Strolling the stroll, kind of.
It was time for Pontiac to stroll the stroll. Having claimed because the automobile’s inception that the Grand Am was infused with the identical expertise and character as wonderful European fashions of comparable dimensions, Pontiac was lastly in a position to put its cash the place its mouth was. Effectively, kind of.
1989 Pontiac Grand Am
Grand Am SE
New as a compact automobile for 1985—the title had been utilized to quite a lot of Pontiac fashions prior—the Grand Am had proved to be a scorching vendor for the model. Credit score the ‘Ams arguably sporty design and inexpensive lineup, and disrespect the automobile’s low-cost inside and mediocre efficiency. Atop the trim-level mountain was the SE, which till 1989 had been powered by a modestly fascinating 3.0-liter V6 produced by Buick. The slow-revving pushrod mill churned out simply 125 horsepower, however an affordable quantity of torque, making the automobile fast sufficient for stoplight drag-race tomfoolery.
Engines
For a interval, a turbocharged 2.0-liter engine was inserted into the Grand Am lineup, nevertheless it’s energy supply was peaky, and the motor was famously unreliable.
Quad 4
Enter the “high-output” Quad 4, a completely trendy—in idea—4-cylinder engine that includes a 16-valve overhead-cam (OHC) cylinder head, and surprisingly excessive compression ratio. New for 1989, the LG0 (Common Motor’s inside product code) engine produced 180-185 horsepower and was mated solely to a 5-speed handbook transmission. Of us in search of the comfort of an automated had been downgraded to a 160-horse model of the Quad 4 engine, internally dubbed LD2 by Common Motors. Neither the LG0 or LD2 may very well be had in any Grand Am trim stage however the SE. Be aware that the LG0 required premium gasoline, which can have restricted its attraction. The LD2, nonetheless, ran simply wonderful on regular-grade gasoline, per Pontiac.
Efficiency
And with its new engine, the Grand Am lastly had—at the very least on paper—the specs anticipated of a European-car wannabe. That mentioned, the LG0 engine was one thing of a disappointment, although not for its efficiency.
Whereas buff books of the day had been reporting spectacular 0-60 mph instances of round 7.0 seconds for LG0 geared up Grand Ams, opinions of the engine weren’t particularly optimistic. Although robust, the LG0 was famously loud and coarse sounding, and usually tough total. This was the antithesis of small German engines of the period, which had been famously refined.
Reliability Points
Making issues worse, the LG0 engine was suffering from reliability issues, together with:
- Head-gasket failures
- Timing-chain tensioner points
- Extreme oil consumption
- Cooling system points
- Ignition-system failures
This at a time when German vehicles had been famed for his or her reliability.
Advertising
Supplied from 1989 to 1991, the high-output Quad 4 engines largely did not place the Grand Am as any kind of budget-friendly German-car different. Nonetheless, with its racy—arguably gaudy—design, and consumer-friendly pricing, the Grand Am continued to promote like hotcakes, even when the expertise boasted of within the advert seen right here was deeply flawed.
Iron Duke
Most Grand Ams got here with GM’s ubiquitous, and usually dependable, Iron Duke 4-cylinder mill. The innocent engine was greatest identified for being cheap clean in operation, and in addition gasoline environment friendly. And whereas boring, the Iron Duke stored most Grand Am homeowners fairly blissful.
And whereas the Quad 4 experiment within the Grand Am fell flat, variations of the engine would go on to larger horsepower rankings, and even some racing success in variations of the Oldsmobile Achieva.
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1989 Pontiac Grand Am Footage
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