New To Grand Ams

darkhaven

For my girlfriends birthday I'm getting her a car, she has her heart set on a Grand Am. She has two lil ones so shell need the four door. Im looking at 1998s-2002. What Is the most dependable motor trans combo for these cars? What are some issues with these cars I should watch our for when I go to buy one? Any of those years I should stay away from?

burdawg

Personally, even though I've owned three, I wouldn't consider a Grand Am for a used car. If she's dead set on it though, I'd go with the latest model you can get with the lowest mileage you can find. In my opinion it's tossup on reliability between the 6 cylinder and the 4, with the consideration that the tech 4 is better than the quad 4 in many ways. The 6 has the nasty habit of leaking intake manifold gaskets, especially in the year ranges your looking at.
It would be beneficial if you bought from a private party with good maintenance record history.

94grandamgtfan

I've read this and heard this from those who work on cars that the 4 cyl motors are not very good. i heard many issues, but their v6 motors are very good.

case and point: my 1994 grand am is a 3.1L v6 and I'm running on 205,000+ miles on it and it runs like i just bought a brand new car(it also still has the great pep it had when it was new)

if your looking for 1998-2002, you really can't go wrong as they made some good progress in that time, really I'd recommend anything 1994 or newer.

here are some links that should help you better:

http://consumerguideauto.howstuffworks.com/1999-to-2005-pontiac-grand-am.htm
http://consumerguideauto.howstuffworks.com/1992-to-1998-pontiac-grand-am.htm
http://www.edmunds.com/pontiac/grandam/review.html

in all I love the grand am and I'm very sad to hear the demise of both grand am and pontiac, something that will leave me wondering where to go when I consider a new car in the future.