Originally Posted by
trickytransam
What do you want, a cookie?
Since when does a Regal become a service vehicle. HOw many cops/taxis/fleet vehicles use buick regals unless its specific to their needs. (Besides rental companies)
Okay lets list them, or atleast the ones that i can think of in your vague description of service vehicle. About 90 percent of the police vehicles in my home town of Springfield, as well as where i currently reside. Are Ford Crown Victoria's and Mercury Grand Marqui's. The remaining 10 percent is a small portion of the downtown police department which is running the new model's of the Malibu and impala. As for other emergency vehicles. The Sheriff's run an entirely Ford and Dodge fleet consisting of F150's for intercepting semi trucks, Crown Victorias, and Dodge Chargers. Nextly the fire department asside from the fire trucks. Thier smaller vehicles designed for carrying paramedics also run Ford Explorers. So far i dont see a single 3800 vehicle in this group. As for "service vehicles" you did not clearly define this team, i meant as service vehicles for the actual company which is what i meant by GM service vehicle. I bought the Buick used just above 100,000 miles direct from a GM service driver who drove across the country for the company in this car. The Buick was actually one of the common choices because of its reliable drive-train and comfortable interior
Yea, you also get a 3/36K warranty on the body, and only 5 years on that powertrain. It ain't all that great.
You missed the drift - you don't bring an iconic car back from the dead just to save your hide in the industry.
This is mostly incorrect as well. First of all the other two members of the big three had already brought their iconic cars back from the dead long before chevy decided to. Ill admit pontiac fell through by bringing out the gto as a re badged vauxhall manaro, which made me fairly angry since me and my father happen to be past owners of the original. But, Chevy brought back the camaro as competition the 60's style was back and that is what people wanted in their sports car. Ford had redesigned the new mustang in tribute to the old style late 60's styling. Ford had also brought back the Ford GT in 2006 to only have it fail. And Dodge had already brought back the Challenger and the Charger which had both been dead much longer than the Camaro. The Camaro hasnt even been dead for 10 years and your complaining. If you're going to make a big deal out of the Camaro being brought back you should also take note of the other two big three members as they happen to be the main cause. The Camaro however is not what is keeping general motors afloat. As of may 2010 two of the top 10 best selling cars were the Silverado and the Malibu, the camaro however was much lower on the list
For a snot nosed teen, it's alot. Most dont know to do it, most don't care.
That's why I posted it because there's a large percentage of drivers that ARE unaware of these tasks.
Just so you know i'm a 19 year old going on 20, and I'm an engineering college student with a literal pile of student loans to pay off once I graduate. Money isn't easy to come by yet I dont find maintenance to be an issue, my issue is saving up the money to build my car the way I want it to be. I realize that i am much more experienced with vehicles than the average car owner out there. However i also realize oil changes and tire rotations aren't all that expensive to have done or to do yourself neither is any of the maintenance that you mentioned in your earlier post.
You may think this is common knowledge, but it isn't. You may have the skills to maintain properly but other people don't. Most people drive their cars until they drop, find out that it's too expensive for a shop to fix, so then they come here in search of free help.
For this portion i would like to point out that if any owner actually decided to crack open the likely dust covered and cobweb coated owners manual they would notice multiple diagrams and helpful tips for the maintenance knowledge they require. Otherwise they can always go to a place like good year and pay the 25 bucks every 3000 miles or so for an oil change. This shouldn't be hard considering theres an oil life gauge on every grand prix 97 through 03. I know some ignorant people and im sure everyone does. But if you cant see the glowing red screen in the middle of your dash saying oil life 0% then you shouldn't be driving.
Borrowed time. It'll catch ya!
As for this statement, no it wont, and no it hasn't. I spend time every weekend checking my vehicle over as well as the standard oil change, alignments, inspections, and tire rotations that any good owner should do. I put a 98,000 miles on the buick plus the 100,000 or so it had when i got it. And it never had a single issue asside from one window motor going out. Which is impressive with a 11 year old car, as it was when i owned it. As for the grand prix its in perfect health at 121,000 miles and going strong.
Where? Trans shops. Personal experience, and lots and lots of wrenching. Clutches slip, not gears. We're talking transmissions, not engines. Look at a good rebuild kit for a 4T60 and 4T65 and you'll see improvements that are made over a stock transmission for reliability.
For this one. This entire paragraph aside from the first sentence or so is what people would call nit-picking. Its more common to hear the term gear slippage than clutch slippage in my particular circle of friends. Pardon my usage of the word, considering the fact that gears can't really slip unless you have done something completely idiotic any other person would know what i ment. And yes i did in fact mean transmission and if you hadnt understood what i meant than you wouldn't have wrote this so that means the other readers understood it as well. As for the "stock improvements" the stock tranny is plenty strong when I opened mine up to replace the overdrive gear the everything else was in near perfect shape. However if someone ran there car into the dirt or simply didn't take care of it or upped the engines hp I can see stock improvements being required just so it can handle the extra work load. So for that portion yea I'd say your correct on that standpoint considering how bad some people are on there cars.
You mean the pan gasket that you have to replace anyway? I see...
(Have you done this on any of your vehicles?)
You have merit on the thinner fluid and 100k is getting on the fringe of leaving it be. Moreso it's because you loose all the clutch/friction material in fluid suspention on a high mileage trans, and when you remove all that, suddenly there's nothing slippery to ride on. So a old transmission can suddenly become a dead transmission.
As for this part, that was a general fact about transmissions that happens to be typical. Its not specific to any one situation. To give an example ill use the car which you seem to dislike. The 2010 camaro, to change transmission fluid all you have to do is pump out the old from the fluid cap on top of the tranny and pump in some new no removal of pan required. However when i have swapped fluid in the transmissions of some of the muscle cars ive worked on the leaking has been the big issue, nothing else. So as such I had not taken it into account, so i will take your word on it.
This isn't a who's right who's wrong competition. I posted that generic list as a rough guide. If you take it to the literal Nth degree, you shouldn't be reading an online forum.
I agree. No this is not a whose is right and who is wrong competition at all. This entire posting was about how one guy thought he might give up on pontiac, and as a member of a grand prix forum it is not our job to insult his vehicle. It is our job to help somone with issues and offer up our opinions. Not to bash the car the forum is based off of or the company that made it. I have not been a part of the forum for long but these are the things that a forum should be about. If you do not like the car then why spend so much time in a forum talking about how bad it and its company is. As for making a list of maintenance problems. I do believe that if a person has the thought of coming to a forum like this to ask people about his cars issues there is a pretty good chance he takes care of simple maintenance.
Ok Pot. 
