchased used in 2008, so I'm assuming the date the vehicle was first titled was in 2007.

 

Well, I'm probably screwed out of at least $670.

GM dealer looked at it and says it's either the timing chain or the timing chain and the camshaft reluctor, but they won't know for sure until they can pull the crankcase cover on Monday. That's also when they'll have the parts. So, it's either $670 for the timing chain, or $670 for the timing chain and $433 for the camshaft reluctor.

At least, this is what they think based off of checking over my HHR and bulletins from GM. So pissed and 72,000 miles too. I don't drive this car hard and use the cruise control whenever I can to save on gas and to not go to far over the speed limit, the fastest it's ever driven is 75 mph and that's only on the toll road and highways to Chicago or Lansing, and I've had the oil changed regularly.

The biggest issue that's happened to this car was in February 2009 when my wife hit a patch of ice and rear ended a truck. Since that was 4 years ago, I doubt that caused this issue that I'm experiencing now (although I am pretty sure it caused damage to a sway bar bushing, but the repair location played dumb about any clunk or rattle from the front end).

So frustrating...

 

I hope that the parts include the chain guides the oil sprayer and the tensioner. The amazing thing is that I think what they are calling a reluctor is the camshaft drive sprockets, My eyeballs say they should be cheap, but the parts books say otherwise. The labor is really not as much as you would think, a relatively quick and easy job. Probably around 6 hours or less.

It's odd that currently there are 2 fairly low mileage HHRs with this problem on the forum. I say low mileage because I got over 200,000 before a headgasket blew, and then 100,000 more on a junkyard engine before it disintegrated (the chain guides were in bad shape, that was not the death though).

 

I've spoken to a few other mechanics and they're all suspicious of the GM dealer being so quick to say that it's the chain, and that only seems to be based off of pulling bulletins for the HHR.

 

After letting the engine run 4 quarts low, I'd say you are getting off easy if the repair bill is only $670, if in fact that is the only damage.

 

not sure about your HHR being four quarts low on oil ..... isn't there still a thing known as dummy lights .....