General Comments:

This car, our 2002 Pontiac Grand Prix GT 40th Anniversary Edition, is a great car. This car has had no problems, I have seen only 2 like it, and it REALLY turns heads. We have had compliments on it all the time. I have researched that it is an 11 second 1/4 mile car. Great car!

Faults:

Yet another Grand Prix experiencing, or about to experience, problems with DexCool coolant.

First at 30k miles the low coolant light came on, but not again until 44.8k miles. Low coolant light comes on and off now. When I look into the coolant chamber it is obvious there is a 'rust-like' substance in there with the coolant.

The orange DexCool is now a nice ugly brown color also.

Well, almost made the first part of the 5 year/150,000 mile "advertisement" that is printed on a document attached to the catalytic converter under the hood, and printed again in the owner's manual.

I just hope that I can minimize the damage by having the coolant replaced before it has a chance to ruin the plastic manifold cover, or any of the other parts that can be caused by a overheating engine.

General Comments:

I have owned 2 Pontiac Grand Am(s), the 96 was much better than the 88.

The GT Grand Prix is a fantastic car, but when you only pay $30k for a mid-size sedan you know costs are being cut somewhere. I guess a plastic intake manifold was deemed sufficient trade-off for cost.

Not to mention it will provide a reliable source of income for GM repair shops.

Faults:

So far nothing major has gone wrong with this car.

General Comments:

The car is very comfortable and the cabin is roomy. I'm 6'5" and fit just fine. Although, I would not recomend the (p) leather seats. The seat warmers suck too, I can't even notice a difference when theyre on.

It has pretty decent acceleration (enough for what I need) The 3.8 is very responsive and can even be fuel efficient. On the highway I have gotten as much as 34mpg, city I get about 16-19, mixed driving I average around 26. The car handles well also for being a fairly large vehicle. The heads up display is awesome too, I rarely look down at the speedometer anymore.

My only complaints are the noises it produces..

One thing is that when I accelerate the engine makes a whiny (wispy) like noise. I've read that it could be the alternator, fuel pump, power steering pump, low power steering fluid (which it isn't). If anyone else has this problem and has resolved it please write me a comment. Also, the car rattles almost everywhere you could imagine, which gets pretty annoying. Other than that everything works fine.

Faults:

Fuel Pump went out at 58,000 miles. Dealer wanted $825 to change it out - this is part of the reason I gave the dealership such low marks. Ridiculously overpriced. I got a used GM/OEM fuel pump from a parts supplier that I knew, and installed it myself. Total cost? A few busted knuckles, four hours of my time, and $125 for the pump assembly. The only reason it took me that long was due to the fact that I had never changed a fuel pump before in my life, and it was a learning experience. An experienced tech could probably do this job in 30 minutes, and they wanted $825...sheesh.

The only other thing that I've noticed is that the supercharger belt is starting to crack, so that will need to be replaced. I also suspect that I have a leaky front valve cover gasket, because there is a bit of sludge built up underneath it. It makes the exhaust manifolds smoke a little until they get hot enough to burn the oil off, then the smoking goes away.

Those are trivial problems considering that I drive this car the way it was designed to be driven - not abusively, but aggressively and spirited. It has never once let me down.

General Comments:

I bought this car in March of 2006. I wasn't even looking for a new car at the time, but this one was everything I had ever wanted in a grand prix - black, charcoal leather interior, HUD, sunroof, Bose, chrome torque-star wheels, you name it, and it was there. I test drove it, and bought it the next day. Going from a 4 banger hon-duh with the complete rice treatment (fart pipe exhaust, intake, lowered, etc... bought it that way, regretted every day of it), there was absolutely no comparison. This thing gave me goosebumps when I first drove it.

For a big, chubby, heavy car, this thing scoots! The torque is there instantly thanks to the supercharger, and the power doesn't fall off until you wind it out into the upper 5000 RPM range. I've already surprised several mustangs, ricers, and other supposedly "faster" cars, much to their dismay, and this GTP is still completely stock except for a fender-well intake that I fabricated myself, and performance tune. Without the baffles that the stock intake has, the flow restrictions are eliminated and the supercharger screams! Very cool, and it scares the people next to you when you race :)

The only real downside is the fuel the car needs. Being that the car is supercharged, it runs on premium only. And, since I love my car to death, I only run Shell V-Power in it, so my fuel costs are pretty high. However, this car gets INCREDIBLE highway mileage for a supercharged V6 - I averaged nearly 25 mpg on a trip from Toledo, OH to Denver, CO. Once I was out in Denver, I got a custom performance PCM tune done (reprogramming the fuel trims, timing, etc). This boosted my power slightly and increased my highway mileage to nearly 28 MPG! If you want to call BS, fine - I'll link you to a picture of my DIC. Of course, if you have your foot to the floor, you'll average about 15...but if you set the cruise control, you'll get very impressive gas mileage with plenty of power on tap when you need it.

The interior is typical pontiac, although I think that the Grand Prixs are nicer than most. Although the plastic is a little bit cheesy, it seems to be well put together, and it doesnt creak or squeak. Being that the car already has 60K miles on it, I figure that if the interior was going to make any noises at all, they would have emerged up by now. I'm happy to say that to this day, there are none. The doors are leather trimmed in certain areas to match the seats, which looks very nice. The guages glow a nice shade of red, again typical pontiac, something that I've come to really like. The Bose system seemed a little underpowered to me at first, but after tweaking it a little, I really like it. Enough bass to sound good without distorting, and enough high end to sound crisp. The heads up display is a gem that I probably couldnt live without now that I'm used to it...and I need it, too. I'm a fast driver, so it helps to be able to just glance down to check my speed without really taking my eyes off the road. The display has started to fade a little though, but I've heard that this can be remedied by re-soldering a contact in the HUD unit itself. Not a difficult task, I just haven't gotten around to it yet - besides, the HUD isn't dim enough to really bother me.

All of the controls are well laid out and easy to reach, and the seats are very cushy and comfortable, although there isn't much side support for agressive driving. This is great for the lazy drivers that go slow...but for the more spirited guys and gals out there, tighten up that seatbelt or your gonna slide around a little bitin the hard corners. All in all, I love this car and will probably keep it well into the future. With the right modifications, these can be extemely fast vehicles, while still being very reliable. I know of several daily-driven 12 second L67 powered vehicles (two being grand prixs, the other being a Regal GS - both cars share the same drivetrain).

To the people who have had poor experiences with these cars - you got lemons, ladies and gents. Plain and simple. Sorry for your bad luck, but every manufacturer has lemons. If anyone out there is considering buying one of these cars - DO IT! And get the GTP, its very, very worth it to have the L67 engine with the supercharger...