Thread: Noobie From NY

Hello everyone! I just bought an 02' Grand Prix GT Coupe this morning and it will be my first car pass the year 2000. I just finally got rid of my 86' Olds Cutlass. The old girls body just could hold up anymore so it was time. I got the GP with 135K miles on the clock and in pretty decent condition. The radio was stolen from it so that will probably be first on the list of things "to do". Other than that it just needs some TLC on the interior and a good detailing. I know it's a V6 but I'm not sure of it's displacement yet. I do know it's not the supercharged model. I hope to be able to pick some brains here on the site as I go along. She seems like a sweet ride but I won't know for sure until I get some "seat time" in her. As soon as I get her cleaned up I'll toss some pics up. In the meantime I'll just cruise around the site and see if I can find out some more info on all the gadgets inside.

Welcome to the site! I too have recently joined and have found a large knowledge base here on the site as well as some good people. Here is one site that may give you more info on your car and I know there is tons out there but a place to get you started. 2002 Pontiac Grand Prix

Originally Posted by NAC

Welcome to the site! I too have recently joined and have found a large knowledge base here on the site as well as some good people. Here is one site that may give you more info on your car and I know there is tons out there but a place to get you started. 2002 Pontiac Grand Prix

Thanks so much. At 50 years old, I've never had one of these "new fangled" cars. I was always into older 70's/80's cars before this. I couldn't even spell ODBII until yesterday! I'm apologizing now ahead of time because since I have no owner's manual (missing), I'm going to have a boatload of questions. I hope to not be too much of a bother here on the site. I moderate a Yamaha site since motorcycles are really my thing, and we are very patient there with newcomers. I hope it's the same here.

Start by reading stickies, heres a good one from this section: http://www.grandprixforums.net/new-m...ads-36503.html

Thanks Matt, will do! I found the owner's manual online and it's over 300 pages! My Olds manual was probably 28 pages. They have come a long way! Thanks for the link!

Most of it will be common sense about using the seatbelt and other safety features.

However there are some useful things in there like fluid capacity, how to change how the vehicle responds to the lock signal from the key fob etc.

Thats one of my problems right there. The car came with just a spare key (no fob) and the P.O. said the alarm doesn't work. The stock radio was stolen from it so that has to be replaced as well. I do notice that as I'm driving the "security" sign flashed on the dashboard non-stop. I'd like to find out if I could somehow use the key I have and some sort of failsafe way to see if I could arm the system without the fob. Like I said, tons of questions!

One other quick question: I know these cars are broken up into different generations. Could someone tell me what generation my 02' is classified as?

well since we're lazy: 97-03, and 04-08 is referred to as 04+, 88-96 is pre-gen.

using generation of W body doesn't work as there is 1, 1.5, 2 and 3. Some we saw in grand prixs, some were only used for other platforms and even if its the same gen of W body, some things are incompatible.

Or you can say sixth gen grand prix for 97-03 and so on.

Most will just use the first line there. And if rare ever sees this post he'll rage about how "pregen" is somehow derogatory.

Originally Posted by matt5112

well since we're lazy: 97-03, and 04-08 is referred to as 04+, 88-96 is pre-gen.

using generation of W body doesn't work as there is 1, 1.5, 2 and 3. Some we saw in grand prixs, some were only used for other platforms and even if its the same gen of W body, some things are incompatible.

Or you can say sixth gen grand prix for 97-03 and so on.

Most will just use the first line there. And if rare ever sees this post he'll rage about how "pregen" is somehow derogatory.

Sorry Matt, I found out it was a 6th Gen but wasn't able to delete the post from the thread. Thanks anyway for the explaination.