Faults:

Well after I bought the car, I was impressed because I thought I had bought a real sports car. Little did I know, that they were not named Fieros for nothing. After about 3 weeks of having this atrocity, the engine caught fire 3 times. The speakers in the seats shorted out and failed to operate again. The transmission was grinding from day one. I would have kept the car if it didn't turn into an inferno.

General Comments:

The actual car is very nice looking, good acceleration, but the rear engine design was terrible. There is no way for the car to vent heat adequately. Despite the cars many flaws, there are many after market parts, so repairs are a breeze.

Faults:

It was delivered to me with a burned-out passenger-side low beam and a muffler weld that looked like a writhing mass of metal worms. Both were fixed under warranty.

My clutch went out at 25,000 miles in 1986, after some very enthusiastic driving. It hasn't needed replacing since.

In 1990, in the process of performing recall "engine fire" work, my friendly local Pontiac dealer forgot to replace the muffler springs and loosened the starter bracket bolts without tightening them back, among other blunders. When I brought it back to show them what they'd done, they refused to correct their mistakes and accused me of tampering with my catalytic converter (!?) It took a call to the GM Zone Office to straighten them out. Not the car's fault.

Another Pontiac dealer replaced my thermostat with a defective one. I discovered this when my car, whose heater had been blowing warm air when I brought it in to flush the cooling system, suddenly began blowing cool air with the heat turned all the way up -- in December! Naturally, they denied everything. Again, not the car's fault.

The catalytic converter lost its pellets out the bottom at 104,000 miles.

Replaced the passenger-side headlight motor at 107,000 miles (from the Fiero Store)

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The front suspension needed rebuilding after 110,000 miles of Chicago's roads.

The outside bolster of the driver's seat is starting to wear through. (After 121,000 miles. Imagine that!)

The right-side speakers on the radio have been cutting in and out.

Over the last few years, the engine has become increasingly unhappy with the combination of winter-blend gasoline and unseasonably warm winter weather (40's, 50's, 60's). Putting in fuel stabilizer with each fill-up during the winter has completely solved that problem. (The dealer told me I needed a new fuel tank and throttle-body. Hoo-boy!)

General Comments:

This car is my baby.

It was the first new car I ever owned, and the best investment I could have made.

It's a red Sport Coupe with the alloy wheel package. It looks exactly like the Fieros that Pontiac used in their magazine ads that first year.

$9,489 from Sullivan Pontiac in Merrillville, Indiana. Ordered in October 1983, delivered in April of '84.

Gas mileage is 23-30mpg.

I drove it 50,000 miles in the first three-and-a-half years. It ran like a top.

Putting on Goodyear Eagle GTII's in place of the "performance GT+4's has made all the difference in wet weather handling.

Luggage space? I have carried everything from brick pavers to bags of mulch to a Christmas tree to a month's worth of groceries in this car, in the front and rear trunks and behind the seats. Not a problem.

At 5-10 and 145 lbs., I find the seats extremely comfortable and durable. More than enough leg room.

People who complain about how balky the 4-speed manual is should drive a Triumph TR6 for comparison.

"But it only holds two people!" And how many people are in most cars on the road, even hulking 7-passenger SUV's?

0-60 times are 8-9 seconds. More than fast enough to merge onto a busy expressway. Drag racing!? I'm 46!

Thanks to its plastic body panels, it looks almost as good now as it did when it was new. But then, it's been garaged for all, but two months of its 19 years.

Since it barely gets driven 3,000 miles a year these days, the oil gets changed every 3 months.

If I could change three nitpicky things about this car, I would give it a dashboard glovebox, trade one of its two ashtrays for an oil gauge, and most important, turn it into a convertible.

I have finally found a Pontiac dealer with a mechanic who went to school to learn how to fix Fieros. As he told me to my horror, many dealers didn't have one Fiero-trained mechanic even when Fieros were being made, let alone now. My previous Kafkaesque dealer service experiences began to make perfect sense.

This car and I will ride off into the sunset together, passing rusty, flat-tired MR-2's.