Outside of normal wear and tear:
A/C compressor froze up causing the engine to stall. ($1000 worth of fun)
Breaks required **lots** of attention.
Electric harness under driver's seat kept causing short-circuits blowing 2 fuel pumps ($450 each time + 600 to do the harness)
ABS stopped working after 60K (never bothered to replace the module that would run over $1500 p&l)
Interior trims and seats wore out rather quickly.
Power steering pump was on it's last breath at 90K.
A/T went out right after I sold it making my buyer one unhappy customer ($1500 to rebuild it).
All that to a car that was purchased for $10,000 and sold for $2,000.
This was my second Bonneville after owning 2 Pontiacs 6000.
Never again -- I have learned from my mistake and hope this can help others avoiding such mistakes too.
The car was expensive, unreliable and difficult to fix. It had a mind of it's own and it was working only when it wanted to work. Parts were not so cheap and getting anything done yourself required lots of patience.
The car had a very strong engine, but at a high gas cost. It sucked gas by the bucket. (~14 mpg avg)
Although marketed as a performer, the handling was very poor. It took a while to get used to it, but it never was truly matched to the powerful engine.
Inside, the car was very roomy and comfortable however, unless you had the top of the line seats, it was very hard to adjust them to a good position -- being 5'9" I had a hard time seeing past the steering wheel.
Overall, the car was powerful, comfortable, but highly inefficient and unreliable not making it fun to own.
Due to poor design, unreliability and lack of refinement, I decided never again to buy a GM product after subsidizing AC Delco and every mechanic for over 15 years with some serious CA$H.
Maybe you did something wrong. I am on my third Bonneville, my first was a 1988 Bonneville LE that had 160,000 miles on it when it was totaled. Then I got a 1992 Bonneville SE that had 170,000 miles on it when I decided to get a 1995 Bonneville SSEi that I currently have with only 55,000 miles on it.
I get 14 to the gal. in the city and 32 hwy
WHY buy a small car.
Yeah you probably did something wrong because I got my 1995 bonneville SSEi for $ 3,300 and spent on $ 1,000 on it and I've had it for 4 years and going no problems with at all.
Highway mixed with city I get about 25 - 28 mpg. However just the city driving I get 16 MPG. That's the only bad thing.
Note: A Comments RSS Feed is available. New comments appear in the Members Area before the main site