A week after I owned the car I was going down the road and all of a sudden parts began flying out of the engine and I saw them scatter in my rear view mirror. Turns out that the crank shaft pulley broke and the pully came up and shattered the fan. $160 to extract the bolt and put a new pulley on.
The crankshaft pulley always wobbled. Never seemed to be true.
Alternator bracket was weak - constantly shook the alternator. Was worried that the alternator would break off!
Clutch problems near the end.
A/C leaked.
Brake calipers had to be changed. Difficult to bleed brakes.
Was a good first car. Very traumatizing, though, to own a first car for a week and it breaks apart going down the highway. Esp. when on a low teenager's budget.
GM recalled these cars for the crankshaft bolts snapping off. This was a very common problem with AC equipped vehicles. When the bolt would break, the distributor gear would sometimes walk out since it was on the crankshaft.
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