As much as it pains me to say (well not really), you guys were right. :( Something is wrong with my battery system. Take your pick, the battery (I'll bet money on that one), the starter, or the alternator is shot. This afternoon I put the key in the ignition with the door open and instead of the usual Bing Bing I got biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing extremely labored. Tried starting it and I got absolutely no response from anything save for a strange click click click from under the passenger hush panel. Pontiac has it now.

I dunno what the problem is for sure, sometimes the battery has no charge, sometimes it'* overcharged, sometimes turning on a turn signal drains the whole damn thing. But I had to borrow my mom'* Tahoe for work, its just not the same. But after spending 50 bucks on one fix, an estimated $200 on this fix, and the combined cost of two AAA tows its not likely I'll be getting a new car, especially if this one works properly now.

EDIT: Heh heh heh, even in this bad situation, I have to admit the Bonneville continues to impress the ladies. A girl walks by and looks at the interior and just goes "Whoah, you have a nice car." Told her it wouldn't start and she says "If it makes you feel any better my car ran out of windshield washer fluid this morning."

Sounds like the voltage regulator went bad in the alternator. Hope it didn't do more damage than that like it did to my 1994 SLE (ruined guage cluster).

That sucks. Fix it and sell or junk it?
Snell still have that Impala? When I was at Heintz on Monday a salesman was trying to get me to buy a GXP, I told him to drop 20K off and he'd have a deal.

Sounds like SHE must have been a BLONDE!!!!!!!!!

Sucks about the car but it does sound like a voltage reg to me too!!!

how did it ruin the gauge cluster?

Voltage spiked and stayed for a while -didn't realize it was happening as I was cruising down the freeway, with nothing on except the cruise (was on the cell phone at the time). I had noticed my voltage guage read around 14.5v, but it never read correctly before. Then all of the sudden all of the guages went whacko, and the engine was surging and sputtering. Hooked up the digital voltage guage when I got home and saw readings of 16-17.5v. Swapped in a new battery still did the same. New alternator (rebuilt 140 amp from a 1992 SSE) and saw readings of 14.7-14.9v.

Well Pontiac Service called me today. FIrst thing the guy said was "Bad news."

They did a trickle charge and fired it up, ran every test they had. Nothing nothing nothing. They did every test twice, the car passed the test every time. They did a battery load test, it passed three times at both engine off and engine start. Pontiac has no idea whats wrong with it. So there are three possibilites:

1. The wiring in the drive lights shorted out.
2. The wiring in the radio shorted out and I have to threaten Best Buy to honor their warantee. Bastards.
3. Wiring in the car is shorting out.

Possible fixes:
1. Spend 3 weeks to 3 months testing each part and seeing if the car strands me again.
2. Sell the damn thing and run.

Heintz wants me to buy a 2005 Toyota Carolla. Ford wants me to buy a used 2000 Ford F-150 Lariat, Chrysler: 2000 Dodge Durango and while I like MY Bonnie the best out of all of them, I may end up forced to buy.

Snell STILL has the Impala, STILL at 18,990, STILL not willing to deal on it. Last time I was there the dealer left me alone for 45 minutes. I walked out. If his other client was more important, fine. They lose my business.

Well,the best solution I can think of is to buy a...........BONNIE!!!!!!!!

Just find a nice used 96-99 SSEi. Those 3 vehicles you listed are kinda crappy. The Corrola will seem slow after the Bonny, the Durango'* transmission will most likely go, however, the F-150 isn't such a bad truck. They run forever lots of times but do have differential problems. The F-150 would be my choice of the 3, but i'd take a SSEi over those 3 anyday.

Try and fine a nice used Bonnie in this city. Or in this state. Typical they are 96-98 green (no offense to you green Bonnie lovers) SLEs with 90,000 miles on em. Oh, and an SSEi of any model year is un-insurable for me. . . . I HATE GREEN.
D'oh, I meant Camry. I didn't like it all that mutch anyway. Boring. The carolla had no balls. I test drove it and tried floring it. TRIED. I thought my foot was stuck on something, then I figured out thats all the farther the pedal goes.

In all honesty I'm looking for the silver lining to this situation, but calling it quits on a low-mileage Luxury sedan with black leather interior is gonna hurt no matter which way you wanna look at it.