1997 Pontiac Bonneville SE review from North America

LOL, where do I start??

I bought this car in hopes of having a reliable car for a long time. I had heard from many that the GM 3800 ran forever with minimal repairs... not so much.

Since day one I have had a violent shake in the steering wheel, despite having the tires replaced, balanced numerous times, I actually bought new wheels for it... the shake remains. It has been in the shop for that 5 times in a year.

2 months in the transmission started acting up; it had a chuggle/hesitation when going up hills. Had the local dealer look at it and was told the valve body was bad... to the tune of $1700. At this same time I also had the shake checked again by the new dealer, they had it for 2 weeks and replaced almost every front end component... $2000, and the shake still hasn't gone away.

4 months, driving to work, out of nowhere the car just stopped moving.. the transmission had to be completely rebuilt, $1900.

5 months in the air conditioner quit working... $800 to replace.

9 months the alternator quit... $300. About this time the power seat stopped working. Then the power locks, and just recently the back windows stopped.

Then, the final straw so to speak, happened 4 days ago. I was on a 400 mile trip to visit family and with no warning a horrible knock started coming from the engine. Before I could even pull over the engine seized, sent a rod through the engine and spilled oil all over. Leaving me stranded on a back highway at 10pm with a temp of about 4 above. I was not pleased... turns out my car needs a whole new engine, to the tune of about $3000. THANK GOD I bought an extended warranty. However after this repair I'm trading the car back in for a newer Ford Taurus.

I absolutely loved this car when I bought it. It looks awesome and was in perfect condition... unfortunately looks can be deceiving.

This is the WORST car I have ever owned by far. My 93 Ford Taurus pulled 227,000 miles before the engine went, and that was with nothing but routine maintenance. This Bonneville hasn't even come close, having just barely rolled over 100,000 and already having needed a new transmission and needing a new engine is just ridiculous.

Now I can't say anything bad about GM; I had much better luck with an 88 Bonneville years ago. However this one is just awful. I'm hoping it was horribly mistreated by the previous owners and it's not just GM. Either way I'm going back to Ford; I always thought they were evil... but mine never burned me.