1999 Oldsmobile Alero GLS from North America - Comments

Brakes at 100,000kms. I don't know if the previous brakes were original, but I'm going to guess they were not. The brakes also had to be replaced at the 130,000km mark when we sold it. $200 Canadian each time.

Heater Fan resistor pack. Replaced 5 times between 86,000 and 130,000kms. $50 part + $100 repair.

Heater Fan Replaced Twice. $250 each time.

Low oil light came on once, added oil and checked levels. Oil seemed fine. The light stayed on until I took it in. The mechanic said that I probably had a small hole in the oil pan and when I would turn the pressure would drop indicating low oil or something. The problem never came back after that day. $100.

Driver side window came off tracks at 125,000 kms.

$500 repair.

Rust started to form around door sills at about 100,000kms.

This was my first car, purchased in 2003 for about $7,000 CDN. All in all it was a decent car. But I am not sure if my opinion is biased or not because until recently I have only owned GM and Ford vehicles which have a reputation for constant breakdown.

The Alero's styling is very nice, it looks like a nice car and gives that appeal that it may be worth a little more than it actually is. The interior was nice, I had the standard grey cloth, but it was comfortable. So comfortable I sometimes would fall asleep while driving. The back seat was terrible to sit in. Especially on longer rides. My passengers always complained. BTW I had the 2-door GLS.

The ABS and traction control helped in the snow. The car would handle great in all conditions.

The 2.4L Twin Cam was the smallest engine available, which gives the illusion that it would be good on gas. This thing was absolutely terrible on gas. The worst 4cyl gas consumption I have ever seen. I would get as low as 20 mpg highway some weeks. I took it in to my mechanic to get it looked at to see if there was anything wrong with the engine or fuel system and he couldn't find anything. I tried high performance filters and plugs/wires and nothing seemed to help. Basically my biggest problem was that I had this 140hp engine that got 10 less mpg then most Japanese cars with the same amount of horsepower, I just didn't see the trade off.

With the Alero I ran into many costly repairs, mainly the heater fan resistor packs. I replaced it 2 times every winter. I also replaced the heater fan twice because the resistor pack had shorted it out. This was really annoying because there were days when it was really cold and my heater wouldn't work, and I still had to drive to work for 50kms. I ended up selling the car for half of what it was worth, just to get rid of it.

Always take into consideration the size of the vehicle when choosing an engine. And by size I mean vehicle weight. A smaller engine has to work a lot harder to get a heavy vehicle up to speed, and can be known to use more fuel to do so. A smaller engine's only trump card when fitted to a heavy car is when the vehicle is used mainly for open highway driving without a lot of stop and go or slow speed traffic. If it is used in the city or used on the highway when there is much traffic, all fuel saving go down the fuel injectors, so to speak.

Take for example the Dodge Ram. Interestingly enough, the 5.7L 345 hp Hemi in the quad cab gets better city and highway mileage than the 4.7L 240hp engine! Simply put, the Hemi doesn't have to work as hard getting the vehicle up to speed, and using the throttle lightly (which admittedly is hard to do with such power at your disposal) means using less gas.

So definitely take weight to power ratio into consideration when looking for gas mileage. Also take into consideration gear ratios, a higher final ratio means higher revs during highway cruising, equaling lower MPG.

Good luck!

That's a good point. I really didn't think of that when writing the review, though I have thought of it before when pondering why that engine was offered in this Alero. Anyways thanks a lot.

I would like to know the easiest way to remove the fan control switch. I have a 99 Alero and at first the lowest setting on the blower motor for the fan stopped working and then the second setting stopped and now the fan will not function at all. So in my opinion the contacts in the switch are not making a positive contact. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

JD.