It is an 03' and for the '03 and '04 cars a lot of people say it was fixed, though with the 03's I am sure at least some of the early ones still had the issue.

I heard that GM used better gaskets with the change to the 02 model year. Is that right? In Germany we only had the 99-01 models, so I cant tell. Sooner or later every Alero that has been sold in Germany will have this issues.

Yeah, that's where the lady I bought it from said it came from

Doesn't appear to have anything done to it but I haven't looked real close. I'm aware of the issue, I have a 99 silhouette but haven't done anything to it yet. I do have a lot of oil seepage with it though. Not sure if the anti freeze was the cause of the intake gasket issue but I changed my anti freeze early in its life.

Yeah, I've heard of some 04's having the issue. Not on the Alero, but I think once on the Grand Am and a couple times on the Impala.

I feel it's always better to ask that question.


Well the real problem is the gaskets made out of plastic. Plastic and heat don't mix. My Cutlass Supreme has this issue as well, but I have the 3.4 Twin Cam (LQ1). A lot of people say that Dexcool isn't nice to plastic but my thing is that Dexcool didn't exist until 1996-1997. I don't run Dexcool in my Cutlass so you would think my engine isn't affected, but that would be a misconception.

It's just one of those things. The job isn't that hard to do. I've done it both my V6 cars. If you're just swapping the gaskets, it's a 4 hour job. Otherwise it takes me a couple days since I usually swap the valve cover gaskets, clean the area where the LIM goes, I paint the valve covers since I already have the stuff off, etc.

That Alero looks nice. Always prefer a non-sunroof.

Yeah, I don't like sunroofs either glad it didn't have one. My daughter wanted one though.