2005 Pontiac Montana Non SV6 from North America - Comments

Nothing. Oh wait, a fog light went out, but that was due to me nailing a garbage can that had blown out in the road in a wind storm.

My family has had our 2005 Pontiac Montana now (*this is NOT the SV6 model**) for just a little over a year now with not a single problem to report. I seems as though Pontiac finally got it right with the 2004 and 2005 Montana, but now they are cutting off the Montana line altogether after 2006 : (... My last vehicle was a 1997 Trans Sport Montana and it was equally as dependable, although we did have to replace the Intake Manifold gasket once at 113,000 miles. No issues with that one either though.

I'm really surprised to see so many people complaining about their Trans Sports/ Montanas. My family is on our 3rd one now and they have all been great. Such a shame...

Our Montana has suited our needs very well. We have the seating for eight, with the 3 seats in the middle and a fold flat bench in the rear. It offers great comfort, and really good performance too. It has the 3400 V6, which I hear from other posters is a bad engine, but I don't think so at all. It has always been extremely reliable for us, and in our previous Trans Sport, took us to 289,000 miles with no trouble at all, other than the one time intake gasket issue. That motor has plenty of pep, even more so than our 1994 Trans Sport that had the 3800 V6. Oh well, to each his own I guess.

I'm really glad to have the Montana, because with today's horrendous gas prices, it really doesn't do too bad. We manage to average about 22 MPG, which in that figure contains about 70% stop and go city driving. The gas will last a little while. We will be keeping this one for as long as it will last us, since '06 is the last year for the Montana. Thanks for the well constructed dependable Pontiac (s) GM!!!

I'm glad to see that others have enjoyed their 04/05 Montana. It's too bad that GM has remodelled the Montana into a cross between a van and a SUV. Looks ugly!

I have a 2004 Montana and have not had any major issues with the van. Hopefully nothing major as the head gasket will happen, but it seems there has been an issue with previous models.

Keep loving it, as these are the last ones of a good minivan.

I would like to comment on our 2003 Montana. This has been by far the best vehicle I have ever owned. It is comfortable an reliable and we have not had any complaints until a very recent problem put my faith in the current GM organization at an all time low. We have thoroughly enjoyed our Montana and had intended to purchase it when the lease was up in May ’07. Four weeks before the end of the lease the engine suddenly developed a bad metallic banging from the top end. We learned that a rocker pivot bolt had come loose. This van has only 59,000km. (36,000 miles) on it! That was ominous enough, but when the dealer refused to replace the aluminium heads even after finding FIVE bolts loose I decided that I would definitely NOT be buying this vehicle. They used ‘Heeley’ (sp?) coils to replace the damaged threads and re-seat the new bolts. They insisted that this was the GM accepted/recommended fix for this problem. When I asked them when I should expect the other seven bolts to come loose I was met with a sheepish shrug.

While researching this problem I learned of the lawsuit over problems with the head gaskets on the 3.4L motors. Apparently the problem was solved in mid ’03 but too late for our van. I then realized that they had changed the head gaskets on our van around ’05. A trusted independent mechanic who I deal with for non-warranty issues suspected that the bolts had been over torqued at the time of the head gasket repair. He agreed that there was no telling what the state of the rest of the bolts were and wondered about the state of the rest of the motor as the torque damage may be wider than just the heads. I am very disappointed in the performance of the dealership’s service department. But I must add that I like this van so much that I am looking for a 2005 pre-SV6 Montana to replace it.

The SV6 should not be allowed to use the name ‘Montana’. It's a good thing they are dicontinuing the name after this model year. Who ever was responsible for the re-design of the van should stick to designing lawn mowers.