So, summer's rolling around and it looks like I'll finally have some time in my flippin' schedule to take my driving test. And so, my dad is looking for a car.

Now, he want's a 4th Gen Mustang, because they get relatively good mileage, have desent performance and a fairly reliable.

Then there's me. As I strongly dislike Ford, I want something else. It needs to be automatic, get good mileage and i need to find one that is nearly immaculate (dad's picky) for $3K and under.

So, I go out and do some searchin and find my car. A 1997 Grand Prix GTP for 3 grand. red, all the bells and whistles. And it's a beautiful red.

Plus, my mom has insisted that i drive front wheel drive. She thinks that I'm going to wreck a rear wheel on slick roads and kill myself, or something like that. So, by Mom Law, that rules a Mustang out.


So, down to my non-rambling stuff. Have any of you had experiences with a GTP, cousin, friend co-worker, whatever! I have heard that they like to leak coolant from melted intake gaskets at what seems to be about 60-70K miles.

Any praise or horror-stories are welcome.

 

Hey Tdub. Good luck on getting your license young man and that a Mopar will come your way in good time. Glad to see you still hanginig around. It's quieter nowadays...maybe we are all out in our cars but still have a time or two to make a comment.

 

don't listen to your parents man if you want a rear wheel drive car buy one this is when you learn how to drive

 

I dunno about front-wheel drive, tdub. I always feel like I have better control of rear-wheel-drive cars, particularly in snow. I had to rent a Fusion when I went up to Des Moines for a funeral in February. Naturally, it snowed right after I got there and I wound up spending half the time sitting at intersections with the front wheels slowly rotating and going no place. Give me rear-wheel drive (and studded snow tires in those conditions) any day. Oh ... and I'd recommend a Mustang. I use my 2000 for my daily driver so the Challenger doesn't have to go downtown with me.

 

I owned a 99 GTP for about 6 years, and done alot of modding to this car and can hopefully answer any question you have about it. If you do buy the car check out ww.zzperformance.com, they offer almost all perfermance/replacement parts that you will need

The lower intake manifold are prowned to leak normally around 100k and they aren't to hard to replace.

I would make sure the recall was done on the valve cover gasket, there has been plenty of cars catching on fire due to this. The only other problem with this car is the trannys are only good to about 150K or less depending on how hard they've been ran,expesically if it's already been modded.

There's a lot of potential in this car if modded correctly, I was running 13.5 in the quarter mile with about $800 in parts. The engines will last forever if you take care of it, don't drop size a S/C pulley without doing the requires mods.

If you have any questions on this car just ask. I loved mine, but I ran it to death it had 200K when I got rid of it.
jdb840

 

We had one for 13 years and never had anything major go wrong with it. It went through a couple of starters and an alternator. We traded it with 125K miles on it and it still looked and drove like new. I hated to get rid of it but they just gave us to much as a trade.

 

Well, I think I'm going to let dad find himself his own car, he can drive the Vette to work this summer. Then, I can just drive Super Dodge.

I think when it comes down to it in the winter, I'll be driving the Ram anyways. So, that isn't much of a problem. If dad wants a Rustang, he can have one. I'll stick to the 96 Ram thank you.

Plus, you can load a dirt bike in the back of a Mustang.