What is this guys problem??! 30 years later and he writes a rant...Part of it sounds completely made up to make the story more interesting.
I have never been one for expensive cars, I'm just glad to have one that it starts in the morning. Did I ever own an expensive one? No. I once went into a dealership and asked for the cheapest car they had. I walked out with a stripped down 4-cylinder red Toyota pickup truck with no radio and no air conditioner and was happy to have it. Did I ever own a sports car? No, never even considered it. Did I ever drive a sports car? That is debatable and depends on whether or not you would call the Pontiac Fiero a sports car.
When I first met my wife Arlene, her sister Joanne had worked tirelessly for over a year to get her out of debt. Once free of the debt that so heavily weighed her down, what did Arlene do next? She bought a brand new red Pontiac Fiero. Joanne promptly washed her hands of any and all future financial responsibilities and failures (and rightfully so).
At first it was great. I had a blonde-haired girlfriend who drove a red sports car -- I was living a Beach Boys song. Her red Fiero was a fast, sleek-looking automobile, but this is where the definition of "sports car" comes into play. A sports car denotes fun. After a while, the Fiero was no longer fun; that Beach Boys' song I was living started to have a couple of scratches along the grooves. The first scratch was the manual transmission that had to be replaced at 12,000 miles. The next was when the engine-mount bushings came loose, which caused the engine to tremble and shake when we drove the car. The shaking engine rubbed against the radiator hose that eventually burst one day, sending a river of green fluid down the driveway.
To repair the bushings we had to have the car towed to a dealership. Once they completed their work they tried to charge me for the repair. The car had less than 15,000 miles, already had the transmission replaced and they were going to charge us because the engine came loose. I refused to pay and told them to get their manager. After a heated argument, they decided they would let the car go without payment. Unfortunately, they added, the mechanic that had worked on the car that day had left already and they were unable to locate the keys. They kept me in the waiting area for over two hours before someone "found" the keys. There are reasons that car salesmen are trusted even less than Congress.
But it was one of the Fiero's "safety features" that nearly got us killed one day. (There sure are a lot of air quotes for this car.)
After six months of dating, Arlene and I moved into an apartment (kids, don't even think about it). We also worked in the same building so each day we drove her Fiero to work. It was winter and on this particular day, New Jersey was about to be hit by one of its worst snow storms of that year. At work we sat at our desks and watched as the snow accumulated outside the window; we waited for word to come down that due to the severe weather conditions the building would be closed. We were certain that management would not put us at risk and would let us leave early to avoid the horrific traffic conditions that this weather would most certainly create.
Nothing.
We waited and watched and still no word of our closing. Turned out, they were going to close the building, but not until after lunch so that the cafeteria would not have to waste any of their already processed food. Gives you a solid idea of where the safety of their employees fell in the food chain -- somewhere below grill cheese sandwiches and the soup-of-the-day. Eat up, guys, because it's going to be a long ride home (thanks).
Once we braved the steep, snow-covered hill the led out of the building, we turned left and drove south. Well, not so much drove but crawled, single file, like so many snow-covered ants. After two hours, for what normally would have been a five-minute drive, we turned onto the main highway and merged with the thousands of other hopefuls that just wanted to get home and put the day behind us.
We moved through the snow globe while huge white flakes swirled around our car; everything was white. The only outside color that pushed through the wall of white that surrounded us was the red glow of the truck tail lights that I followed like a loyal dog through the tire tracks in the snow.
This was when the safety feature kicked in.
Up until that point I hadn't paid attention to the continuous slapping sound that the windshield wipers were making and only noticed it when suddenly it was gone. We fell into an eerie silence.
"****, we blew a fuse!"
I shouted for Arlene to get the manual and find out where the fuse box was in this coffin. I lowered the driver's side window and with my left hand wiped enough snow off the windshield to see the red tail lights that were my only beacon of hope.
She fumbled through the pages to find anything that had to do with fuses and windshield wipers. It was then that Arlene made the following discovery (and I paraphrase): 'If the f*cking windshield wiper motor gets too ****ing hot it will f*cking shut down.'
Well, that makes perfect sense because who wouldn't want their windshield wipers to stop working in the middle of a blizzard to ensure that the windshield wiper motor wouldn't get too hot which would cause the windshield wipers to stop working in the middle of a blizzard (yup -- exactly).
How about a warning light instead of completely shutting down? That way, I could have regulated the windshield wipers myself instead of going blind in the middle of a blizzard. If Pontiac made parachutes, they'd implement a safety feature that would keep the parachute from opening because you were falling too fast.
After long minutes of sheer panic that I would lose my taillight guide and drive off the road, the wipers stumbled back on. With the impending fear that they would shut down again I manually turned them on and off for the rest of the trip. After four hours, we finally made it home.
I don't remember how much longer Arlene kept the car, but after that ride home in the snow I was pretty sure the Fiero was not long for our world.
One thing about driving the Fiero that I never experienced with any other car: Whenever I passed another Fiero on the road, the driver always gave me thumbs up or a friendly 'Hey, Buddy' wave and smile. At first I thought it was like a club and owning a Fiero automatically made you a member. In time, I realized it was something else. It was like veterans, or people who have shared a horrific experience that could relate to each other because of their mutual history. I realized after a while those drivers weren't saying, 'Hey, Buddy, nice car'.
No, I realized later what they really had been saying was, 'Hey, Buddy, I feel your pain.'
How can anyone honestly have that kind of trouble - with any car? My 87 GT never gave me any problems - at all. I had to drive it in MN winters the first and second year. 86K of trouble free fun driving miles. I replaced the 2.8 at 86K, not because the motor was tired but just for faster fun. We acknowledge other Fiero owners for their good taste in fine automobiles.
I find it interesting that he writes that story for no reason after all these years. Maybe he saw a Fiero recently and in his jealousy that he's not driving it, he lashed out. Like sour grapes...
Transmission at 12k miles, engine mounts at 15k, wipers that according to the manual overheat? ...was he driving the same car I drive? If you're blowing transmissions and mounts at 15k, you're driving like a flamin' galah.
He needs to get a life! a total cheap skate that whines about the car, whines about the dealership, whines about the weather, whines about the cafeteria at work, whines about his boss, whines about the girlfriend (Totally debt free, and she "Ruined her life" by buying a new car"... welcome to the real world buddy! I could not stand to be in the same room with someone like that for 5 minutes!
Betcha she had no idea how to drive stick, and never changed the oil. I met a woman once who bought an 84 and NEVER CHANGED THE OIL...(she didn't know she needed to) :roll eyes:
Betcha she had no idea how to drive stick, and never changed the oil. I met a woman once who bought an 84 and NEVER CHANGED THE OIL...(she didn't know she needed to) :roll eyes:
One of those new cars that you dont have to change the oil on
I took an M17 out of a 24 year old parts car with 200,000 miles on it, that the PO beat on until the engine blew, had been sitting for years, threw some fresh oil in it, put it behind my 3.4, and it's been 100% trouble free for 4 years and 25,000 miles. You're definitely doing something wrong if you kill one in 15k.
Reminds me of a rant I remember seeing somebody write about a Pontiac 6000. The author had a long chain of increasingly serious issues on the car at a young age, most of which were an obvious domino effect brought about by ignorance and negligence. Therefore when he saw the occasional 6000 still on the road today, he genuinely wondered "How is that thing still running?" The trouble with new cars is that they appeal to people who know nothing about them. People like that get easily flustered about simple things, so to make their lives simpler they decide the car is a "lemon". When it comes to new cars I'm not sure I believe in lemons, to be honest. A coolant hose that pops off? Sure, I can buy that. But if that puts the whole car into a death spiral, well, the owner is a moron. There is no worse authority on cars then the guy who couldn't keep one running when it was new.
Even if a car has zero defects, it can't prevent abuse.. such as trashing a manual transmission, hitting the undercarriage against obstacles, or using wipers on packed snow. This is a big part of why they don't like selling cars with manual transmissions anymore. They've added a light to tell people when to change the oil. And they even stopped installing real gauges. Gauges are "buffered" through a computer that makes the needle point where the new-car buyer thinks it should be, not where it actually should be. Manufacturers have had to dumb down the cars to protect themselves.
Originally posted by armos: And they even stopped installing real gauges. Gauges are "buffered" through a computer that makes the needle point where the new-car buyer thinks it should be, not where it actually should be. Manufacturers have had to dumb down the cars to protect themselves.
Huh, what now?
No, the gauges display exactly what they should, not what the driver "thinks" they should.
Originally posted by Sourmug: Yeah but, you would never run out of gas if that was the case....
I never have run out of gas. Even in the cars I've driven where the gas gauge didn't work (and those were all from the 80s, not brand new vehicles today).
I get the impression that it's just a couple dumb hicks who thought they had themselves a "bona fide" sportscar, and beat the hell out of it trying to drive like the Dukes of Hazzard. Then they got all indignant when the thing had the audacity to break.
One thing about driving the Fiero that I never experienced with any other car: Whenever I passed another Fiero on the road, the driver always gave me thumbs up or a friendly 'Hey, Buddy' wave and smile. At first I thought it was like a club and owning a Fiero automatically made you a member.
In time, I realized it was something else. It was like veterans, or people who have shared a horrific experience that could relate to each other because of their mutual history.
This must be why Harley rider's wave only to other Harley riders.
No, the gauges display exactly what they should, not what the driver "thinks" they should.
I don't know how it is with Hondas, but it's common for gauges on newer cars to do this. Oil pressure sits near the middle of the gauge, because that's where the driver thinks it should be, when a real measurement will confirm it's nowhere near that consistent, nor is it supposed to be. Coolant gauge sits in one spot, even when it's fluctuating by 20-30F. I don't know if they play with the voltmeters yet but it wouldn't surprise me if they filter out fluctuations. As long as the readings haven't crossed outside of a normal range, the computer will massage the outputs to the gauges to keep the driver from worrying. Too many people don't know what normal behavior is, and they don't want those people thinking less of the car.
Although upset, this is not exactly a flaming condemnation of the Fiero in the end.
First there was a transmission problem. What it was I have no idea. At 12K miles, and being a stick, my guess is the new owner burned up the clutch. (Of course, it could be internal damage too due to poor shifting). Either way, early manual transmission failure is usually due to abuse or not knowing how to operate it.
My next suspicion is that if there was an early engine mount failure, it is somehow related to a transmission. Either the driveline was really beaten on, or the tech that did the tranny work damaged it or didn't get the mount tightened or put back together.
The wiper problem is something else. GM used the same wiper motors in everything, likely for decades. If it "overheated" or burned up or whatever, it sounds like he had more than just a little snow as it falls, but had let so much snow and ice build up it put an extraordinary burden on the motor. I have seen the wiper transmission get stripped out on a Fiero when the owner was too lazy to clean the window, and let the wipers try and handle the 6 inches of packed snow sitting there. Otherwise, in 20 years of driving in BUFFALO where we know snow, I am yet to see a GM wiper motor shut down due to overheating.
Whatever. He can have his opinion.
Mine is that I own a 29 year old Fiero which starts, drives, and runs just fine and can be used daily without worry if needed. So whatever.
Originally posted by armos: I don't know how it is with Hondas, but it's common for gauges on newer cars to do this. Oil pressure sits near the middle of the gauge, because that's where the driver thinks it should be, when a real measurement will confirm it's nowhere near that consistent, nor is it supposed to be. Coolant gauge sits in one spot, even when it's fluctuating by 20-30F. I don't know if they play with the voltmeters yet but it wouldn't surprise me if they filter out fluctuations. As long as the readings haven't crossed outside of a normal range, the computer will massage the outputs to the gauges to keep the driver from worrying. Too many people don't know what normal behavior is, and they don't want those people thinking less of the car.
I don't know what new cars you're driving, that you think do what you describe, but my 2009 Avalanche doesn't do it, nor did my brand new 2011 Cruze that I was leasing for a while. My Honda is a 95, so it's not even an OBD-II car.
I've driven quite a lot of brand new cars in the last 10 years though, and none that I've driven do what you say. I've not driven anything in the last 20 years where the gauges were behaving expressly differently from the gauges in all the Fieros I've had.
Originally posted by Fformula88: Otherwise, in 20 years of driving in BUFFALO where we know snow, I am yet to see a GM wiper motor shut down due to overheating.
But the best part about that bit, is the absolute horror of surprise that something would fail if it gets too hot. Maybe the author never heard of Chernobyl?
We don't hate him, we're making fun of how stupid he is. That and the fact he has no business being a professional writer. I've read better articles on 4chan.
I have an expensive sports car, and I honestly prefer driving the Fiero.
guys, you hurt his feelings. He tweeted out the forum link to this thread and said that we hate him.
LOL I saw that. His story has zero comments so it must be eating him to be a failure to see why nobody else is justifying his poor rant. And as for calling us angry? He's using a rag platform to drop F bombs about his mechanical inability to check fuses, drive a manual without destroying the driveline, and perform in winter driving.
BTW, I read the O.M. and it mentions nothing about overheating wiper motors. I even googled it and none of the results even mention a GM vehicle. So something tells me he's mixing current events with his idea of facts. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=overheating+wiper+motor
I also have high skepticism their problems "rubbed" a hole in the coolant hose because those hoses have so much clearance around them that nothing rubs on them. Everyone on here has been a good sport and instead of dropping yo/bro/dude F comments, members here stuck on their engineering hats and discussed it from a technical standpoint. Doesn't change anything....my pristine GT is parked ready for Spring. Next!
A lot of his issues come from a lack of basic knowledge of car ownership. He reminds me of a few of my BMW customers that wonder why their car is a pile of poo and they never bring the car to the shop until after it breaks. I tell all of my customers to stop in twice a year for a free checkover which usually prevents the car from having major repairs.
If you are planning on driving a Fiero in the snow, then you will need this newfound technology called snow tires. Throw away the all seasons and buy two sets. One for Summer and one for Winter. I put my Fiero away for the Winter and drive my MINI Cooper S with studded snow tires in the Winter and it outperforms my AWD SUV.
The Fiero is not a great car, but no cars were great in the 1980's. Even the Ferrari's and Lamborghini's were not that great. I do love my Fiero, but it does hold a special place in my mind and I don't plan on not having one.
guys, you hurt his feelings. He tweeted out the forum link to this thread and said that we hate him.
That is to be expected. He does not know how to drive a manual trans vehicle so it's the cars fault. We comment on his lack of mechanical skills and make fun of his ignorance and he thinks we hate him.
Trans going at 12k and mounts wearing out that quickly suggests he has no idea on how to properly shift a manual transmission. He was probably banging the gears and popping the clutch with every shift. That type of shifting will kill a transmission and wear out engine/trans mounts quickly. The wiper issue most likely happened because he was too lazy to clean off snow/ice off the windshield.
Maybe he can do another article on the faults of all the other cars he has owned over the past 30 years. Based on this article, I am betting he has gone through many cars over the years.
Of course if you google his name you can see he has quite a few articles written in the same "lack of common sense" style. LOL
[This message has been edited by Oreif (edited 03-07-2014).]
Mine is that I own a 29 year old Fiero which starts, drives, and runs just fine and can be used daily without worry if needed. So whatever.
Understood and agreed upon 100%. However, his opinion is in writing. And unfortunately, a lot of people reading it really don't know and will take him at his word.
Huh, what now?
