My Parents had a 2000 Bonneville SE (purchased new) that I ended up buying from them in Dec of 2011 with 175K on it. Less than 3 weeks later it was totaled in an accident closing it's life with 177K.

I always loved the look, comfort and ride quality of the Bonnie. It was an overall reliable car. Not the quickest thing off the line...but it had excellent hwy passing power. Around 100K it did give us a run for our money with issues, but once those were taken care of, it was pretty solid going forward. Power Windows sucked, 3 of 4 needed new regulators in the 11 years we had it, the tranny needed a rebuild at 118K, as for the 3800, typical intake gasket issue at 100K and lots of sensors needed to be replaced on that engine (not that big of a deal). The tranny and Intake gaskets were the biggest issues, everything else was minor.

Overall, I wish I still had that car, if I did, it would have close to 250,000 miles on it and I am pretty sure it would still be running.

 

Not really. It's outside of the price range. If I was going to change models, I'd go for a Grand Prix GXP, but I'm looking at Bonneville because I specifically like it's styling the best. I even like the look of the "cockpit". I'm slowly learning though, that Bonneville GXP probably should be avoided, and there aren't enough SLE's to find a good one.

I've got a year. Maybe the Grand Prix will grow on me, or maybe I will find something else that attracts my fancy. Charger always looks good until I look into it's interior, Taurus SHO is still too new, Impala blows, and I don't want a 300. Am I forgetting anything interesting from the Big 3?

 

What's your budget and we can think of an idea.

 

G6's are probably too small, avengers have no holding of value, the 200's are nice. How about a caddilac cts? Not from the big 3 but its gm and they are sweet cars. My brother paid like $8,000 for his 2004 cts.

 

Budget is around $10k. I like short term loans with reasonable payments.

With that kind of budget, I can find most high-end mid-2000's cars with around 50-70k miles on them. Not looking for a project though, and I drive 30k miles a year, so I need reliability.

I would prefer to keep it within the American Autos...

Cadilac CTS is an idea, but I didn't really like it then and don't really love it now. Only Caddy I drool over is an ATS 2.0L Turbo I4.

 

• Spare wheels: 20 great second vehicles for less than $10K - MSN ... < Click 2 view/explore ?
  
  editorial.autos.msn.com/spare-wheels-20-great-second-vehicles-for-less-t...‎
  
  
  
  
  
  

 

I'm against i4's haha. I drool over the cts v that v8 is BA.

 

Yeah, none of those cars are actually under 10 Grand in reasonable condition. Check out the comments and look some of them up. lolol