Thread: Back on my feet with a new set of horses:)

Just in case i have posted this in the wrong section, i'm positive, one of my many GP forum family members will point me in the right direction!

Where to begin......
I'll Start with thanking God, for the many blessings he has bestowed upon me, which has led me through an amazing journey, of happiness, heartache, and sacrifices that molded me into a GP enthusiast


Ok, So about 2 yrs ago i traded my 94 regal for a white 98 GP SE w 160,000 on it. I really liked the way it drove, and it had some considerable power for only housing a 3.1 v6! Then one night i was partying at a friends house, and had left the windows cracked a bit, and it rained. Went out to my car the next morning, and my windows wouldn't roll back up. About a month later i noticed the transmission starting to slip, from 1st to 2nd gear, and i realized it was time too trade it in for something else! All in all i had it for about 7 mo.

Then one day while going to my car lot to make a payment on the SE, sitting in the lot was a 99 GP GT! cherry red, black leather interior, way nicer looking than my SE! So I test drove it, fell in love, and made the trade. It had about 168,000 on it and needed struts in the front of it, had a few dings here and there, but over all was a pretty solid car! Definitely had more tourq. Decided no matter what happened, i was going to take care of it, and make it my project car!! But i had to own it before i could start fixing it up!! (the PAYOFF $6500.00, mainly bc i was upside down in my SE so i believe the actual price for the car was around $5000) so i worked my butt off everyday to make my payments on time.I also learned a lil while after purchasing the GT that there was another trim of the GP available, and it was way better than either of the 2 GP's i had possessed thus far. But i loved my GT and figured this was as good as it was probably going to get for me, and i had better be thankful, and less wishful. Then about 3 mo. into it my intake manifold melted and started dumping water into my engine. When it happened i was on my way to work, (and was late i might add).... so was in a hurry, and the car would only do like 40 mph max on the highway, no matter how much i pressed the pedal, that's as fast as she would go lol!! But she got me to work and that was all she wrote! My car sat in my work parking lot for the next mo, until i could get some money together to figure out what was wrong with her! Something i just remembered in this experience was that the only way i was able to transport my car was in a race car made trailer, I tried everything else before that and none of the car dolly's they offer at u-haul or anywhere else would fit it! The car just sits to low to the ground, and had i got it on the dolly,......(which i did and then reconsidered) it would have tore up the front air dam, and who knows what else!! Anyways i got it to my friends shop in the race trailer and he diagnosed it as a faulty intake. So we replaced it, and was up and running a few days later! So continued to pay on the car, and treat her good! Sometime around 6 months in i got into a moderate fender bender (so to speak) in my apartment parking lot which about 3 mo. later netted me about $1300! Instead of putting that money towards my payments, or my struts and not knowing what was about to happen to her in the future, the car was running fine, so i was thrifty and sprung for a ram air hood, $799 on PFYC.com and gave the rest to my body man to get her painted and back into shape! Also ordered a CAI off of ebay for about $30 ( realized this was stupid, bc it was a poorly made filter w no name when i recieved it), but was assured by some mechanic friends of mine, it would b fine, so i installed it, and enjoyed the whistle sound it made when i revved up the car! I really felt at that point i was in business lol!! so nieve!! Got her paid down to about 3500,had just purchased my kyb struts from pep boys locally and the very next day she started making this whining noise in the engine? No one could figure out what it was? So i took the struts back to pep boys and got my money back so i could be more prepared for my engine problems! then not to soon after that she started shaking pretty bad when i drove her, pretty much was in vibrate mode everywhere i drove, a few more weeks that no one could tell me what it was, and finally she died! Starting leaking oil from the front and rear of the motor, or tranny fluid, not sure, and wouldn't move unless she was at about 5000 rpm!! So i finally excepted that my fun times with her were over and now i was without a car once again! Really made me sad bc, i had so many plans for her, having become a member here on Grand Prix Forums to learn the many things i could do to make her a better car, all the while chatting w quality people that were very kind and helpful, that i felt i could create a serious bond w, having a love for GP's in common I felt like i had lost more than just my car, i was loosing a family and my enthusiasm! So after serious bitc#^% and moaning, and luckily having my beautiful fiance to help me get back and forth to work, I kept paying on my broke-down dreams lol!! So for 5 1/2 mo, i was without my car! Decided once i had it paid off i was going to buy a wrecked GTP and swap the engines and everything else i needed so that i would once again be back in the drivers seat of my GT, this time with a sweeter engine I gathered all the info i could get my hands on in order to have the engines swapped and just focused on paying her off all the while searching salvage yard after salvage yard, even auctions looking for a GTP so i could do the exchange! Was like trying to find a needle in a haystack around my location here in OKC! But i never gave up, and stayed with the search
On April 9, 09 i finally paid off the GT and became the proud owner of a 3000 lb paper weight with bad struts LMAO!! ( looking at it in hind sight, i can now laugh at this!!
The next day my Best-friend called me and asked if i would go with him to look at this jeep his girlfriend was financing for him, bc he was in need of a vehicle for about as long as i was. Well on the way, as we were headed down the road to the car lot, i noticed out of the corner of my eye a GP parked out in front of a school with a for sale sign on it! So naturally i got excited and asked him to turn around so i could see what kind it was! So we flipped around and parked next to the GP! as we were pulling up i could read the for-sale sign more clearly, and saw that they wanted $4000 for it. Wasn't until i got out of his car that i realized it was a GTP A 99 GTP to be exact, even more incredible was it was the exact same color as my GT, interior and exterior! I couldn't believe it... it was beauty to my eyes But i did not have $4000 to buy the car, so i wasn't that excited, and i didn't want to get my hopes up, just to be let down, as so many times had happen to me before!! So i checked it out, took down the no. and went on my way! The next day i contacted the owner of the car and asked if i could test drive it. She agreed and i met with her the following night. I was blown away by how elegent and smooth the car drove, all the while packing a punch, and very responsive when it needed it to be I was also impressed when i looked down at the dash and realized it only had 106,000 miles on it, was kept in a garage almost all its life, and when she drove...was like a baby This car seriously looked and felt like it came of the factory line the day before!! I was hooked, but knew i had alot of work ahead of me to accomplish if i was going to have any kind of possibility of buying this car! And knew the importance of getting the money ASAP before someone made her an offer, and it was gone! Even worse to some punk kid who wouldn't appreciate it for what it was, and would eventually rag it out, put a ton of miles on it, and sooner or later would trade it in for next to nothin, and it would end up on the lot just as my GT had previously, and obviously been awarded as its fate! I had fallen to much in love w GP's in the past few years too let this happen, so without a hope to my name, sat down and tried to figure out how to obtain something that seemed impossible! Starting with bad credit, with no light of day for a loan, wasn't born with a silver spoon, or a rich uncle... it almost seemed unlikely!! But i didn't give up, and put myself and my brain hard to work!! Within 4 days and $1000 saved i was able to scrape together the money borrowed from friends,my prayers and hard work, on April 13th i bought that beautiful 99 GTP! I had to sit back and take a breather when all was said and finalized, not believing what i had just accomplished in such little time I still can't believe it! There are times when i step outside to smoke a cig, or when i get up in the morning that i check to see if its really sitting in my driveway lol!! I am trully blessed, and thankful beyond and above everything else!! I have decided that until i have my friend paid back, and everything is good, im not going to add mods to it and spend money that i don't have, def learning from my past mistakes. The only thing i did to it the day i got it was swapped my ram air hood onto it which made it look amazing! Was already the same color and didn't cost me any extra....just time!! I also took her to the car wash yesterday and gave her a 3 hour bath. One other thing my woman and i have discussed springing for are the materials to build a car port since we don't have a garage, and i want to protect it from the lovely Oklahoma weather: hail and other wonderful mother nature offerings!
The moral to this long story i guess is, even when it seems like things in life are at thier worst, and you cant see the light of day... keep on, keepin on, don't give up, or lose your faith, and when the time is right something truly remarkable can happen! It did for me

Currently trying to figure out how to post pics of my car, so bare with me

i read the whole thing lol... now you just need to fix the gt....

LOL, yeah i know foSHO99... i tend to get a lil carried away, and very descriptive when i tell stories.Took me roughly 4 hrs to put it all together!! but i felt like it was important to tell, and not leave anything out so you could def understand the many hardships i went through that has brought me to where i am now That and i was bored

Your story reminded me of when I got my GTP. I had been looking for a GP for over 7 months, everytime a carfax would come up with it being wrecked or a dealer check would come back with alot of warranty work on one I wanted. One day coming home from work I noticed a Silvermist GTP with a for sale sign on it right across from my house in a parking lot. It was the one I had been drooling about that a woman down the street from me owned. It was cherry then, perfect body, nothing ever done to it and woman driven!! It was a little more than I wanted to give for it, but considering every other GP I had looked at, I could not pass it up. This was in 2003 and it was a 98 with only 48,500 miles. I have drove the fukin shiit out of the car since and I still love looking at it and driving it.
Congrats!!!

wow, 98silvermist sounds like u found someone who took care of thier stuff, but didnt know what they had either!! 48,000 i bet that was immaculate sweet deal!!

I found my GT totally by accident, I was test driving some P.O.S. ford escort or something just because my friend wanted me to "at least try it". Got about 1/2 mile down the road when I told the salesman the car was garbage and obviously had serious engine problems, so he starts listing the other things he had in the 5K price range. The second I heard him utter the words 98 Grand Prix I whipped that ford around :]. Loved the car the second I got in it, I literally almost bought it without so much as a test drive, but decided that wasn't a good idea haha.