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Pontiac Grand Am 2004 SE Reviewed by Eddie Wren, September 2004
All contents copyright ©, Drive and Stay Alive, Inc., 2003 onwards, unless specified otherwise. All rights reserved.
IMPORTANT: click here to read the DISCLAIMER |
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1. This photo from Pontiac (Note that the photographs shown here of Grand Am 2004 sedans are not necessarily of the SE1 model as tested)
The Wrong Type of 'Cutting Edge' Technology
Please note that terminology used in countries other than the USA may be shown italicized and in parentheses (brackets), for clarity to readers from those countries.
For normal driving, the 2.2 liter engine gave perfectly adequate power and acceleration.
No matter how popular this car might be, it does have one unpleasant and ludicrously unnecessary fault. We'd had the car less than one hour when I climbed out of the driver's seat after the first few miles and started to close the door. And it hurt!
When I looked down, my thumb was bleeding, and a quick look at the car door showed why.
On the inner surface of the rear edge of the front doors, at window height, the metal paneling has simply been folded inwards leaving it perhaps a quarter of an inch clear of the main part of the door. And it is extremely sharp, as the side of my thumb found out.
Keeping costs down is an obsession of auto makers, no doubt for good economic reasons. But when it comes quite literally to smoothing off the rough edges it is simply ridiculous to leave sharp metalwork in such a prominent place.
The rest of the bodywork appeared perfectly adequate, so why such a stupid finish on the door? It's not exactly the type of 'cutting edge' we want to see.
The controls of the car are reasonably located and easy to use.
The main exterior lighting controls are on the left-hand column-stalk, and the wipers from the right-hand stalk.
The center console carries the usual dials and switches for heating/air conditioning, the CD/radio, plus de-fogging (i.e. de-misting) and four-way flashers (hazard warning lights).
SE and SE1 models in the Grand Am range have two-spoke steering wheels and when the wheel is straight these are angled at approximately the 8 & 4 positions. This makes it easy to hold the wheel correctly at either 10 & 2, or 9 & 3 (i.e. ten-to-two, or quarter-to-three)
Although the two spokes on the steering wheel of the SE/SE1 are particularly well located, the same cannot be said for the horn buttons, which are in the central hub rather than on the spokes themselves. This means that sounding the horn would mean most drivers needing to remove one hand from the rim of the steering wheel in order to do so. But if it were an emergency situation, where sounding the horn can often prevent or reduce the severity of an incident, it is obvious that the option of either taking a hand off the wheel or of not using the horn is unacceptable. Only a few auto makers regularly put horn buttons within easy reach of drivers' thumbs so that hands can remain on the steering wheel rim, but all such manufacturers should do so.
Unlike the horn, the cruise control buttons are located just inside the rim of the wheel and are easy to use.
The fabric-covered seats were comfortable and gave reasonable lumbar support. The more expensive models in the range have six-way power adjustable seats.
This is also a car in which I can theoretically sit behind myself, if you see what I mean. In other words, when I adjusted the driver's seat to comfortably accommodate my 6'2" height, I was then still able to sit in the back seat, behind the driver's seat. But although there was enough legroom for my knees to be clear, the base of the driver's seat was close to the floor and unusually there was not enough room for my feet to fit underneath. This resulted in a rather stiff seating position and I would not want to do a long journey while sitting in the back seat.
The Grand Am has automatic Daytime Running Lights (DRLs). Indeed, it effectively has automatic lights, period! This is something to read the handbook about, but in general the headlights and tail lights will come on whenever it is dark or there is inadequate ambient light.
It does, however, share a common failing with many American made cars -- the color of the rear flashers and of the front parking lights. Click here to read how these could be improved in terms of safety.
On low (i.e. dipped) beam, the headlights of the Grand Am were good, but on high (main) beam they were poor. To some extent the latter aspect could be improved by lowering the alignment of the headlights but this would make the low beam less effective than it was on this particular car.
The 'A-pillars' on the Grand Am are relatively wide. (An 'A-pillar' is the metal framework at either side of the windshield/ windscreen, the B-pillar is the one immediately behind the front seats, on either side of the vehicle, etc.) This wideness on the Grand Am may be there to add strength in case of a rollover but in any case it does block a sizable chunk of the driver's view on both sides.
If the driver's seat is not fully back (n.b. the driver isn't particularly tall) the driver's seat head restraint comes so close to the B-pillar that there is effectively no view if the driver tries to glance over his/her left shoulder. And similarly, the head restraint on the front passenger seat substantially blocks a driver's view over his/her right shoulder if trying to glance that way, too.
The view through both exterior mirrors on the Grand Am is spoiled by the body work 'shoulders' that run along the sides of the vehicle, from front to back. This makes backing/reversing using the mirrors rather difficult and the aforementioned problem with the head restraints makes matters worse.
Additionally, given the style of the car, the rear window is relatively narrow and high, so between these three features this is not the easiest car to back/reverse.
Four 3-point seatbelts are fitted but the central rear seat only has a lap belt, and these should never be thought of as being particularly safe in any vehicle, because they are not. In terms of maximized safety, therefore, the Grand Am should be thought of as a four-seat car, not a five-seat.
Driver and front-seat-passenger airbags are standard on all models of Grand Am, as is the child safety seat 'LATCH' system (Lower Anchors and Top Tethers for CHildren). Side (torso) airbags and side curtain/head airbags are not currently available.
Head restraints are a much neglected safety feature. Those on the front seats of the Grand Am can certainly be placed high enough for tall occupants. The gap between the back of an occupant's head and the front of the head restraint (a gap which should not exceed 4 inches) averaged 3½ inches among those of us we checked.
Antilock (i.e. ABS) braking systems are available on the SE and SE1 models, but are standard on the SE2 and all GT models. SE and SE1 models have front disc brakes and rear drums; the SE2 and both GT models have disc brakes all round.
On their website, Pontiac mentions 'automatic power door locks' as a safety feature; in other words all four doors lock automatically when the car is put into gear, ready to move off. But there is more to this subject and this isn't necessarily always a good thing. It is much better, in the opinion of many experts, if the front doors of a four-door car are not locked while the vehicle is in motion, but of course this requires that the doors and door catches are sufficiently well made to be unlikely to burst open in the event of a collision, and that is not always the case.
Consider two potentially dangerous scenarios, though:
1. A car has crashed and all its occupants are either unconscious or incapacitated by their injuries. The car is either in a dangerous position or maybe even catches fire so other people need to get into it to help the occupants escape. But all the doors are locked. The delay caused by the need to force an entry can, on some occasions, be the deciding factor in whether somebody in a vehicle survives or dies.
2. A car crashes into deep water. When water gets to the electronics of a vehicle's door locking system the chances are that the electronics will instantly fail, and this can result in occupants being unable to unlock the doors. Having the front doors unlocked if ever a car hits deep water is still not a guarantee that the doors will remain unlocked -- the water can sometimes trigger the locks -- but it may sometimes make the difference.
A trap-resistant trunk (i.e. boot) kit is available from dealers to help prevent children from becoming trapped but there are several arguments to the effect that such safety releases should always be fitted.
Source: NCAP Ratings, NHTSA
Offset Frontal Crash Test
Source: IIHS Crash Ratings
This is a good looking car and it is comfortable and easy to drive. The trunk (boot) is deep and quite capacious.
Given that the central rear seat has only a lap belt, it would be safer to think of the Grand Am as a four-seater, rather than a five-seater.
Apart from the crash test ratings, shown above, our biggest reservations in the contexts both of safety and ease of driving are the limits on the view to the sides and the rear of the vehicle.
The trunk (boot) has a capacity of 14.6 cubic feet.
The maximum laden weight of the vehicle is shown on a sticker either on the rear edge of the driver's door, or on the frame of the same door, near the latch.
For towing, the Pontiac handbook states: "[the trailer] should never weigh more than 1,000 lbs. (454 kg.) but even that can be too heavy." -- See the handbook or speak to a dealer for further details.
'Vital Statistics' (manufacturer's own figures)
The car tested was an SE1, with the 2.2 liter engine.
Manufacturers Suggested Retail Prices range from $17,695 (SE) to $23,700 (GT1) but even on the Pontiac website these prices date from June 2003, so check them out, if necessary.
For a printable sheet showing the full Grand Am specifications (SE and GT models) click here
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For the Pontiac web page on the Grand Am, click here ____________________________________________
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