Quick Rant and question about repairs on GRAND AM

[Corey213]

So I bought a grand am about a month ago. The seller sold it right before he had to do maintenance on it. The car is at 101,000 miles. So what I have been doing this past month is replacing parts (spark plugs, wires, tires will be needed, etc) and replacing fluids (coolant, transmission will be next, oil change was needed right away). Well I did work on the spark plugs, wires and the fuel filters. With just basic home tools, all three jobs were tougher than expected, so when i decided to get my coolant changed, I thought a thermostat would be a good idea too, since it is just a small repair, something to throw in. Well from the place that GM put it, replacing that small piece of metal cost me more than replacing and disgarding the coolant! It makes me so mad. My $90 bill went up to $230! I am so mad on how GM has compacted this engine making it extremely tough for anyone to do their own work on the car. I noticed that if i wanted to replace the thermostat myself, I would have had to take out the air filter box and it would have still been a pain to get at the bottom nut. Even if i did, coolant would have went EVERYWHERE.

Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this. It has made me really mad but the car is still better than my old one. Thanks for letting me vent :(


Also, i know this could have went in the "What do you dislike the most on your Grand Am" but i forgot about that thread sorry

[GMFWDFAN]

From what I've seen the 3400 GA is fairly easy to work on...

At least it's not a 3.4 DOHC W-body. They have ZERO engine bay space and pretty much have to be dis-mantled in order to do ANY kind of maintainence.

[bballr4567]

I do agree that the tstat housing is in a weird ass place. I dont see why they just couldnt put a drop in tstat somewhere in the line like a lot of other vehicles.

Took me about 3 hours to change my tstat to a 180 degree one but it was worth it.