Goodbye - sold my Bonneville. ~250k miles and still strong
Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 10:06 pm
This club has been imensely helpful during the 7 years I've owned my 1992 Pontiac Bonneville.
I just wanted to give a recap of my ownership. I bought the car with 120k miles on it. My car had somewhere around 230-260K miles on it when I sold it. The odometer quit working at 140K miles, and seemed to only turn over about half the time (the speedo was fine). The odometer said 203K when I sold it. So if it turned over half of the time since 140k, thats 266k miles. Last time I checked it, it was actually turning over closer to 70% of the time, so I'm really not sure on the actual mileage.
Anyway, I've really not had any major repairs needed during that time. The biggest thing was probably throwing the cam sensor magnet. I read thats a $500+ job at the dealer, I just glued mine through the sensor hole and its been fine ever since. That was probably around 160k miles.
I had read on this forum that the '92s will have problems with burnt valves, due to their lack of a pcv valve. This had me worried for a while, but it never became a problem for me.
I had to have the AC clutch replaced once, but other than that the AC is all original. (since I got it anyway, it had been converted to R134a at some point before my ownership).
I'm amazed at how well the car has held up. All the power windows and locks work like new, and I've never replaced any of them. The starts and runs reliably (love the 3800 engine). BTW I bought the car in 2002 for $2800, and sold it now (Feb 2009) for $900. Not bad! It was an SE with leather, NOT the budget model with cloth and bench seats.
I just wanted to give a recap of my ownership. I bought the car with 120k miles on it. My car had somewhere around 230-260K miles on it when I sold it. The odometer quit working at 140K miles, and seemed to only turn over about half the time (the speedo was fine). The odometer said 203K when I sold it. So if it turned over half of the time since 140k, thats 266k miles. Last time I checked it, it was actually turning over closer to 70% of the time, so I'm really not sure on the actual mileage.
Anyway, I've really not had any major repairs needed during that time. The biggest thing was probably throwing the cam sensor magnet. I read thats a $500+ job at the dealer, I just glued mine through the sensor hole and its been fine ever since. That was probably around 160k miles.
I had read on this forum that the '92s will have problems with burnt valves, due to their lack of a pcv valve. This had me worried for a while, but it never became a problem for me.
I had to have the AC clutch replaced once, but other than that the AC is all original. (since I got it anyway, it had been converted to R134a at some point before my ownership).
I'm amazed at how well the car has held up. All the power windows and locks work like new, and I've never replaced any of them. The starts and runs reliably (love the 3800 engine). BTW I bought the car in 2002 for $2800, and sold it now (Feb 2009) for $900. Not bad! It was an SE with leather, NOT the budget model with cloth and bench seats.