1997 Pontiac Firebird problems
Owners have filed 59 complaints with NHTSA about the 1997 Pontiac Firebird. Brakes is the most reported problem area, at 25% of complaints. Next are cruise control (10%) and engine (10%).
At a glance
- Complaints
- 59 filed with NHTSA
- Most reported
- Brakes 25% of complaints
- Crashes and fires
- 6 and 4
- Injuries and deaths
- 6 and 0
Source: NHTSA owner complaints
Where the complaints are
Share of this model year's complaints by the part of the car involved. One complaint can name more than one part, so the shares can add up to more than 100%.
What the data shows
Safety-related details: 6 complaints mention a crash; 4 complaints mention a fire; 6 injuries reported. Its complaints are more severe on average than those of 85% of model years in our database.
Looking only at complaints filed within five years of the model year (so older and newer years are comparable), the 1997 ranks 6th most-complained-about out of 11 model years of the Pontiac Firebird with enough data (36 complaints in that window). It is also covered by 1 safety recall campaign.
What owners wrote
A few complaints as filed, shortened and with personal details removed. The first ones are among the most serious reports for this model year; the rest are typical.
I was driving my car making an exit off the freeway & as I looked over my shoulder too make sure it was safe to merge over I seen there was smoke coming out of the tailpipe I went to turn back around & smoke was also coming from the sides of the steering wheel , I went too put my eyes back on the road & the whole front end of the car was on fire .
At 118,000 miles I had my front brakes changed for the third time. I asked the person changing the brakes to check the rear brakes since they have never been changed. I had asked previous people to look at them when inspecting brakes and I was always told they were fine. This time the person really looked at them and informed me that the brakes had never touched the drums (ever). My rear brakes were showroom new and so were the rear drums.
The turning signal light sockets on the 1997 firebird (and probably other model years) burn up after a time causing signal failure and marker light failure. The cause is the excessive heat given off by the daytime running lights. Pontiac used the turning signal element of the light assembly as a full on,all the time, visibility light for daytime driving. I love the idea for safety reasons but I feel the signal socket needs to be better able to handle the heat of these lights being on all the time.