Help with 1999 Pontiac Bonneville

Console yourself. If you'd purchased a really good car, some A-hole would have run a red light and totaled it the month after you bought it.

Actually, just after I bought it for $1000 some A-hole rear ended me at a stop light. His insurance co. totaled it out for $3000. I bought it back for $300 and paid $700 for the repairs. That was 8 years ago. Since then I have probably spent another $2000 to keep it running.

Look! If you are really a man, you'll throw the wife down on the bed tonight, make mad passionate love to her and somehow manage to convince her that SHE wants you to have a, "good old boy, red neck pickup" to ride around in and show her off.

Either that, or get down on your knees and beg like the rest would have to do.

I would rate that as a good answer except it's my wife who is begging me to go out and buy a truck. She even threw me onto the bed and made mad passionate love to me. My problem is that I am too cheep to go out and buy one. I need my Pontiac to break down and leave me stranded in the wilderness before I can justify to myself buying another vehicle.

I give up! There's no hope for you.

Snip it off!

I mean snip off the damn wires, starting with the big ones at the battery. Don't forget to snip the hoses running to the brakes and have a go on the tyres.

I am sure you will manage!

Calculatory you are in for nothing on this car right now. A major repair of 300 bucks will point you towards a new car - I am sure!

Well there is your answer! Have the wife drive you out to the wilderness, and drop you off. By the time you walk back, I bet she can break it permanently!

The weakest link is the intake manifold gasket, which when it fails lets the cooling fluid flood a cylinder or two. At any appreciable road speed, the engine hydrolocks. I'm surprised it hasn't happened already.

Jiggle the transmission cooling lines, they typically rust out and just need some help to fail.

Change the fuel filter, located near the B pillar under the chassis. Usually the gas lines will have rusted to the point where the gas lines twist and collapse with the work required to remove the gas filter.

The rear brake line that crosses over from the driver side to the passenger side rusts quite well and will probably break open if you jiggle it.

The in-tank fuel pump rarely lasts more than 100,000 miles so just keep driving it, it's at ticking bomb.

Rear brake line: it happened a few years back and I fixed that. Nothing else that you mention has happened yet after 250 K miles. But you give me hope.

Would you mind taking some chances with a Iron Bath tub? If put correctly on a road with sufficient length to gain speed you might be able to break the bath and the car simultaneously.

Have fun!

Bath breaking with the Cavalier, attitude and determination.....

I drove my 1994 Dodge Caravan to the moon (>260,000 miles) and then finally ran it into the ground two months ago. The only big deal was brake work at ~175,000 miles. Other than that and normal oil changes, no special maintenance. As others have noted, the USA has regained some reputation for quality.

That's easy, go buy the truck, park it next to the Pontiac....force yourself to drive the truck for a week.....then when you come out in the morning on the 8th day, make your choice on which one you want to drive that day....if it's the Pontiac, take the truck back....if it's the truck, scrap the Pontiac....

Life is too short....

Just don't run into a brick wall while watching the TV.

One of these right...

???

You could do a pickup conversion on it.

Folk convert their old Toyota Camrys to pickups here..

...sweet ride!

Give it to a niece or nephew who just got their drivers license. You can still keep an eye on it, for nostalgia purposes of course, and they will have destroyed it in less than a month. Maybe they will get a careless or wreckless driving ticket out of it so they can't drive for a while. Your sister or brother will love that. They can stop the insurance for a few months and save some money!

Don't give it too the wife or one of your kids! They will spend your money getting it fixed even before you know that it was in a wreck!

Good Luck, Old Salt

Have you thought of removing the Bonneville nameplate and replacing it with a Cavalier one? Sure(mis)fire way to make it break!

Seriously though, there are probably at least 2 charities in your area, which have a car donation fundraising program. By donating it, you could probably get a tax write-off big enough for a down payment on something you can afford; and, that should take some of the sting out of opening your wallet for making the rest of the payments. If that doesn't appeal to you, then there really is no hope for you.

Advertise here in Sweden and it will sell very quickly. No shortage of buyers here for American cars.

When I lived in Nashua, NH we could just take an old car down to Lowell and park it on the street. They would disappear within 24 hours.

And get a forgetful old f@art like me who'll likely leave the keys in it and it'll disappear within minutes.

Hooker

Give you wife some sugar

then give your car some sugar...in the tank

give your wife the sugar where ever you want

both will wake up all glassy eyed!

If this 3.8L engine is the Buick version (and I believe it is), I hate to break it to you, but this is one of the most durable engines GM ever produced. This engine has many variations over the years, with improvements every time. If you are expecting it to break, I think you may be waiting a while.

That is the crux of my problem, the engine and drive train seem to be indestructible. The problem is after 15 years hard use and 15 years of New England winters, the rest of the car is disintegrating around the engine.

She is just like me. With 68 years of hard use and 68 New England winters, my body is falling apart around an otherwise sound heart and mind.

I guess that the time is coming when I'll have to send her off to Brady Brow (where good cars go when they die). Is that what they are going to do with me?