1999 Pontiac Grand Am GT from North America - Comments

I have had a 99 Grand Am GT for about 5 yrs now. Bought it used for 6,200 with about 68000 miles on it at the time. It ran amazing for a year or so then. Ohh man where do I begin..

1st my gaskets went because of the dex-cool. After I fixed the gaskets, 2 months later my engine got a rodknock from the new gaskets letting in water into my engine. So step one was replace my engine, which I did, and it was a lot of freakin money.

Since then my alternator and waterpump have both went twice and been replaced.

My passenger side window also was broke and would squeak so bad it was awful, so that got fixed, which is now broken again.

My fans under my hood don't work unless my airconditioning is on, which needless to say is ridiculous, and my engine runs hot because of this.

I have replaced so many sensors it's absolutely unreal.

Also I have replaced my thermometer and I had to take my catalytic converter off cuz it was plugged up and would cause my car to lose power while I was driving. It still doesn't have full power, and now I'm told my "mass air sensor" might be the problem for the sputtering, but those are like 130 dollars, and to me that's too much money to waste if the mass air isn't the problem.

When I hook it up to a computer, it says my intake air is -38, which is not good, but every shop has no clue as to why it is saying that, and no shop can figure out how to fix it.

Needless to say I hate this ride. It gets me from A to B today, but tomorrow it could EXPLODE ON ME!!. GM is garbage, and strangely enough today they filed for Chapter 9, well keep making garbage rides that might look good but fall apart in a few yrs and chapter 9 is what is gonna happen.

Don't buy GM, at least not 99 Grand Ams with a 3400 engine in them. Those engines are pure trash and are good for nothing but taking your loot. I'm getting rid of mine as soon as I can, and hopefully I won't have to worry about something like this again.

I bought a 99 SE 2.4 for 300 bucks... I got it from a kid down the road who said the tranny was going out. 2 quarts of fluid later it drove fine. Same usual crap wrong, blower motor, clicking, window motors, radio, leaky water pump. My Grand Am has 203,000 miles on it and I drive it back and forth to work 80 miles a day, and it drives great. 32 miles to the gallon and I can't beat that. Perfect car for $300! I'm going to run it until it falls apart completely!

I'm about to buy a 1999 Grand Am SE 6 cyl. with 167,000 on it for $1500. The guy's a friend and his daughter had this car before the head gasket started to leak (white smoke out the tail pipe and water drops). He said the water pump failed and it over heated.

He's replaced the intake manifold, water pump, battery, ball joints and tie rod ends and the brakes. Has flushed the Dex-Cool and replaced with the green stuff. Has put a gasket seal in the coolant system and so far no leaks.

Fuel gauge does not work.

I've only driven it briefly and it handles and brakes very well. Although I do hear some rattling in the front end on rough dirt roads.How long is gasket sealant expected to last?

Should I buy this car?

Oh yes -- I'm anticipating several obvious answers.

A 6 cyl. Grand Am? I would stay as far away from that as I could and then a little more. There are TOO many people out there that have had TOO many problems with them.

I have a 1999 Grand Am SE 4cyl. I am currently at 270,000 miles. No, that is not a typo, 270,000 miles. I change the oil every 3000 miles or so. Don't get me wrong, I have had a few problems with the car, but the majority of them were from poor maintenance.

The problems, I had to replace the heater fan resistor card to regain the two lower fan speeds.

The radio was confused which way the volume was supposed to go, up was down and down was up, so I replaced that as well.

The ignition switch went bad so the security light would blink at startup, and I would have to wait 10 minutes for it to clear BEFORE I could try to start it again. I have not yet replaced that, but I did put in a remote starter with the bypass for the passkey to start the car. I start it with the remote and THEN turn the ignition key on.

I replaced the alternator, both front wheel bearings, and the usual general stuff, tires, brakes, spark plugs, serpentine belt.

Now my fuel gauge does not work, and I have to watch my mileage to know when to fill up.

The fuel filter just plugged up last night on my way home from work. The car started chugging and I didn't think I was going to make it home. It was 2am and I was in a dead zone with my phone. This would be MY FAULT as the filter has NEVER been changed since the car was new.

Also, the transmission has NEVER been touched. Not even to change the oil and filter. I never expected to get over about 200,000 miles on the car so I never had it changed. Now, 270,000 miles later it is still running strong.

Over all I really can't complain because it has lasted a LOT of miles with a rather low maintenance bill.