2004 Oldsmobile Alero GL from North America - Comments

Replaced the sway bar bushings.

New tires went bald in 8,000 miles.

Two wheels where bent when I bought the car.

Now the wheel mount is bad, and I was told this is a common problem on the Alero's.

I was extremely impressed with this car when I bought it. It handled well, and had more power then I was use to. Although, for the size of the engine, it is underpowered. Chrysler makes a much smaller 6 cylinder engine that gets just as much horsepower, and the new Civics get almost as much power with a small 4 cylinder.

This car was GM Certified when I bought it, which I assumed meant there was nothing wrong with it. I have had it in the shop 7 times in the 9 months that I've owned it. The bent wheels were missed by 2 General Motors mechanics, who where looking for the reason my car was vibrating a lot, and only found when I went to have my tires balanced and rotated.

I have now had my car in the shop 4 times to fix another popping noise around my front wheels. The first time, they did a lube job, and told me the noise should go away, if it didn't, it was probably a bad strut. The noise didn't go away, so I took it back. This time they told me the sway bar bushings were bad, even though the sway bar bushings had been replaced a few months earlier by another dealer. When I took it back to the other dealer (the same dealer that missed the bent wheels), they said they couldn't reproduce the noise, and had no intentions of actually looking at my sway bar bushings. A week later, the noise got worse, so I took it back. This time they heard the noise, said it's not the sway bar bushings (which they would replace for free), but the wheel mount, a part that will cost me $400 to replace.

Wheels don’t just get bent. It sounds like your car may have been in an accident that damaged the front suspension and possibly the unibody. I don’t know what “GM certified” means, but maybe there is some recourse for this. You might want to take it to an independent body shop to look for more hidden damage. It’s too bad that your first thought is to blame poor quality and jump to “yet another reason to buy Japanese.” Good Luck.

I don't even know how many times I've had mine in the shop! Mine was GM Certified as well. I'm so glad I bought the extended warranty. It has paid for itself three times!

I find it hard to believe two so called mechanics missed bent wheels while looking for vibrations - unacceptable for sure. I agree with the previous commentor, I'd suspect some sort of collision damage happened before you got the car.

You're really fooling yourself if you think all your car troubles will disappear with a Japanese offering. Just like domestic cars, all Japanese brands have certain troublesome models.

I'm a wholesale buyer and see them all the time. Just like the domestics, some are pretty bulletproof, and some are a real pain.

Good luck.

Don't worry, you're not jumping to blame them. My Alero makes a popping noise and I have had it looked at a couple of times, same 400 dollar part is needed. I have had two collisions in this car.