Posted: 12/24/2007 12:45:13 PM EDT
| I'm looking at an 04 Gran Prix with about 87K on it. Looks great, dealer says it was a two owner and meticulously maintained, and runs fantastic. Asking price ~9000. Opinions? Anyone own a Gran Prix of this generation? How do you like it? Anything to really watch out for, especially approaching 90K miles? |
| The fleet I maintain has quite a few Grand Prixs in it. The V6 is nearly bullet proof (i've only replace 2 cams over the years in them). Transaxles hold up well, only thing I see with some regularity is wheel bearing/hubs noisey, mostly caused by if the vehicle was up in the midwest a bit, rust makes the hugs get noisy. I've done few hvac control heads for different issues. |
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I have a 97 GTP. It has a 104,000 miles on it. I have replaced the following 2 window switches Super Charger Front lights Power Steering pump and lines Top end rebuilt at 50,000 (under warrenty) Replaces all the pullies and idler arms Leaked water into passenger area Needs to be replaced Lights again Fan hearher switch Struts Currently looking to trade in. I do love the supercharged motor. |
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Wife's last car was an '03. We drove it for 38,000 miles with no trouble and I even started to like driving it more than my truck. When the lease ran out we debated purchasing it but the deciding factor was only that it was too big and she wanted a more compact model. |
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Great motors. Ive had two so far and put over 250,000 miles on each of them before I got rid of them. No problems with either of the motors, have had to put on a water pump, alternator and a few other small parts, but nothing engine related. There are better deals out there on used Grand Prix's than the one youre looking at though. I just bought an 07 with 18,000 miles on it for $13,900 from a local dealer and my fiancee got an 07 with 28,000 miles on it for 12,900 from the same dealer. |
Yeah, my only real complaint with my 07 is the low roof line/head room now that you mention it. I don't think they offer the super charged engine anymore for the Grand Prix's. You can either get the 200 hp 3.8 V6 or you can get the 303hp 5.3 V8. The super charged older ones wouldn't be good candidates for high mileage cars in my experience. |
Wow, I had no idea. Why are they going for such low prices? Such a bad residual value sort of scares me. |
The one I bought was a base model, no extra options at all. Hers had the "prefered package" which has some extra interior trim, leather wraped steering wheel and shift knob, compass, temperature, a few other buttons and remote start. We got them for $1,000 less than the dealer normally asks for them through a sale, so we enede up about $3,500 below blue book on both of them. I'm assuming they were so cheap because there are a shit ton of grand prix's out there and they weren't really anything special option wise. I'd been looking at grand prixs for about a year before I bought, good deals are out there. I know someone elsle who bought an 04 GT with 40,000 or so miles and paid $12,900, which is almost what I paid for an 07 with 18,000 miles. Paying more for an older car just for the GT options didn't make any sense to me, so I went with the plain 07. |
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I had a 97 GTP that I bought in 2001 and I had about 99k miles when I traded it in. I had a few mods done to it and I drove that thing like I stole it. I put some very hard miles on it and never had any issues with it. I currently have an 01 GTP I bought in 03 for $16K and it had 19K miles on it. I currently have almost 90K on it now and the only thing I replaced so far was the wheel hub assemblies on each side, belts, plugs and wires. The plugs didn't even look all that bad but I did it anyway. The 3800 series motors are top notch in my opinion. I am hoping to get well into the 100K mile mark before buying another car. Good luck with whatever you end up buying. |