OK I just have to share this for the sake of sharing....

So my wife has a '94 Grand Am with a 3100. As of '08, that car has been used during the winter (she has an '01 v6 Mustang Convertible she drives in the summer). Currently it has 17X,XXX miles on it. Right when the Mustang came out for summer, the steering rack blew. I got that changed, then it has a brake and fuel line leak (a friend of mine is helping tackle that).

I too have a '94 Grand Am that just crossed 200K miles last week (I'd celebrate with pics of the odometer and maybe a video of it crossing, but since I swapped clusters years ago, I have about another 7,300 before it reads it). Since I bought the Monte, I decided my Grand Am is not worth the time/effort to sell (I'm driving it until the wheels fall off for the most part). But by keeping the Grand Am, my Monte also doesn't get driven in snow (big plus in my book, the Monte was bought to be a daily driver but right now is a bit of a toy like my '84 Camaro is that I'm slowly working to restore).

Yesterday, I got home from work, had to look under the hood of my Grand Am, I heard a hiss suddenly start, followed by a POP and all the anti-freeze dumped out of the car. I rolled my eyes at this. I know from other Grand Ams I've worked on, the heater core blew (luckily on those cars, not a horrible job to swap out). But, I am impressed.... Factory original core, with the crappy plastic inlet/outlet and it made it just a few miles over 200K!!! I consider that impressive!!!

Just sucks.... It couldn't wait for me to finish the other one.... UGH!

In all honestly, neither car has been horrible as fair as repairs. I truely feel for what was spent on them to purchase them and what has been spent to keep them on the road has not been unreasonable (but that's because I do my own wrench work, taking them to a mechanic any time things happened would have caused them to be dumped a LONG time ago). And to be honest, the drive trains in both cars run outstanding! The bodies rotting are the only real problem I see on them (hopefully we can squeeze 1-2 more winters from them before permanent retirement).

I just have to get both these Grand Ams finished by October. I think it will all work out.

I'm sure everyone here can relate to my feelings.

 

Oh, I think I can relate...

I have too many old cars. My daughter drives a '73 Mercedes 220. Immediately after finishing some preventive maintenance on radiator hoses, I get the 'Daaaad, help!' call from the road. Fixing one problem caused other hoses up the line to blow. Crap... Replaced them. A month later, the radiator developed a small leak. Turns out it needed major help. Crap... Off to the radiator shop. Replaced all belts at the same time. Back on the road. Brakes started squeeling. Crap... Installed new shoes all the way around (no disks on this old timer). Daughter and old car shipped off to college; both apparently doing fine.

At about the same time, the '86 Jag XJ6 I'm restoring started conking out once warmed up. Ignition module was dying. Crap... Replaced ignition module. A week later I replaced the aging ignition coil with a better unit off a Jag V-12. Wasn't a direct swap because new coil didn't have a ballast resister; had to rewire. One stupid wiring mistake later (I reversed polarity on new coil) and I fried the new ignition module. Crap... Back to O'Reilly for a new ignition module. (BTW, I've become a BIG fan of O'Reilly lately. They are GREAT about returns, even covering dumb-*** mistakes under warranty.) Installed new ignition module, rewired ignition coil (correctly this time), and was back on the road. About that time my wife says, "Honey, what's that dripping at the back of your car?' Driver side rear brake caliper leaking. Crap... Installing new calipers this week. While back under there, tried to remove driver side gas tank to fix a leak (this car has two independent tanks). Turns out previous owner Bondo'd the crap out of the bottom of the left rear quarter panel. Can't get it loose. Crap... Gary, my savior of a mechanic, to the rescue. He's cutting it loose for me this week. Hopefully it will be back on the road by the weekend.

Old cars can be a blast. But sometimes everything just seems to go wrong at once. Luckily my '02 Monte has been almost flawless for 130K+ miles and is still going strong. (Knock on wood)

 

 

I'm impressed. First, the Grand Ams that lasted 200,000+ miles.

Secondly, out of the first three posts, Space's post is the shortest.

 

I bought that Grand Am in '03 with 86K on it and it has a 3100 under the hood. I bragged I would have that car either 5 year or until 200K miles (back then I drove a LOT more mile, but then my mileage went down in half in '04 when I changed jobs/locations). Regardless, many people told me I was NUTS and that car would never see either of those goals (unless I dumped LOADS of $$$ to keep it going). Well, I feel this year I proved them wrong succeeding at both my goals!
Without car payments, not counting brakes/tires, I think the most I have spent on repairs in a single year was $350 (and I do my own work with help of friends). I think that's pretty modest.

BTW - Space, Geneva on the Lake is about 20-30 minutes east of me if I recall (I have not had much reason to venture there but once or twice), but we are TOTALLY in the snow belt.

I am convinced body rot will claim those Grand Ams I work on before the drive trains die!

And Sparky-88, thanks for the story. Sounds like my pain this last month or so. Goes to show, many people share the same type of story!