Faults:

The particular package I wanted wasn't available at my dealer so the car was "dealer located" and shipped to me. Upon arrival, the door guard trim on the passenger door was lifting in the rear. This was replaced by the dealer. Soon after this, the driver's side door window "fell out" of the track resulting in the window shuddering when in use. There was a dealer recall for this and I hadn't yet received the bulletin; this was repaired and working fine since.

General Comments:

The overall performance of this car is very impressive. The 3.4L engine has plenty of horses for everyday and recreation purposes. The handling of this car is extremely comfortable and very much like simlar sized German performance vehicles. I must mention I have the "deluxe" model Alero which includes such upgrades as the "sports performance suspension" and a sunroof.

A nuisance at times is the "tire pressure monitoring" system. Often when driving on poorly laid asphalt or warped concrete, the tires will rotate at different rates which is expected. The on-board computer will misread this difference in rotation as that of a tire low on air and trip the system. I've had the "light" go on a few times now and upon checking my pressures all are fine. Luckily it's fairly convenient to re-set the computer.

I recommend that anyone interested in an Alero invest in the GLS model. Lesser models result in poor material and component quality as I've witnessed in my friend's 2003 Alero GX. You get what you pay for.

Faults:

My anti-theft device constantly activates. I had to have the car towed twice before anyone told me how to reset the device. Now when the car won't crank and the security light is on, I have to wait 20 minutes wherever I might be at the time. The last incident kept me blocking the gas pump at the busiest station in town!

My brakes have had problems since 10,000 miles. I've had them checked, but the dealer said they only needed rotating. Sometimes the brakes slip when you touch them and they always make a noise.

The overhead light inside the car just fell off one day when I tried to turn it on.

The dealer actually broke one of the air vents when they were working on something else one day.

The car makes a horrible noise while driving, but the dealer swears that they don't hear anything. The car is under warranty, but they charged me $5 for 2 gallons of gas so they could ride around in it for a week and they still didn't hear the obvious noise.

General Comments:

The car is very fast and handles great.

However, the back seat is extremely small, low to the floor, and uncomfortable.