1996 Pontiac Grand Am from North America - Comments
18th Aug 2008, 12:11
Wow!! If I had known all of this when my Mother had bought my 1996 Pontiac Grand AM SE, I would have asked her to take it back to where she found it...
I took over the car in May 2005. It had 220,000km on it already. By July it stalled on me for the first time. I thought it was the heat of the summer. (I knew nothing about cars at this point except for how to drive one). After a few turns, it finally started, and that was that for several months.
However, my key refused to come out, I was later told that it was something to do with a solenoid or something? We had to pop out a piece of plastic on the bottom of the ignition and I had to press the thing in to get my key out.
In November of 2005, poor old Pontiac Jack decided to stop starting. I would have to wait between an hour to 2 hours for it to start again. Of course, taking it to the shop to have it looked at, it would start like a dream, and diagnostics proved nothing.
Finally in March it stopped working all together. I had to have it towed to a shop out of town, and they (the same people who did the diagnostics) had to replace all injector lines front to back, fuel pump, the gas tank, the gas tank straps AND they discovered that both ball bearing on my passenger side front arm bar were absent. One more drive over the nasty potholes and I could have been toast. They were still unable to acquire the correct parts for my ignition so I was left pushing the button still. That total cost was about $2600.00.
A year later, I pulled into my driveway to discover a steaming coolant reservoir, and no coolant. That was interesting. We poured in the clogging substance to plug any holes (as a temporary fix). That went on for about 3 months. Minor problems occurred such as no air conditioning, horn broke, and my driver side window would not go up without some hard manual labour.
Finally in July, the LOCK button, (for my power locks) caved into my door and just stopped working.
In August, my hunk of crap, 1996 Pontiac Grand AM SE was stolen from my grandmother in-law's retirement apartment building parking lot. It was found in the next city (Cambridge) with the hood up in the middle of the road. Tell me that wasn't a fitting end to a crappy car. It is now for sale for parts seeing as though they are all brand new.
18th Aug 2008, 12:11
Wow!! If I had known all of this when my Mother had bought my 1996 Pontiac Grand AM SE, I would have asked her to take it back to where she found it...
I took over the car in May 2005. It had 220,000km on it already. By July it stalled on me for the first time. I thought it was the heat of the summer. (I knew nothing about cars at this point except for how to drive one). After a few turns, it finally started, and that was that for several months.
However, my key refused to come out, I was later told that it was something to do with a solenoid or something? We had to pop out a piece of plastic on the bottom of the ignition and I had to press the thing in to get my key out.
In November of 2005, poor old Pontiac Jack decided to stop starting. I would have to wait between an hour to 2 hours for it to start again. Of course, taking it to the shop to have it looked at, it would start like a dream, and diagnostics proved nothing.
Finally in March it stopped working all together. I had to have it towed to a shop out of town, and they (the same people who did the diagnostics) had to replace all injector lines front to back, fuel pump, the gas tank, the gas tank straps AND they discovered that both ball bearing on my passenger side front arm bar were absent. One more drive over the nasty potholes and I could have been toast. They were still unable to acquire the correct parts for my ignition so I was left pushing the button still. That total cost was about $2600.00.
A year later, I pulled into my driveway to discover a steaming coolant reservoir, and no coolant. That was interesting. We poured in the clogging substance to plug any holes (as a temporary fix). That went on for about 3 months. Minor problems occurred such as no air conditioning, horn broke, and my driver side window would not go up without some hard manual labour.
Finally in July, the LOCK button, (for my power locks) caved into my door and just stopped working.
In August, my hunk of crap, 1996 Pontiac Grand AM SE was stolen from my grandmother in-law's retirement apartment building parking lot. It was found in the next city (Cambridge) with the hood up in the middle of the road. Tell me that wasn't a fitting end to a crappy car. It is now for sale for parts seeing as though they are all brand new.