1999 Pontiac Grand Am GT review from North America

The biggest problem with this car is that stupid crap breaks, and it costs and arm and a leg to fix, and/or you have to special order the parts. I can do my own minor repairs, but I feel so ridiculous sometimes.

My wiper fluid pump busted about two months after I got her. Since I've pretty much lived in the desert, I haven't gotten it fixed until recently. My bad.

Electric windows are inhabited by gremlins: front passenger motor and regulator replaced x2, front driver regulator x1, rear passenger window expels a death rattle every time I use it...I'm just waiting.

New battery at around 70,000

New driver's side headlight in '02, passenger's in '04. See drama below...

As with others my volume control is completely insane (turn it while pushing down and to left seems to help..???)

I really want to love this car. I had a Sun-fire before and liked it (my adolescent sports car). I'm 6'0'', and I fit perfectly, the controls are close, lots of room for passengers, large trunk. Most of all, it's got some get-up-and-GO. No officer, I didn't realize I was doing 90, really. When in AZ, I had no problem with this car. I moved to Nor Cal, and little things started breaking. My tailight went out right before the move, it was then that I found out about the screws being on the inside of the trunk (tricky tricky). But when the headlight went out, and I couldn't figure out how in the heck to get the gigantic thing out without ripping the whole front end off, I went to a Pontiac mechanic. I am happy, and sad to say he didn't have a clue either. I found a dealer in the area. Two mechanics later the bulb was changed. I tried to tell the guy who changed the other one next time that he would need help. He didn't believe me, until he almost dropped the $450 dollar headlight. Yep, $450, why do think I made him do it? and he had a torque wrench to aim the light.

My warranty covered 'manual' operation of my cruise control. Apparantly that means the computer board, not the button switch (still haven't found the logic in that). So, that still doesn't work. Also, the warranty only covered the motors for the electric windows, not the regulators. What they don't tell you is that you have to replace both if the motor goes out (another $475 each). Overall, this car is great, just stupid stuff kept crapping out.

Then along came Germany. My poor baby doesn't know what to do in 16'F weather (I don't really either for that matter) The battery keeps 'dying', but holds a charge according to the mechanic with the magic machine. Starters fine, can't even get enough juice to even consider the alternator. By the way, why is the alternator on the complete opposite corner from the battery? So I cleaned the cables, put new felt on, and crossed my fingers. I was able to handle all the little crap, cuz she got me from pt A to pt B. Seriously thinking a European put-put with some loyalty would be nice.