Does Anyone Like Barettas?

[Webslinger60]

I used to work the service counter at new car dealerships (svc/pts/warranty/etc).From 95-98 I worked at a Chevy dealer. We had many unhappy Berretta owners. Unlike the average guy who knows his own car, and maybe a few others, I became familiar with about 100 Barrettas, so I feel qualified to give an educated opinion. Unfortunately most of them had problems. Here are the most common.

.1- Water leak behind the dash.
We went crazy with these until we finally found what the problem was. Rain & wash-water would get in where the main heat/ac unit goes through the firewall. But most people, think the lower windshield is leaking. Spend $$$ to have the w/shield removed & resealed, but that’s not the cause. What you have to do is gut the entire forward interior (seats/console/carpet/dash/etc) remove the whole heat/ac unit, smear a 2” thick bead of body sealer around the openings in the firewall & re-assemble everything. The cost was about 8-12hrs labor @ $60-75hr, and it always happened past the 3 yr warranty.

.2- Water leaks through the rear side windows.

.3- The vertical door handle would break

.4- The seatbelt retractors would loose their tension & the belts would hang out the door.

.5- Misc electrical shorts due to the water leaks.

.6- Many small things would break in succession after a certain age.

.7- They went through brakes very rapidly (could be bad driving habits though?)

There were engine/trans problems too, but no more than other 90s Chevys.
And some of the Grey & Blue paint peeled, but that also was not limited to the Retta.

Funny thing was the few cars that didn’t have theses common problems, had NO other problems at all? A good friend of mine was one of the lucky few, who never had a problem (although he did go through a lot of brakes, come to think of it).

They were cool-looking cars, with unusual innovations. They were either a great car, or fell apart from under you. You might get a good one, but the statistical odds are against you. Kind of like the early 70s Vega.

[Nets89BerettaGT]

Ugh, me and a lot of other people I know must have gotten lucky with our Berettas cuz neither I nor anyone I know has problems with their Rettas such as what you mentioned. I guess it's like with any other car, some come off the line good and others come off the line as lemons.
Annette

[lovedoctx]

I own a 1992 Chevy Baretta V6 3.1 Multi Port Fuel Injection. I have no problem with it and it hasn't had a problem with me. I tried the HP out and found out I can go from 0-60 in 6 seconds. The only think wrong was the brake pads. Of course it was because of me, I come up to a stop going between 70-90 Mph and stomp on those breaks. I love my car, I have just been told that if it driven mostly in Michigan then it doesn't last long. I live in Texas and take several trips to Michigan and still no problem. I love my car. There is one minor problem that I have seen on other barettas, the back seat fabric on the top of the seat wears easily. Other than that, I love it.

[brunell8]

Go here and you will find all the information about Beretta's that you ever wanted. I love mine, and you will see that many other people love Beretta's as well. There are fixes for the "common" problems listed above, and those are hardly deterrents from buying these great cars.

www.beretta.net
www.berettastuff.com
www.berettaspeed.com

[Radd_El]

I have owned 6 Berettas and havent' had any major problems. The one exception to this is my current 89 Base project car, which recently bent a valve. Of course, it has 247,000 miles on it, so it was about due for something. I drove it for 2yrs with no probs. Brunell8 has it right if you want to learn all kinds of cool mods and tricks for your Beretta. Just go to bstuff or one of the other Beretta sites. We are a pretty friendly bunch!

Ron

p.s. www.bstuff.com is the forum areas address!

[fastazzgtz]

Originally Posted by Nets89BerettaGT

Jimmy,

Yeah, I kind of figure the Lightning had to be very fast in order to come out of nowhere like he did and passed my Retta (thought he may have had NOS though at first). My girl has a lot of torque and can reach a top speed of 180MPH (I replaced the factory chip and put in a high perfromance/racing chip so I wouldn't have the top speed limiter on the car any more). The only reason why I know I was going 180MPH is because I got caught by a State Trooper here in PA on interstate 83 (it's a highway that has a lot of straight aways and it's smooth). .

Serioulsy your so full of crap it's coming out of your ears and nose, get real please, your post are so bad I had to register to the forum just to call you out for such horrid crap of lies.

[fastazzgtz]

[quote=lovedoctx]I own a 1992 Chevy Baretta V6 3.1 Multi Port Fuel Injection. I have no problem with it and it hasn't had a problem with me. I tried the HP out and found out I can go from 0-60 in 6 seconds. QUOTE]


Dude can you count??? a 3.1 v6 is more like 8.8 seconds 0-60, the fastest beretta is a GTZ with a 2.3 liter 4 cylinder and it does 0-60 in about 7.2 with 180 hp and 160 tq from the show room floor. Some of the conversion 3800 super charged v6 (from a 240 hp GTP) swapped motors wont even take a beretta to 6 flat 0-60.

[sysopt]

Originally Posted by Nets89BerettaGT

Jimmy,

Yeah, I kind of figure the Lightning had to be very fast in order to come out of nowhere like he did and passed my Retta (thought he may have had NOS though at first). My girl has a lot of torque and can reach a top speed of 180MPH (I replaced the factory chip and put in a high perfromance/racing chip so I wouldn't have the top speed limiter on the car any more). The only reason why I know I was going 180MPH is because I got caught by a State Trooper here in PA on interstate 83 (it's a highway that has a lot of straight aways and it's smooth). Not like up there in the states further north. New York has the worst roads I think. I do have photos of my car posted in the gallery here on this website under "vehicle photographs". I also have a website that has a couple photos of it and lists all the modifications I've made and lists the vehicles I have beaten in a 1/8 mile drag (street) race. I haven't gotten any photos of it racing because where I used to race it in the Circuit downtown, it's nothing that is organized. Everyone just goes cruising around the loop and when you get to a light, if the guy next to ya wants to race, then the race starts from there when the light turns green. Of course you have to be the front two cars at the light. Oh, and I have beaten a lot of Honda Civics that were pimped out...also Accura Integras also. There are a lot of them in my area. Seems a lot of people are into those Euro type of cars. That's all good though, I like the American muscle cars and I'll stick with them. Oh in case you want to look at it, my website address is http://hometown.aol.com/penandinkartist/ You might be able to access it just by clicking on the address itself (if not, just copy and paste it). Sorry I can't comment much on trucks, like I said...I'm very limited in my knowledge about trucks. I've never even owned one. I've seen some really sweet looking trucks though already that were pimped out and had the low profile tires on them and a lowering kit, etc. You can make a truck look really nice/sporty.

Not to be an ass or anything, but I just dont believe your car can hit 180, it doesnt make any sense. I guess it was a typo.

[95corsy]

Originally Posted by Nets89BerettaGT

Hi Pimp_squeak,

Thanks for your two cents worth. By the way, I love your Camaro, totally awesome!! See, that's what I'm talking about, good old American muscle. Do you show it at car shows? It looks like you did a really nice job of restoring it. I tried to access your homepage but the site isn't working right now.

thats not a real car. Its a concept that someone came up with for a 2006 or so camaro

[95corsy]

as for berettas, they are great cars. I have a corsica which is a 4 door beretta and I havent had any major problems with it. I wish i had a 3.1 instead of this slow ass 2.2 lol

[Bindy53944]

I love my BERRETTA!!!! Bought it brand new off the floor with 2 miles on it and now I have over 200,000 miles on it. Had some minor problems with an air leak in the intake but took care of that and now it runs like brand new. Just went and bought a KIA and I hate that car. My berretta has more balls then the KIA. To bad that Chevy stopped making them. I drive it until it falls apart.

[Ragtop_Renegade]

I did like my Beretta. I also beat the s**t out of it. Still, it made it to 115,000 before I blew a head gasket and totally trashed the engine. Somewhere in this thread(too lazy to quote) someone said it went through brakes fast. I found that to be true until I put on genuine AC Delco pads and rotors again. The brakes are still good (too bad the engine isn't lol)

[Ranger762]

Originally Posted by Nets89BerettaGT

The Chevy Beretta is a great car! You can ask any Beretta owner and they'll tell you as much.

Amazing you should say that. I've never met any Beretta owner (until you, I suppose! ) who actually liked their car -- myself included!

In the 3 years I owned my 92, I had it in the shop some 49 TIMES for defects. That's right, just the defect work; that doesn't include normal maintenance. The thing was an absolute lemon (If I hadn't been so young and stupid I'd have pursued lemon law on it). Among other things, it had the annoying habit of locking the steering wheel when running down the highway at 70 or so -- never could figure that one out!

[gene_j78]

Originally Posted by Webslinger60

I used to work the service counter at new car dealerships (svc/pts/warranty/etc).From 95-98 I worked at a Chevy dealer. We had many unhappy Berretta owners. Unlike the average guy who knows his own car, and maybe a few others, I became familiar with about 100 Barrettas, so I feel qualified to give an educated opinion. Unfortunately most of them had problems. Here are the most common.

.1- Water leak behind the dash.
We went crazy with these until we finally found what the problem was. Rain & wash-water would get in where the main heat/ac unit goes through the firewall. But most people, think the lower windshield is leaking. Spend $$$ to have the w/shield removed & resealed, but that’s not the cause. What you have to do is gut the entire forward interior (seats/console/carpet/dash/etc) remove the whole heat/ac unit, smear a 2” thick bead of body sealer around the openings in the firewall & re-assemble everything. The cost was about 8-12hrs labor @ $60-75hr, and it always happened past the 3 yr warranty.

.2- Water leaks through the rear side windows.

.3- The vertical door handle would break

.4- The seatbelt retractors would loose their tension & the belts would hang out the door.

.5- Misc electrical shorts due to the water leaks.

.6- Many small things would break in succession after a certain age.

.7- They went through brakes very rapidly (could be bad driving habits though?)

There were engine/trans problems too, but no more than other 90s Chevys.
And some of the Grey & Blue paint peeled, but that also was not limited to the Retta.

Funny thing was the few cars that didn’t have theses common problems, had NO other problems at all? A good friend of mine was one of the lucky few, who never had a problem (although he did go through a lot of brakes, come to think of it).

They were cool-looking cars, with unusual innovations. They were either a great car, or fell apart from under you. You might get a good one, but the statistical odds are against you. Kind of like the early 70s Vega.

I think I found my water leak, thanks for that info. My 93 Baretta is approaching 200,000. miles and still runs strong. Good pm schedule and premium fuel. Unfortunatly, the interior is getting in poor condition. Looking for interior parts, console, door panals veets etc.

[tblake]

nice looking little cars, and will last a while if properly maintained, but if not, they will have a lot of problems down the road.