Pontiac Sunfire 2001 decent car?

I'm looking at a 2001 Pontiac Sunfire as a first car for my daughter the student. This one has 34k on it, CarFax says it is clean and it looks and drives fine as far as I can tell. It sure looks a lot faster with the spoiler and so forth than it drives, which is exactly what I want for her !

Any known gotchas with the L4 engine and auto transmission?

I do all of my own work on my cars BTW and will order the FSM to add to my collection.

We were looking at the Grand Am's but the 3.4L and it's intake manifold gasket problems have scared us away. It seems just about every used Grand Am on the dealers lot's that I have looked at has had gasket troubles, at least the ones where the dealers let me see the service history of the car.

It's just not worth the risk.

tia as usual..

psycho

(Also x-posted to alt.autos.gm)

Reply to
psycho_pastrami
Loading thread data ...

I forgot.

We are also looking at the Jetta (2001-2002) as well.

Any other suggestions for a decent/sporty car that is either American (or as close as we can get this days ie:Mexico) or German?

I hate Jap. cars :(

tia

psycho

Reply to
psycho_pastrami

Some people just don't like the cars period is what I gather. So my biggest suggestion is to just make darn sure SHE likes it, and that everything is comfortable and so forth. Otherwise, I think generally they are a very decent and reliable car. Cavalier of course is it's "twin". Including both, I've owned a '92 myself, I know someone with a

2000 and someone else with a '98, and yet another person at work with a 2002. None of them had really had problems or complained much about them. You can find things to complain about, but that's why they are cheap as the are too. I didn't run into problems with my '92 until it got old and had high mileage. Even then, it was just a water pump, and crank position sensor as the main problems. So my opinion is it should be an excellent car for her.

Tony

Reply to
Tony V.

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.