My first years working at GM I was assigned to work on the much maligned J-car Chevrolet Cavalier. But by 1990 it was much improved from when it was originally launched. There was more power, and 8 years of steady improvement had worked out most of the quality gremlins that plagued its early years. But a car that wasn’t competitive at its introduction was hopelessly outdated as it approached its second decade of production.
But GM was planning big things for 1995. I listened to the Kool-Aid from management, that the 1995 refresh was going to be a quantum leap forward and finally be a true Civic / Corolla competitor. Well, it certainly looked the part, with a sleek new body inspired by the stunning Opel Calibra coupe sold in Europe, and the Pontiac sister car given its own unique mini-Firebird styling. Inside, a pleasant new interior graced both vehicles, with improved switchgear and upgraded quality of materials. So the curb appeal was there. But the driving was not. Same pushrod 4 cyl engine from 13 years ago. Same ancient 3 speed automatic transmission. Same twist axle rear suspension. Much to my dismay, it drove like the old Cavalier, and nowhere close to the Civic / Corolla competition.
The Opel Calibra, inspiration for the new Cavalier
But perhaps GM was hoping that its customers would be sold by the styling and not by how it drove. Which is what my girlfriend thought when she saw the new 1995 Sunfire and decided that was the car for her. So she bought a white Sunfire SE base model, which thanks to GM Design looked quite good and didn’t scream “cheap.” This was what she was driving when we first met. Despite her car choice, my girlfriend became my fiancé so I had made a conscious decision to not only marry her but also marry her car. That became really evident when after the wedding she declared that she would like to trade vehicles, wanting the perceived security of my GMC Jimmy’s 4wd and its high seating position above traffic. So that’s how a base 1995 Pontiac Sunfire, a car that would have never entered on my radar of vehicles that I would own, became my car.
I was familiar with virtually every nut and bolt of the Sunfire, especially under the hood. And I knew that the old iron block engine was pretty bulletproof but sorely lacking in the refinement or excitement department. To be sure, it had come a long way from the anemic, sickly 1.8L engine that saddled the original 1982 Cavalier and sister car Cadillac Cimarron. GM had been sending this engine to the gym year after year, and it had bulked up to 2.2L and much stronger at 120 hp vs the original 88. But it wasn’t born a gifted athlete like a Honda VTEC, so it had reached the limit of what could be done (legally) with its 70’s era technology. And the unchanged 3 speed transmission really sucked out what little life the engine had to give.
On the ’95 J, the beauty was skin deep
I knew the engine could take abuse when on a vehicle development trip out west, the base Cavalier that I was driving struggled to keep up with its Quad 4, V6, and turbo-powered stablemates on the high altitude mountain passes. I had the gas pedal mashed to the floor almost continuously, and there was one long uphill stretch where the wheezing pushrod engine screamed at 6000 rpm for almost 5 minutes continuously. If it threw a rod or overheated, I had a CB radio in the car to call for help. But the engine held together and stayed cool, so I at least I felt good about it being indestructible.
I found satisfaction in driving this car like I was angry at it. When merging on to an expressway, just stomp on the gas pedal and hold on while the pushrod engine moaned in protest and the lazy transmission took its sweet time to shift gears. For such a sporty looking car, it didn’t like to turn much either. After I upgraded the tires on the car it was a little better, but the handling was still very uninspiring. My Sunfire took whatever abuse I could dish out and would start up reliably the next morning and do it again. Knowing the car’s considerable limitations, Sunfire and I eventually came to an understanding, and we had a long and productive, if unexciting relationship. It was the first car I ever owned that never had any problems. Not a single trip back to the dealer for warranty work, and never in the shop except for tires, battery, and oil. For that, my ‘95 J-car was considered a success.
The Sunfire held up remarkably well in the 6 years traversing Michigan’s potholed and salt-ridden roads, with hardly a squeak or rattle even in its advanced years. I had developed a newfound respect for the ’95 J. Despite 6 years of hard use, it still looked and drove like a new car, and its superb reliability impressed me. But when kid #2 came along, and faced with the prospect of putting two little ones in car seats in the tight rear confines of this coupe, I knew it was time for a bigger car with 2 additional doors. So it was with a twinge of sadness when I finally let the Sunfire go. This sporty (looking) little Firebird wannabe was being replaced by a more rational, sober 4 door sedan, thereby marking a life transition from owning a “personal” car to a “family” car.
I had new 1997 and 2002 Cavaliers, which were built down the road 40 miles from me. Both were solid and reliable low-buck cars. The ’02 was a deep green coupe with aluminum wheels and a very subtle decklid spoiler. Both were 5-speeds. The ’97 was a four-door so had the styling that was sort-of like an egg, but I put 129,600 on the ’97 and 112,000 on the ’02 and didn’t do anything to either. My much-younger brother-in-law borrowed the ’97 one day when it had 105K and returned it saying, “I expected it to be a POS but it wasn’t”. Sad that so much of that mindset was around.
Other than a brief (and very mild) crush on a cousin’s 85 Cavalier Type 10 (during a particularly open-minded period of my life), I paid almost no attention to the J car during its long life. But I sure saw a lot of them. I have come to respect them from afar, only because they were the only US car in that segment that would hold up over the long term.
I was always suspicious of the value of small, lower priced GM, Ford, and Chrysler cars, mainly from my experiences renting a bunch of them back in my working days (except the Fairmont, I liked the Fairmont, especially the 5.0 Fairmont).
Clearly, I may have been too harsh on these cars based on my low volume and totally unscientific sampling.
Some say with age comes wisdom. Well maybe, but to gain wisdom one must keep one’s eyes and ears open and to respect the opinions and experiences of others.
When a knowledgeable COAL writer praises a ’95 Sunfire; attention should be paid (*).
(*) That’s not a quote from Willy’s wife Linda Loman, but it’s close.
We leased a ‘96 Cavalier coupe…red over black; it was one step above the base model. As you said, although not an exciting drive, it was a reliable little car and over our 3 years/45K miles with it, there were no service issues. (Side note…it was the only car I ever leased and it never really felt like it was mine.)
The Sunfire had some funny commercials, especially the “Scream” one.
Two comments, neither from the standpoint of owning a J. I have driven several.
1: The air conditioning in a J was usually miles better than that of competitors. They may have gotten plenty wrong, but they got that right. Here in the hot, humid south, I could see that making the final buyer’s decision.
2: Even before the rebody, ABS was standard on Cavaliers for a couple of years. It’s present and evident in the underhood picture as well. That made the lack of ABS in my brother’s Saturn Ion in 2005 really stand out. I didn’t learn it lacked ABS until he’d had it for years. I hate saying this, but GM gonna GM, and the lack of ABS contributed when that car was totaled in 2015.
Also, regardless of brand, a large displacement 4 idling in D tended to be noisy and shaky. Stick shifts, which were more common in basically every other brand, tended to make the overall experience of small 80s and 90s cars MORE refined.
Overall, not bad cars (both Pontiac and Chevy) these. Pretty good looking and reliable if taken care of. Enjoyed the story.
A very good friend replaced her ‘93 Escort GT with a Light Adriatic blue ‘96 of these because she, too, really liked the sporty looks. The contrast was stark, to say the least. It was a dependable car mechanically, but it was not robust. Trim quality could be described as fragile, and the seat material used still stands out to me all these years later as being particularly poor wearing, scratchy, and reminiscent of burlap. It also consumed headlamp bulbs at a rate that could be measured in months. But it ran. And ran. And ran, with no particular regard towards care or attention. It stuck around far longer than I personally cared for while in a continuous state of cosmetic decline. As long as it started up without a fuss and got her where she needed to go, the Sunfire was fine in her book. I’d imagine – however, any significant repair or maintenance bill would have promptly resulted in its disposal, because it wasn’t particularly old or high mileage when an increase in compensation at work “did it in”.
Elements of that interior look familiar – I married a 1996 Saturn SL with crank up windows, but it DID have a 5-speed manual so that made up for quite a few shortcomings.
It wasn’t going to win any drag races but it got shockingly good gas mileage and could carry more than you ever thought fit inside.
I always regarded the 1995 Cavalier/Sunfire as one of GM’s better cars of the decade (low bar, I know). Never class-leading, but with attractive styling, decent dependability, and a decent value for the price. Even Consumer Reports recommended it for a time.
There’s something that’s perplexed me, though: The Sunfire rode a longer wheelbase than the concurrent Grand Am; it was a more modern design, and it was priced less. It seemed to revoke the Grand Am of any need for existing. Yet the smaller, pricier, more-outdated ’95-’98 Grand Am outsold the Sunfire every single year.
My biggest beefs against these are the blob-like interior design, and the lack of headroom. I’m 6’5″ with shoes, and my head was pressed against the ceiling in every Cavalier and Sunfire I’ve ridden in.
Reading your comment, I thought that can’t be right. But sure enough, from 95-98 the Sunfire did have a longer wheelbase (104.1) compared to the Grand Am (103.4).
But that has to do with the long product cycles the J-body and N-body cars went through in the 80s/early 90s. The J-body originally had a 101.2/101.3 in wheelbase in the 1st and 2nd generation cars, up to 1994. When the N-body debuted in 1985, it was larger and had a longer wheel base of 103.4 (from 1985-1998).
The J being older got the larger redesign first, so thats why the few years of overlap the J had a longer wheelbase.
I can relate to “marrying” a J Car, my then girlfriend was driving an 88 Cavalier when we met. This was her mom’s old fleet car and was from Florida so it still had an old fashioned blower fan rear defroster instead of an electric defroster. It was a car, for sufficiently small values of car and we ended up selling it and buying an 85 Ford Range
I also have some experience with that generation Sunbird, since a friend had one, but with a manual transmission so it was not quite so slow. He ran that until around 2013 or 2014 when he replaced it with a Forester. These J cars always seemed like a “could do better” car. They were inexpensive and functional but not as good as the competition. I also absolutely loathe GM’s “gulag grey” switchgear from the 90s
Allow me to join the chorus–I, too, had 1996 base Sunfire bought new. Wouldn’t have been my first, second, or twentieth choice but my dad worked for GM and I was just two years out of high school living at home when my 1988 Cavalier died.
To echo everyone else, it never had any issues. It was truly awful to drive, the interior bits squeaked and rattled and felt close to breaking all the time, but every day it did its job.
I can’t remember how I came to get rid of it, something that I’m sure happened in 2004 or so, but it must have been some repair that I didn’t want to make for the level of enjoyment I got from using it. Honestly if the car were worse in some way it would’ve had the personality worthy to keep it given its reliability but there was just nothing cool about it.
I could say I married better, vehicular wise, but not a whole lot, my wife to be came with a 76 Mustang II. Bright red hatchback, actually looked pretty good all washed and waxed up. With not much HP and waaaaaaay overgeared it was not pleasant to drive, but since she had a longer commute and my 75 Celica got better mileage she soon drove it and I the Mustang II.
Onto Cavaliers, 3rd generation, probably late. I had to drive one at work a few times and it was bordering on painful. Much to my surprise it was ok on power, but not much else. The worst part was the tube like styling, which meant me, at my towering 5’9″ would hit my head on the seat belt anchorage on the B pilar if I turned to look at traffic on that side. Actually it’s been so long I don’t recall all that I didn’t like about it, but when talking to the fleet manager who bought them he admitted they were a big mistake.
Vehicle-wise I “married” a 1983 Toyota Corona. Nine years newer than my Cortina, the fit and finish was amazing. The air conditioning was superb, but the old Ford was roomier (although slightly smaller) and more responsive to drive.
My only J-car experience was when I was in college; an interstate student brought his newish JB Camira wagon with him. Contrary to the Camira’s stereotype (which was bad already at the time), it gave him no trouble over the three years I knew him. Even though five-seven years old at the time, it stood out because you didn’t see many. Holden dropped the J-car in ’89 and replaced it with a Camry-clone (whose name I’ve forgotten) which was even less common.
That Camry clone that replaced the Camira was called the Apollo.
More than a decade prior and a different name, but my father bought an ’84 Pontiac Sunbird new..which I think was similar platform similar to the Chevrolet Cavalier. His had the 2.0 liter, and despite it being maintained by the same dealer he bought it at, per the schedule, it was the worst car he ever owned. It lost a timing belt with less than 1k miles on it (probably less than 500 miles), and had its engine replaced under warranty with less than 40k miles on it (replaced at the Pontiac dealer) Then, the replacement engine threw a rod with less than 40k miles on it…by then my youngest sister had it as a hand-me-down, and the car was junked…it had less than 80 k miles on it and was only 5 years old.
Interestingly, my older sister had also bought an ’84 Sunbird new, and she didn’t have the problems my Dad had with his…she lived up north, and it lasted more or less about as long as expected, met its demise through rust rather than engine difficulty.
My Dad switched to Dodge, then had 3 Mercury Sables, but he did finally go back to GM for his last 2 cars, both of them Chevrolet Impalas, which he had better luck with. Maybe he had a lemon, but with 2 essentially new engines going bad on the same car, it is hard to believe he had such bad luck…he wasn’t a leadfoot, we live in the south, so heat is more of an issue than anything…the Sunbird had other issues, like leaking power steering, lighting switchgear that was so brittle it broke, stuff you wouldn’t expect to go wrong on such a young car.
My wife had a 92 Sunfire with the OHC engine, is the Cavalier and Sunbird the last Chev and Pontiac twins to have different engines?
When I first saw this posted, I thought: wow, a J-car review that was barely critical of the car. The cohort must be mellowing with age…
I grew up about 20 miles east of Lordstown, Ohio. Many, many friends and family worked at the assembly plant so there were always a ton of J-cars around. One of those relatives had a 1997 Chevy Cavalier with the OHV 2.2/4T45 trans, who sold it to me in early 2004 with 192000 miles (not KMs, miles) on it. Best $1000 I ever spent. I drove the car an additional 14 years and another 80000 miles with few repairs. Both of my kids learned to drive in it, I even lent it to a friend who was going through a rough stretch for a year. No issues, no worries.
The car just kept on going. It was not fast, but it got great gas mileage. It was stone reliable, started every time, even after weeks of not being driven. I should mention that this thing rarely saw a garage for any period of time, too. When I finally took the car off the road in 2017, it was so rusty I was afraid to touch it. The car functioned well, but I if had even had a minor fender bender, I’m sure it would have collapsed in a pile of rust.
Contrast that with my 1995 Pontiac Sunfire GT. 2.3 Quad 4/Isuzu 5 speed trans. I had purchased the car in 2006 as a father/daughter project, unbeknownst to me, my FIL bought my daughter a… 2004 Pontiac Sunfire. Surprise! I should have been grateful, but this kid is mechanically inclined and it would have been great to fix up the car and have it ready for her when she went off to college. So much for the best laid plans of mice and men.
The Sunfire became my daily and like the OP I grew to like the car. Were I going to purchase a small commuter car for me, it probably would have been a twin-cam Neon, not a hefty Sunfire. But, the Quad 4 gave no problems and the car was fun to drive in a way the geriatric Cavalier was not. It only had 30 more peak HP than the Cavy, but the Q4 was way more responsive. Not having to route the HP through an automatic trans helped a lot, too. But, the Isuzu tranny was fragile, something I found out the hard way. I did a hard pull and speed shift only to find I damaged a couple of synchros.
Apparently, all of the Isuzu 5 speed J-bodies had disappeared by 2010 and there were none in junkyards within 200 miles of my location. I bought one from a guy in Texas and started treating the trans with much more respect than I had before. Even though I did that, the trans was the ultimate downfall of that car, as it failed again in 2013. By then, time and rust had taken it’s toll on the car and I sold it off for parts.
If I my circumstances were different, I would like to have another one.
I am still driving my 2002 Pontiac Sunfire. It has been a really good car, tough and keeps on going, and even after it was run over by an FO tornado it still looks good. My last three cars have been Pontiacs and I swear by them.