1988 Pontiac Grand Am SE 2.3 Quad4
Summary:
An excellent older car that holds up with only a few minor repairs
Faults:
When I bought the car it had a problem with the idle dropping badly.
I replaced the ignition coils, coil housing, and ECU to try and fix the problem. None of these worked. Turns out it was just a bad spark plug.
Replaced heater core right after buying car.
Radiator had small hole.
Alternator went out (because of my stereo)
Starter was replaced yesterday just because it was old.
General Comments:
I love this car! I bought the car for only $40 from a friend. That's right I actually said $40.
When I bought the car it had the idle problem as listed above.
After all the money I put into it, the only thing that was wrong was a bad spark plug.
The car has a nice, low stance and good sway bars that give it very good handling.
The car gets pretty good gas mileage for the era of car. (about 32)
The bad part about the car is the strange ignition system. Instead of a cap and plug wires, it has an internal ignition system that is hard to figure out and work on.
Besides being hard to work on, the ignition system gives a good, hot spark and I have read that good for about 350 hp.
I had to have a new alternator intsalled because my stereo is so big that I blew the diodes.
I had the alternator upgraded to 150 amps.
I just had to have the starter replaced because it was old and was starting become unreliable.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes
Review Date: 7th December, 2002