1996 Pontiac Grand Am SE 1 from North America - Comments

I own (or am slave to) a 96 Grand Am, with the same flooding problems. Leak is coming down the firewall behind the glove box, and I've deemed that hopeless. I only noticed the flooding early this summer, by the 2 inches of water on top of the passenger carpet.

Ah ha!! So that's what's causing my airbag light to come on. I peeled back the carpet, under the passenger seat to find the airbag computer with a heavily corroded connector.

I've read on the net also that this could be why my cluster is acting up, and the Theft Sys light is on coupled with the inability to start the car. (Theft Sys prevents starting). Doesn't really explain that when it does start (after Theft Sys reset), why it runs / idles horribly unless there's a short with the SRS causing conflicting data to be sent to the PCM / BCM?

I'm just going to drill holes in my floor pan for drainage.

And just because your carpet doesn't look wet, or feel wet... there is about 1-2" of padding under your carpet that could be saturated with water, and you won't know you have a leak till it's too late!!

Ngee22, please write to me at michelemabelle222@gmail.com. I would appreciate hearing from you.

I, too, am in IL. My Grand Am that I previously wrote about has not been driven since June 18. It has been sitting in our building's parking lot. While there were puddles in the car before, after the heavy rains the water must have just soaked right on up into the car even though it was just parked. The car now has mold and smells of mold when you open the door. The puddle on the driver's side floor has to be seen to be believed, but water is everywhere.

The state Attorney General has done NOTHING. I did follow up with them in early Sept., sending information indicating the Canadian recall and also the two airbags that deployed in WI last month. She never followed up with me since I sent that further information--not one phone call or letter. I have been waiting for GM to participate in mediation since I filed the complaint several months earlier. And the car is just sitting there, where I pay $125 a month to have it sit, for nothing.

Please get in touch with me. I did contact an attorney, and perhaps it may even be the same attorney. Maybe we can help each other out here.

I'm sorry your air bag deployed. I'm very happy to hear that things weren't worse than they were.

Hello

I have a 2004 Grand Am that am not sure what is wrong with it. It does have a blown head gasket however as I was able to keep water in it for awhile to drive it, now it won't start at all and lights keep flashing on dashboard when there is no key inserted. Some people think the brain has gone out of it. It has 114,000 miles on it and I know people with grand am's that have lasted to almost 300,000 before it quit. Any information would be appreciated as I am female and don't really know a whole lot about cars. You can e-mail me at dktatter@yahoo.com Thank you!

Folks, I feel you. Over the years I've experienced many of the same problems with my 1997 GA (except the flooding -- thank God), but I've always been pretty laid back about it; I like my mechanic, Matt, and I accept that cars do break, especially as they get older. That all changed last spring when my car tried to MURDER ME.

It was a day like any other. I filled my car up on my way to work, a destination about a mile from my house. After a particularly exhausting day at my job, I went out to my car and noticed that the garage smelled strongly of gasoline. Odd, that. When I got in I noticed the smell had seeped into the interior of my car. Parking garages are so noxious. Driving home I noticed I had a quarter tank of gas. Hadn't I just filled up that morning? I must be confused. Long day. And yet, as I drove, was the smell of gas getting stronger? Was the gas gage falling before my very eyes? Ridiculous. My imagination.

And yet, by the sheerest coincidence Matt's garage is on my way home from work. I debated: I had plans to go out in the city that night (Friday), and I had neither the time nor the energy to fool around with a car that was probably just fine; on the other hand, Matt's was right on the way, and I could just pop in for a second to get some reassurance. So I did.

Matt took one sniff of the car and dropped everything. He got it up on a lift and looked at it for a shocked moment. When he turned around his face was a white as a sheet. He yelled for a trashcan, and one of his guys sprinted over and put it under the back of the car to catch what I now understood was the gasoline SPRAYING out of one of the lines. But I failed to grasp the significance of this beyond the fact that $4 a gallon spraying out of a car all day is a terrible waste of money.

"You could have been killed!" he yelled. Eh? "Calm down," I soothed, still not getting it. "What on earth are you talking about?" It seems the gas was spraying not on the ground, but all over the exhaust, which apparently gets really hot when you drive a certain distance. Hot enough to ignite gasoline, as it happens. And according to Matt, who knows such things, when your gas ignites, your car explodes. You can die from that.

To add injury to attempted murder, when that particular line goes bad you can't simply replace it; you have to get some huge complete part that wraps around the back of the car and it costs like 500 bucks.

So I don't like my little car anymore. I'm about to get a new one, and trust me, it won't be a Grand Am.

Comment 02:11 has a couple of misconceptions (probably from watching too many movies where cars explode if they hit a speed bump). Gasoline has to have a SPARK to ignite. You can pour it on hot metal all day and it WON'T ignite. Exhaust systems, even on high-performance racing engines never get hot enough to ignite gas. And contrary to the movies, a burning cigarette dropped in gas will actually be PUT OUT by the gas.

As for the "$500" gas line, not so. I've fabricated custom fuel lines for several vehicles and it requires nothing more than some fuel line tubing, fuel-tolerant rubber connecting lines and some clamps. The total bill should be under $10. Just disconnect the fuel line from the fuel pump on the engine side and drain all the fuel out of the line, then use a line cutter (NOT a hack saw) to avoid sparks.

My Grand Am is going on 9 years old, has never had a single problem, and is one of the best cars I've ever owned. I'd buy a used one in a heart beat if anything happened to my current one.

My son purchased a 1996 Grand Am GT with his own money. He has only had it 6 months and has only had it on the road for a total of two days.

While driving home this evening, going only 35 mph, the air bags on both sides of the car deployed. My son is only 17 years old. He could have been killed.

He has also had the problem with wet floors and sensors going haywire, and the idle problem. If GM doesn't want to acknowledge this very serious defect in this year model of car that they made and sold to the public, then I for one and going to hire an attorney. I don't care that the auto industry is in trouble at this moment in time. If they made vehicles better, then maybe we would buy more. But if my child would have been killed, then they would be facing a law suite instead of simply replacing a defect in the car!

I am having the same problem with the ABS/ETS lights. However, the grabbing that is considered the ABS system just testing itself is extremely noticeable with even the slightest tap on the brake pedal.

The ABS system no longer works due to whatever problem is occurring with it and the ETS system. I don't know if anybody else just hasn't noticed that their ABS doesn't work any longer or maybe my problem is different.

I've read through 60 some comments on people having the same problem... Where's the guy who can tell me how to fix it?

Try allexperts, mate.

I have a 96 Grand Am SE, and as the other posters have stated, it has been one thing after another. The car as we speak is in the shop. Same thing, ETS and ABS failure. Some of the things that have happened, transmission went, engine mounts broke, brakes up the wazoo, air conditioner compressor and now low voltage on the ABS circuit. Hmm, you think I bought a lemon. LOL. What can I do though I am a broke college student?

I own a flawless 2001 Grand Am and have never had any of these issues. I do know people in my club who have had the ABS and ETS lights come on and have just ignored them (in one case for 70,000 miles). The cars drove OK and the brakes still worked great. Personally, I don't think ETS does a lot of good on a lower powered car such as the GA anyway, so I'd definitely ignore it. If the car is stopping OK and the brakes feel good, the ABS light could simply be a faulty sensor.

Hi Everyone,

I just bought a 96 grand am se 2.4 liter. I haven't even gotten to drive it yet. My brother drove it home and lost the brakes. So... we took apart everything... looked for busted lines everything. There is a line... the booster was bad... had to get a new master cylinder. New calipers and pads. I also had to replace the alternator and serpentine belt... which by the way is a task of its own considering we have to bypass the air conditioner pulley. It is hard finding the size. That had seized up. My friend finally decided to quit working on it and it telling me to send it the garage. I also have a bad head unit because of the moisture problem... thanks to the guy that found the problem... I now know what that is from. The previous owner had put a new engine in and had the moisture problem checked out. The garage he sent it to couldn't figure it out. Due to this moisture issue it has messed with the dash... all the lites are on now... the seatbelt lite, check engine, oil, all of them...so...hopefully it will pass the NY state inspection after all this. I am sending it to the garage tomorrow... wish me luck... I really wish I had read all this earlier before I had bought it. I don't understand how a company gets away with all of this. They made a crap load of money off parts.

I recently bought a 1996 grand am, unaware until now, the dangers of air bag deployment because of water damage. While driving down the road recently, the bag deployed sending my right hand into the interior light breaking it in 2 places and bruising my legs. Also as I have read in previous comments, there was a lot of smoke. This could have been a much worse scenario as my children were in the car, and somehow I did not lose control of the vehicle.