Pontiac Fiero

killerkeith

killerkeith

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I always wanted one in my High school days and I'm thinking of getting one as a second car. Anyone own one before?
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There's some decent ones with low KM's for around the $2000-$3000 mark.

Thoughts?
 
My Grandma said if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
 
The only bad thing i have heard about them is overheating problems.Maybe just in the earliest models.
 
my mom had one of those back in the 90's .... i thought she was the coolest!
 
My boss has one. Chopped it 3" in the roof, put coil-overs, all new bushings, Corvette C6 brakes, crate Corvette engine, 6spd manual transmission..looks pretty good..goes pretty good.. :-) At the heart of it all of course is a typical GM economy car.. I rather like the old MR2's in comparison..
 
Wingboy said:
The only bad thing i have heard about them is overheating problems.Maybe just in the earliest models.
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GM made the oil pan too small and when it heated up it would literally "bubble over" and catch fire. It *should* have been corrected. There was a recall.

Pontiac Fiero 4 banger was my first car! Was a ton of fun. Only car I've ever made money on! Funny story, I sold mine for $2500 almost 15 years ago! Ran it for two years (Driven in 96/97 was an 84...or was it 87...Can't remember) Only ever had to replace a fan belt and a distributor cap. Both were my own fault by pushing the car too hard. (Had it up over 200kph...lol)
 
Never owned one but I did work on some and I have driven lots of them. The four banger is a dog. The V6 (GTs) were a little better but still disappointing IMO. They are light and can be hot rodded pretty good (people even drop chevy V8s in them).

The drive trains in them are basically OTS front wheel drive assemblies mounted in the rear with the steering "locked" due to this they should be easy to get parts for and other than a few quirks people covered earlier should be pretty reliable. For cars of this age (and size) they crash remarkably well (as do most rear/mid engine cars).

Keep in mind that the body is not made of steel so they body does not rust. The chassis is made of steel so before buying make sure to look the underside over good. The car might look good on top but not underneath!
 
A buddy had one and it's the only car he wishes he still had (he's had dozens). Apparently it's crazy fun through the corners. He said it handles like crap but on the fun/dangerous side of crap, not the boring/safe side if ya know what I mean. Once you figure out it's quirks it's a blast.
 
Wasn't that a big competitor to the Ford Pinto?
 
Wingboy said:
The only bad thing i have heard about them is overheating problems.Maybe just in the earliest models.
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Friend had one of those, nothing but problems. You can throw them in reverse at hyw speeds lol.
If your gonna go for that kind of look get the MR2. They came in turbo, supercharged and naturally asperated. The older Japan built Toyota's were bullet proof.
 
boooya said:
Friend had one of those, nothing but problems. You can throw them in reverse at hyw speeds lol.
If your gonna go for that kind of look get the MR2. They came in turbo, supercharged and naturally asperated. The older Japan built Toyota's were bullet proof.
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MR2's are so hard to find
 
I've always wanted one.

apparently the 3400 V6 engines drop in and make a pretty easy, respectable, and inexpensive upgrade.
 
Baggsy said:
Wasn't that a big competitor to the Ford Pinto?
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No, the Pinto was a competitor with the Chevy Vega and Pontiac Astre twins, and the American Motors Gremlin. US MSRP price for all three was $1,999 in 1970-1971.

The Fiero competed with the Toyota MR2 as I recall.
 
slowbird said:
I've always wanted one.

apparently the 3400 V6 engines drop in and make a pretty easy, respectable, and inexpensive upgrade.
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They came with the 2.8 v6 as the sport model, the 3.4 would be interesting to see. They also had those cool looking ram scoopes that cam up over the cab.
Still old pontiac's were crap, not much better today lol. Go all out and import a right hand drive one ;).
 
turbodish said:
The Fiero competed with the Toyota MR2 as I recall.
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Well, it was INTENDED to compete with the MR2..unfortunately it wasn't much of a competition. I was an aspiring mech. eng. guy in high school watching with much anticipation as the "new" GM focused on building a world-beater..the Fiero. They were rumoured to be building a new DOHC engine to compete with the Japanese motors such as the 1.6 in the MR2. That engine didn't happen in the Fiero..they put the old 2.5L "Iron Duke" engine, complete with pushrods, in the car. Plastic panels, steel sub-frame..sounded great..unfortunately, plastic panels have horrible thermal expansion properties requiring massive panel gaps..and..as mentioned earlier..the frame rusted out anyway. They threw in the suspension bits from the parts bins at GM and voila! A dog was born.. Around the same time GM finally created the new engine..it became the Olds DOHC engine..somewhat respectable from a power point of view, but horribly loud and vibration-prone. They revised it after some years and it actually wasn't a bad motor, but another dog was born.

I remember the Astre/Vega twins..and the aluminum block 4-cylinder..and the pistons would literally melt to the block. My buddy had one and when the car was cold, like -10c, the car wouldn't even produce enough power to back out of the driveway until it had been warming up for 15 mins...

Those were dark days..Corvettes with 150hp..
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