1992 Pontiac Sunbird SE Convertible review from North America

1) The passing gear did not work when I bought the car.

2) Brakes didn't work well when I bought it, so I replace the drums, rotors, shoes, and pads. That helped a lot.

3) Brakes started acting up again soon after fixing them. I bled the air out of the brake lines, which solved the problem for a couple of months. I never figured out the problem, so I just bled them every month or two.

4) Brakes sometimes would not stop correctly at low speeds, such as pulling into a parking spot (!). When I pushed the pedal, nothing would happen...then, all of a sudden, the car would just slam to a stop.

5) The car started leaking transmission fluid around 135,000 miles. I replaced the transmission-cooler line, which solved the problem.

6) The transmission started acting up somewhere around 136,000 miles. The car would shift gears too soon, causing my four-speed transmission to be in fourth gear soon after leaving my driveway, causing acceleration to be extremely sluggish (0-60 in around 30 seconds). I bought a repair manual and found out that the problem was being caused by the throttle control valve, which determined how hard you were pressing the gas. I adjusted it, which caused my car to accelerate better than it did when I bought it. A side-effect of fixing that problem was that I also fixed the passing-gear by doing the adjustment.

7) The last problem I had with this car was still there when I traded it in. Around the time I sold it, my driver side window started acting up on me. It would roll down just fine, but would stop about halfway when rolling it up. I would have to release the window switch for about thirty seconds, then hit it again. It would roll up another inch or two, then I would keep repeating until it was all the way up.

I do have lots of good things to say about this car.

First of all, I only paid $3,500 for it. It was my first car, and I felt like that was a bargain for a convertible. This car was in excellent shape, body-wise. It had a few paint-chips that had been touched up, no dings at all, and included all paperwork. I was the third owner, but, by reading the paperwork, I determined that the two previous owners were in the same family; possibly even mother and daughter. The original owners also took excellent care of the interior. My car was white, with white leather (vinyl?) interior, and a white top, and all looked excellent. The white interior looked great, with only minor cracking on the driver-side seat.

One advantage of this car was that the included radio was not hooked up (except for power), because the previous owner had an aftermarket stereo installed. This was evident by the fact that it had four blown Infinity Kappa speakers installed. Because of the price of the car, and the fact that it had no stereo, my mom offered to buy me a new stereo... so I got a Panasonic CD player, new Infinity speakers to replace the blown ones, and a pair of 10" MTX subwoofers. I later installed some red neon tubes in my car, which looked great with my top down. While I didn't feel that this car was all that impressive, I got a lot of attention with it. I guess neon lights and a loud stereo go a long way with high school students.

Overall, my experience with this car was excellent. I expected problems with it, but actually got fewer than I expected, so it worked out great.