Rick: I don’t know what will get the feds to mandate a recall, but I would imagine volume of complaints filed by consumers would have to be a factor.

she called me at work and i told her to let it cool down and roll down the windows and turn the heater up to high.

watch the thermo gauge and drive home if it looks o.k.

when i got home from work i checked under the hood and the bracket that attaches the radiator hose to the engine block was cracked off clean.

she called the dealer as it was still under extended warrenty.

they towed it in and told her it would be big bucks.

when she got the car back two days later it was all on the house.

i read the invoice and it said thermostat bracket replaced with upgraded part.

this made me curious so i googled different words in this scenerio untill i found some blogs about aveos and thermostat housings.

turns out the one we had was made of plastic and g.m. decided to upgrade it with one made of metal as an after part.

this is a bracket going from the radiator to the engine for christs sake.

the messed up part was that there was never a recall so some folks wound up burning up their motor blocks because of this cheap part.

the thing i have learned from reading bart’s blog on this issue and listening to click and clack on the radio is that the feds dont mandate a recall unless the gov gets a certain number of hits on it’s web site.

hey bart , please let me know if that last part was right or just in my mind.

thanks , and good luck with your sidewalk and hoopty.

love da kid in da 70122