Faults:

When I was out for a test drive with the sales guy I mentionted that I heard a noise coming from the front brake. He told me he would take a look at it. After purchasing the car I heard the noise again and took the car back. He said the brakes needed to be adjusted. There was also an issue with rust under the doors and under the lip of the hood. When I had first looked at the car I had asked him if it had been from down East where they use lots of salt on their roads. He told me he had no idea. After taking it for an oil change and my walking under the car, my heart fell as I could see the rust on the under site. Yes this car was from down east.

The brake seized up on me in early Oct 2007, and I had to tow it to the dealer. The car had over heated so the dealer thought it was best to also replace the thermostat... but did not get my authorization to do any work. So when I was called to pick up the car I had thought it was all covered by the warranty. I was in shock when I had to pay 750.00 to get the car.

I have since spoke to the General Manager and he has refunded me 350.00 and is going to be repairing the doors and under the hood. As I told him I was not happy with the service and the lies that were told to me by the salesman. The GM is trying to make it right. We will see...

General Comments:

I love my car, it is Victory red and loaded... although I have had issues, I love my car!!

Faults:

Since I have owned the Alero:

I have had to replace the brake pads every six months and the rotors twice. This cost has been minimal to me due to the fact I formally did brake jobs for a mechanic. Most of that cost is getting passed on to the auto parts store, who do stand by the pads and replace them for free, not like GMC.

The first major issue was a fuel pump.

The second was the front wheel bearings.

My check engine light staying on constantly. According to the car's computer, it was the O2 sensor that has been changed three times at $70 apiece, to never resolve the problem.

The next issue was the electric spark module, which resulted in me being stranded on the road for several hours in the rain.

Since then, all four struts need replaced.

Replaced the battery.

The grand dad of them all is that my turn signals works when they want, not all the time.

General Comments:

The car has two most common defect issues; wheel bearings and brakes.

The engine has never burned oil and I have 130,000 miles on it.

Faults:

'Mysterious' leak that caused the fuse panel to corrode and fail repeatedly (took about 10 visits to the dealership to get it fixed). The first time the fuse panel was repaired, I was told that they must have forgotten to put corrosion protection on mine. This started about 5k km in -- whenever the fuse panel failed, I would lose all my gages, the radio, power windows, and a few times, the car would not start (had to be towed).

It ended up being that the glass of the sunroof was slightly misshaped when it was manufactured.

Clutch cable snapped at 50,000 km and clutch could no longer be disengaged. Thankfully I was on a side street.

General Comments:

After owning the Alero for about 5 months, I regretted my decision to trade in my 96 Camry. In 5 years, I never had a day of trouble with the Camry. I had a lot of 'GM Visa' points to use and went back despite swearing that I'd never give GM business again. I wish I didn't have to re-learn the lesson the hard way.

The dealer was pretty rude each of the numerous times the water leak problem was looked at. They didn't believe me, and even went as far as accusing me of not knowing how to close my windows and/or sunroof. I got so few up that each time I had the electrical problems, I took pictures of the water pooled inside the fuse panel. Finally the service manager got the message.

I took a huge loss trading this in on a 1999 Honda, but it was worth it. 2.5 years and 50,000 km later (now at 100k km) the Honda has only had routine maintenance (i.e. oil changes).