Pontiac Grand Am advice

agonair · May 28, 2013

My kids drive a well worn 1995 Pontiac Grand am. Today, I
learned it has a blown head gasket and will cost between 13
and 1400 to repair. What are my chances of success using
some type of stop leak to repair? Any thoughts and product
suggestions?

optiman · May 28, 2013

Black magic can stuff does not work. just replace the gasket. no short cuts here
Paul

JDJACK · May 28, 2013

stop leak will not work, head is likely cracked. use to work on a lot of these.

JD Seller · May 28, 2013

Hope it is just the head gaskets and not a cracked head too. My wife loves Grand Ams. We have had two of them. Both of them V-6 engines. The first one was a 3.4 and this one is a 3.2 I think. Both of them blew the head gaskets. The first one got both heads too. The total repair bill 8 years ago was just shy of $3400 with all new parts. The second did it about 13 months ago. It was $1300 without any head issues. GM had junk gaskets form the factory on these cars. If you order the gaskets from GM now you get a GM box with a Felpro box with the gaskets inside of it. The issue is that the cars are a nightmare to work on and the labor costs are high to have it done right.

When this Grand Am has any more issues there will be no more Grand AMs in this house.

Sprint 6 · May 29, 2013

JD Seller, Factory GM gaskets are made by Victor. The head set comes in a bag, not a box. If the place that repaired your car showed you a Felpro box, they are not very honest.

S2710 · May 29, 2013

I have a v6 in a ford and it got hot on me and started to use water and you could smell the sweet smell in the exhaust. I bought a bottle of sealer and put in and it slowed it down, but it still used some water. I put in a second bottle and now I only add about a gallon of liquid a year. I may have just got lucky. I used a liquid that looked like copper filings. It was in a bottle about a pint in size.

Bob

Gambles · May 29, 2013

I think your car either has the Quad 4 or the 3.1, both of which are notorious for having problems. If it were mine, I'd look at a different car.

RyaninKS · May 29, 2013

We have a 99 grandam that is my wifes daily driver. About a year ago it started steaming and using water. Of course we assumed the worse and i started pricing parts. I have a friend that works at OREILLYS and he advised me to check the intake gaskets out before anything. He said he sells more head gaskets sets, just to have them send them back and get just the intake gasket sets. He was right. THis is on the 3.4 V-6

Gambles · May 29, 2013

My daughter had a '98 Monte Carlo with the 3.1 engine. (Same as 3.4) The intake manifold gaskets went out and I replaced them. About a year later, a head gasket went out. I was never so happy as to donate a car to be made into something Chinese.

Bob · May 29, 2013

What engine?

hd6gtom · May 29, 2013

We find that most of the time the intake goes out and people don't catch it in time. The engine then gets hot and takes out the head gasket. I think our guys can do the intakes in about an hour, course they are experienced.

Will Herring · May 29, 2013

(quoted from post at 11:12:21 05/29/13) We have a 99 grandam that is my wifes daily driver. About a year ago it started steaming and using water. Of course we assumed the worse and i started pricing parts. I have a friend that works at OREILLYS and he advised me to check the intake gaskets out before anything. He said he sells more head gaskets sets, just to have them send them back and get just the intake gasket sets. He was right. THis is on the 3.4 V-6

I had a '96 Bonneville and the intake manifold gasket went out. Replaced that and she still went another 20K miles before I traded her off at over 215K.

Pontiac Grand Am advice

agonair

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optiman

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JDJACK

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JD Seller

Well-known Member

Sprint 6

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S2710

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Gambles

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RyaninKS

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Gambles

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Bob

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hd6gtom

Well-known Member

Will Herring

Well-known Member

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