You Auto Know-Pontiac Sunfires

  This is our first segment of You Auto Know. Each segment our Auto Expert John Weston tells us his spin on what cars to buy and which ones to hit the brakes on. If you have a segment idea for E-Nepa send us an email anytime.

You-Auto-Know The Pontiac Sunfire

The Pontiac Sunfire is a very reliable car.  It has a 4-cylinder engine and is gas friendly.  It also very rarely had problems.  Doing some searching around on the internet or asking former owners of Sunfires, they will agree that they hardly ever had to drop a lot of money into their car.  There have been reports of rollovers on this car.  When the owner was driving them the car would reach that mark that everyone fears.  The 200,000 mile mark.  At 199,999.9 miles these cars still ran great and were still used by people who were brave enough to take their high miles car to farther places.  Due to the recent downturn in the economy and the closing of the Pontiac name, these great reliable cars will no longer be produced.

                Some problems these cars have faced are starting problems (most common in the years 1996 and earlier).  Cars all around the market used to be built with metal plates as the battery’s grounding unit and due to rust on the grounding unit many some would not start.  I owned one myself and I was told multiple times it was my battery or my alternator, which I knew wasn’t bad because they were just replaced.  When I finally was told by a mechanic of the common problem in this model year, I was able to ground the battery through the use of a wire.  The wire ran from the battery to the closest screw or not on the car that could be used for grounding.  After that the car ran fine.

                If you are looking for a used car, this is one to put onto your list to look at.

Story:John Weston

Editor & Graphic Producer: Nick Hughes