Multiple Issues, To buy a new car, or try to get another year or two from this one, lol

[redbenly]

So, just found this forum & glad to see it's still active! Like the title mentions, I'm trying to judge on if this car is worth continuing to put money into / how much, haha. Also, for reference I'm in NY, so due to the salt & winter the cars get a rougher life than normal & the car has about 110k miles.

Some other smaller issues, but those are more run of the mill that I can debug myself.

Issues:

• In Winter / cold weather, the car will start, but all the lights for traction control & AWD will be on & warning. After 10-15 minutes the light will go away if I restart the car & the car will be AWD again. Only happens in cold weather, so I'm tempted to believe that some electrical issue is at fault & shrinking in the cold. Just not sure what the culprit electric connection would be?
• Sometimes when driving around 30-50 mph, all of a sudden the car will start to sound & feel as if I'm driving on 'rumble strips.' The longest I've had this happen is maybe 5 minutes & car will be driving fine before & after. No warning lights will come on when this happens. This & the above issue kinda defeat the purpose of having an AWD car in NY for the Winter, when it doesn't work in the cold, lol.
• Bonus: Ever since getting my coolant flushed a few years ago, there's been a "water rushing" sound that sounds as if it's coming from under the firewall / dash. It doesn't seem to be affecting how the car drives or anything, but is annoying & if I do end up selling it via private party, I know that will come up. I've had the coolant flushed & refilled multiple other times by a few shops yet the waterslide remains. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance to any of the Equinox gurus with bigger brains than I if your able to help. Otherwise, I'll just have to take the '64 Honda to work more often!

 

[95-007]

I had ABS and traction light inermittently (sometimes with front end growling) for some time before I found it was, in my case the right front wheel speed sensor pigtail worn through and shorting from time to time after many thousands of full suspension flexes on slow off road excursions. A new sensor and pigtail cured that.

The second issue may be related to the first and not as a transmission problem. Transmission fighting with faulty shift control relays would be pretty violent. I'm thinking your condition is more like ABS growling like the shorting sensor wire might cause.

Any small leak of coolant externally or internally will create air pockets which will gurgle in the line heading back to the surge tank, and yes it sounds almost like its in the dashboard. Any type of leak will require you to replace water at a fairly frequent interval. Normally closed surge systems rarely need attention.
If its an external leak, look for weeping around the perimeter of each head gasket. Alumaseal will take care of that.
If you have a path worn between a cylinder and the water jacket in a head gasket, a couple of things to look for. Note if more steam seems to be coming out of the tail pipe longer than what would seem normal, like well after the car has come to full operating temperature. Another thing to look for after the engine has cooled, remove the surge tank cap and smell the air in here. If it has any combustion gas floating in there, it will smell a little like exhaust. Also, even after the engine is cooled, looking in the tank may show some wisps of fumes that were released from the fluid as pressure dropped with the cap pulled.
I forgot to mention one important thing about refilling the cooling system. With the car on a level surface and the engine off, jack the front passenger side 3 inches to allow air trapped in water jacket voids to find the air bleed tower. While filling at the surge tank, crack open the small brass bleed on the tower above the water pump and allow the trapped air to escape. Keep filling until no bubbles appear in the bled coolant. Close the bleed bolt gently, fill to the cold line in the surge tank, release the car from the jack and run the engine until the engine gets to full operating temperature. Allow the engine to cool and refill to the cold limit line again. Repeat the coolant cycling until the coolant measurement remains at the cold line once the engine has cooled. This takes as little as one and many as 3 cycles to get the level right.