Four problems related to engine cooling system have been reported for the 2001 Buick Century. The most recently reported issues are listed below. Please also check out the statistics and reliability analysis of the 2001 Buick Century based on all problems reported for the 2001 Century.
The contact owns a 2001 Buick Century. While the vehicle was undergoing an oil change, the contact was informed that dexcool coolant was placed in the water tank instead of antifreeze. The manifold on the water block, which is the gasket between the water tank, did not have the correct type of gasket and deteriorated the water due to oil in the tank. The failure is called a "pink milkshake". This also occurs when there is oil in the water reservoir. The repair would cost $800. The VIN was unknown. The failure mileage was 38,000.
Leaking intake manifold.
About a month ago the check engine light came on. Because of the cost to have a mechanic hook up the obdii monitor I didn't take the vehicle in right away, hoping it was simply due to a dirty sensor or loose gas cap (which has been the root cause before in other vehicles). Shortly after the check engine light incident the temp gage and heater started acting funny. Starting in the morning the heater only provided lukewarm air at best. Then the temp gauge would spike really fast and the coolant alarm would come on. Then right away the gage would normalize and there would be no problems the rest of the trip. The temp gage would be in the normal range. The problem only happened a couple of times then appeared to go away. Yesterday the problem re-surfaced except the temp gauge didn't normalize and there was a smell of antifreeze coming from the engine compartment. After calling around to mechanics it sounds like it could be the intake gasket. Since the beginning of these problems I've been checking the coolant. I own other gm vehicles so I'm familiar with intake manifold gasket failures. In fact, I had to replace the intake manifold gasket on our blazer about 1 month ago. This Buick only has about 40k miles on it. I thought Buick was gm's "quality" division????.
While driving 60 mph the low coolant sensor light came on. The consumer brought the vehicle to the repair shop where they states the intake manifold gasket had malfunctioned. Please provide additional information.