2004 Grand Am: Great Performance That Impressed Me
Written: Dec 23 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Smooth ride, great turning radius, impressive engine performance
Cons: Minor design flaws, unknown performance after years of usage.
The Bottom Line: The 2004 Pontiac Grand Am is an amazing car, packing a great deal of performance and style.
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| sweetcece's Full Review: 2004 Pontiac Grand Am Sedan |
Over the weekend, I had to travel to Louisiana and back to bring my son to his father’s home for the holidays. For a decent part of that trip, I used a rental car, a 2004 Pontiac Grand Am Sedan for transportation.
While many people may think that using a rental car is a poor reason to write a review, I believe that after putting more than 200 miles on this vehicle in various driving conditions that I do have a good feel for the performance and quality of this vehicle. I hope that you will find my comments useful.
Size and Room
First, I was very surprised when I discovered how small the 2004 Pontiac Grand Am actually is. Advertised as a mid-sized vehicle by the rental agent, I found this vehicle to be quite small in overall size design. The length of the car itself compares more to a Chevy Cavalier, which I believe to be more of a small car. However, when using the vehicle itself, I was impressed to find that the interior room was quite shocking. My youngest son, who is now at least 6 ft 1 inches tall and 13 years old was able to get his long body in this vehicle without a major problem at all, and was quite comfortable. Even with his legs stretched out in the front seat, the back seat of the car was roomy enough to have at least two adults ride, although I doubt seriously that a fifth person would have been comfortable in between.
I did like the tilt wheel design of the Grand Am though better than I do my 2000 Chevy Impala. It was easier to get the wheel to a level that I found more comfortable, and there were more settings to the tilt wheel levels.
One drawback to the seating of the 2004 Grand Am involves the fact that the forward/backward adjustment lever on the seats is very short. This makes it rather awkward for you to grasp if you have a physical disability. This requires you to bend your back to the side with the door open instead of being able to sit in the seat and adjust it after you are sitting behind the wheel. This is a minor nuisance, but one that I believe is worth nothing.
In regards though to the storage capacity of the 2004 Grand Am, I was really rather disappointed. Yes, there is good room within the trunk of the car itself, but the problem is that the sedan version of the Grand Am does not allow for larger objects to be placed within the trunk rather easily. We had a large piece of luggage, not near as large as some of those monsters that I have seen in the airport, but probably as big as two carry on bags, and the bag just barely fit in the open area to drop in. After it was in, it was just fine, just the opening to the trunk as I mentioned is really too small to be useful.
Driving Performance
Driving as well as comfort is important in any vehicle and I have to say that I was pleased overall with the 2004 Grand Am in this aspect.
Having driven the vehicle in traffic in town, and on the highway extensively, the vehicle has tremendous pickup, and overall engine performance. In addition, I had to make very tight U turns on several occasions, enter a very sharp Interstate ramp, and various other trying situations and the Grand Am really surprised me. It has the depth and vitality of my Chevy Impala in a very small package.
As horrible as the highways are in Louisiana, especially the Interstate 55, I was impressed at the suspension of the vehicle and how it glided smoothly without throwing us off at every severe crack in the road, or gap in the highway. In fact, even though I went into a driveway that was full of ruts, the car didn’t seem to even “notice” this, and glided smoothly along.
Overall, the performance with turning, acceleration, balance, and suspension were really impressive. And let me say again, I WAS impressed because I didn’t expect this out of this car at all.
One of the drawbacks that I found with the Grand Am though was that on the open highway that the vehicle did allow more air noise within it than I would have anticipated. I really expected more of a quiet ride from this car, and that was not the case.
Gas mileage was about 25 MPG for me I believe. That’s really not that bad for this type of vehicle given the conditions that I drove it with a combination of highway and city, stop and go driving on ½ of the time.
Design
One of the reasons many of us buy a vehicle though is that we like the way that the car looks. I have to say that inside and out, I was impressed at the attractive design of the 2004 Pontiac Grand Am.
The styling on the inside of the vehicle is very sporty. The tachometer and other dials within the dash are designed with more of a sports car in mind. I especially like the air conditioning vents on this vehicle as I can adjust them in every way possible, which is not the case with my Chevy Impala. The Grand Am design is more universal where you can turn the vents any directions instead of the up vertical/side to side functionality of my Impala. This made for a better experience for overall circulation and passenger comfort.
One of the things that I did not like about the dashboard design was the fact that the lighting of the dash is red in background, which bothers my eyes. In addition, the odometer is on the left hand side of the dash on the tachometer, which just doesn’t bode well with me. I prefer mine in the center or on the right hand side.
I did like the fact that the emergency break is actually a lever design in the Grand Am which is similar to the old Toyota Camry that I had. Everything to drive the car was perfectly in sync and ready to use, very easy to understand making it very pleasant to use this car immediately.
Overall Impression
Because a few of my friends have bought Pontiac vehicles in the past and have had bad experiences with the transmission of those vehicles, I am very leery about buying a Pontiac to be honest with you. Since I keep my cars for a minimum of 7 years, I expect a car to last that long without any major problems. Whether or not that is a realistic expectation or not, I don’t know but that is just the way that I am.
However, this vehicle, the 2004 Pontiac Grand Am, has really impressed me as well as others who saw the vehicle when I drove it. It is a real eye catcher, performs incredibly well, and this has changed my mind about the quality of Pontiac vehicles in general. My father took a good look at this vehicle as a replacement for one of their vehicles in the future. He is a VERY picky person, and if he was impressed, then that says something as well.
I could not believe at the performance of this vehicle, the ability for it to remain at a level of comfort on horrible roads, and the overall gas mileage of this car. It really is a good vehicle, and worth to be purchased.
So, in conclusion, I would like to say that if I found the 2004 Grand Am at a significantly lower price than the Toyota Camry or the Honda Accord, that I would probably purchase this vehicle. Otherwise, I would probably go ahead and buy a Toyota or Honda instead. That’s just my personal preference based on the experience concerning the Toyota and Honda brands of vehicles.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 20 a day
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sweetcece
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