1989 Chevrolet Beretta Coupe from North America - Comments

Something went really wrong with the car at about 149,000 miles. I couldn't come to a complete stop without stalling. I always had to rev the engine to keep from stalling. One time I stalled in the middle of a busy intersection and I could hear the car behind me squeal his tires to avoid hitting me. Before I could turn the car back on I had to put it in park. Eventually someone suggested I drive with both feet. This made driving tolerable and I didn't squawk tires everytime I had to stop.

Later, even when I didn't come to a complete stop, if I just slowed down, the car would move at idol speed until I put the pedal almost to the floor. Eventaully the car would only accellerate if I had the pedal to the floor.

The auto shop teacher at my high school said I had a cracked head. Maybe he was right. Who knows? Many, many parts were replaced before finally replacing something with the computer. This fixed the problems.

There was a also massive oil leak. Another embarrassing feature. I had to add nearly a quart a week. The leak was in a hard to reach spot that would require so many man hours to fix, it was uneconomical to try.

This car was purchased for me for $900 when I was 17 by my father. I guess he felt bad because I wrecked my Ford Explorer on an icy road (and he was tired of hauling me everywhere).

I wanted another 4x4, but my dad picked a car because he thought it would get better gas mileage. Shortly before selling the Beretta, I tested the gas mileage -- less than 15 mpg in a combination of city and hwy driving. Most full size trucks get better mileage than that!

One small point -- the power window buttons are on the center console. Odd...

Had I been doing the buying, I would have research the Chevy Beretta a little more and discovered the dismal reliability.

It is a pretty quick little car with the V6, but I would never own another one or recommend it to anyone. Don't buy it, no matter how small your budget. The cheap comes out expensive.

I had the same stalling problem every time I stopped with an '89 Beretta GT. My dad's a mechanic and found out if you disconnect the transmission sensor it fixes the problem for some reason... in case anyone still has a Beretta, like me.

I don't drive a Beretta, but I had a Daewoo Cielo with the same transmission. It is a TH-125C which is one of the most popular GM 3-speed front-drive trannies. Very reliable in general, and in my opinion the greatest ever built. Bar none. The TH-125C had an electronic lock-up torque converter clutch. This means that at a given speed in 3rd gear the torque converter would literally lock the transmission solid to the engine. This locking is carried out by a torque converter clutch solenoid. This locking prevents the inherent slipping of the fluid in the torque converter and saves fuel. When the brake pedal is depressed, the torque converter disengages to allow slipping when the car comes to rest. Earlier versions of the TH-124C had a known fault with the torque converter clutch solenoid going bad. When that happened the torque converter would not disengage when the brake pedal was depressed and so when the car came to rest the locked torque converter would cause the engine to stall. What your dad's mechnic did (and probably charged you for) was to disconnect the solenoid (NOT a sensor). This was a common "under-tree" mechanic technique that didn't cure the PROBLEM, but rather the SYMPTOM. The result of this is that your car's torque converter no longer locks at speed and so you will be burning a lot more fuel as a result. The proper thing to do is to have the soenoid changed. It's a pretty straight forward thing that can even be done by a fairly competent do-it-yourselfer. See here for details on that http://www.automotivehelper.com/topic529773.htm.

As for the original writer, the window switches being in the centre console was something that VW and BMW did for years. It saves the manufacturer a lot of money by making less switches than they really need to.