Six month review: 2003 Buick Park Avenue

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If you drove on what are laughingly called "streets" here in The Swamp, you'd be glad of a couch on wheels.
 
My wifes 1997 LeSaber is a pile of junk! I have to replace just about everything under the hood or bolted tot he engine. Wire harness for ignition module and crank sensor,water pump,plastic water pump tubes,upper intake manifold,starter,all sensors, ignition control module,caliper,master cyclinder,brake lines,transmission and on and on.........The plastic parts in side the car are rotting and cracking and falling off the car. The door panels have shrunk so much that they no longer fit properly, the trunks locking cylinder no longer works with the key you have to use the electronic accuator, the engine leaks oil from multiple seals.

My grandmother bought it used with 40,000 miles on it and ran nothing but M1 in it and followed the oil life monitor. All maintence was always performed by the book by the dealership.When I got it with 104,000 miles on it it was already showing sings of it's poor design. I managed to nurse the transmission another 40,000 miles before I had to get a used low milage one from a salvage yard and replace it.

I am convinced that GM can not build anything that will last very long with like new performance and functioning. I have had Toyota's that wherer 17 year old and still had the same fit and finish as they did when they where new and still where squeak and rattle free. It is completly unacceptable that I had to replace a transmission at 140,000 miles. Their was a TSB for the problem but it only applied to the origanal owner. GM had a hard time boreing a round hole for the TCC apply piston and knew about it. If the owner complained under warranty about the surgeing they replaced the transmission. That should have been a recall not a TSB. How hard is it in 1997 to bore a round concentric hole in aluminum and cast iron? The upper intak manifold fiasco should have ben a recall as well not a TSB since coolant leaking into your engine is a durability issue and intake manifolds are not normal wear items!

In fact at the time when I bought my Toyota Camry I was working for GM and could have gotten a GM Supplier Discount. The fact that I bought a Toyota should tell you something.

When I had to replace the transmission all the bolts,nuts hardware and busching under that car had to be replaced due to rust. Some of them had rusted completely away! Gm has always been in the rust belt so their no excuse for that other then them useing cheap componets!

The only way you would get me in a GM vechile with my own money doing the purchaseing would be if the cost of the vechile was 1/3 the cost of the same type of vechile offered by Toyota!
 
The GM Employee discount isn't all that great and the GM Supplier discount is worse.

I didn't even get the GM Employee discount (I work for EDS) when I bought my Saab 93 2.0T since I got it with European Delivery. You can't use the Employee discount with the European Delivery discount. My desire to drive on the Autobahn at 135MPH in Germany won out so I went with European Delivery.

BTW there is NOTHING that Toyota makes that is comparable with the Saab 93.
 
Update at one year: The Buick remains the serene cruiser it was when I bought it a year ago.

Mileage today: 56,400. After an AutoRx clean and rinse, and w/ 4 oz. maintenance dose in PP 5W-30, I still see about 21-22 mpg w/ 80% city driving, about 30 pure highway (A/C use cuts it down from ~31). On my recent evacuation to Birmingham for Hurricane Gustav, averaging 65-70 mph, using 10% ethanol gas and with five passengers (one lightweight human female, four feline females in light carriers) plus 2 suitcases, A/C on and driving rolling hills, I came up with 28.5.

Things needed: 57K oil change, new battery (soon? expiration was 8/08), tire rotation/wheel balance. Cosmetic: window tinting, repainting of front bumper.

Value in comfort, driving pleasure, and reliability, even in times of 3.60/gallon gas: Tremendous.
 
My 99 LeSabre gets similar mileage on the highway, slightly lower around town. Exact same 3800 Series II engine and 4T65E transmission. 1999 was the first year for that combination before the re-design, IIRC. And needs a new battery, still the original OEM Delco. Starts have been a bit hard lately.

And yes, after restoring the fluids, Auto-RX cycles, and adding a transmission cooler, this car is great. Does its job and hopefully doesn't break.

Next modifications are polyurethane swaybar endlinks and an aftermarket PCM. I've heard good things about both, and both together will only run about $160.
 
Sounds just like my wife's 98 Lesabre POS. Same kinds of problems, constantly. Junked it at 98k miles. No more Garbage Motors for me. Her Hyundai is holding up much better.

John
 
Wow, sorry to hear a few of you having problems with your full size GMs. Mine is still doing just great.

Maybe Im lucky, just this once???
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All Ive done is brakes, the intake mainfold work, and the ICM(its underneath the coils)

Good luck to everyone, what ever youre driving now...
thumbsup2.gif
 
I just had to do the fuel sender on my LeSabre. Mild steel and road salt do not mix. What a pain to drop the tank! Eh, at least the tank itself was holding up.

The sender was leaking at the fuel line quick-connects. Some salt got inside and made a pinhole leak. The car would weep fuel when parked. A hot parking lot made matters worse. So no fuel in the lines when starting made for some really hard starts. A new sender means it starts right up!

Benzadmiral, be glad you live in a much less salty place than New York.
 
Update at two years:

The Buick has had a couple of oil changes over the last year, I've had the windows tinted and the front bumper repainted, I put in a new air filter and PCV valve, and I keep the tires at 34/33. The big gray beast and I cruised up to Knoxville, TN, this past May, and it returned about 30 mpg on the highway when I could get real gasoline. A baffle behind the rear seat came loose, resulting in an annoying thump when I drove, but the dealership traced it down. It has been quite inexpensive and rewarding to drive.

Best of all, I plan to pay it off next month, October, thus saving a boatload of interest and freeing myself of a car note for the foreseeable future! ("I got the pink slip, Daddy!")
 
BIL has a 1999 Buick LeSabre with 100k miles he bought off his boss. Has noting but problems with it, constantly. Just as he fixes one thing; another unrelated thing goes...as a backyard wrench, it keeps him REAL busy.
 
Originally Posted By: addyguy
BIL has a 1999 Buick LeSabre with 100k miles he bought off his boss. Has noting but problems with it, constantly. Just as he fixes one thing; another unrelated thing goes...as a backyard wrench, it keeps him REAL busy.

I've got a ways to go until then; mine just turned 66,666 miles last week. My Mercedes, not so much the 420SEL but the C230, were kind of like your brother-in-law's LeSabre, and the C-Class had a lot fewer miles on it. It never broke down, but there were always things to replace as it went from 59K miles to 89K under my watch. Then the electronic 5-speed tranny began to hitch and buck at weird times. I realized I needed to jump ship.

By comparison the Buick has been dirt cheap to run and very relaxing to drive. In a city with the finest of Third-World cart-track streets, a big comfortable car is a joy.
 
His in in really, really nice shape, and he got it for very little, so he'll be keeping it, just has to keep fixing it...
 
Congratulations! It sounds like you got yourself a really nice automobile. I would not worry one iota if other people thought it was an old folks car. Those big cars have a ride comfort few cars today can match.

Enjoy your car and know that the GM 3.8 liter is one of the most reliable engines around.
 
Originally Posted By: Oil_Can_Harry
Congratulations! It sounds like you got yourself a really nice automobile. I would not worry one iota if other people thought it was an old folks car. Those big cars have a ride comfort few cars today can match.

Enjoy your car and know that the GM 3.8 liter is one of the most reliable engines around.

I stopped worrying about that a while ago. To have a car that people, especially cute or hot women, exclaim over is too expensive for the return I got!
 
Originally Posted By: Benzadmiral
Originally Posted By: Oil_Can_Harry
Congratulations! It sounds like you got yourself a really nice automobile. I would not worry one iota if other people thought it was an old folks car. Those big cars have a ride comfort few cars today can match.

Enjoy your car and know that the GM 3.8 liter is one of the most reliable engines around.

I stopped worrying about that a while ago. To have a car that people, especially cute or hot women, exclaim over is too expensive for the return I got!



They ride great!
 
Originally Posted By: sciphi
My 99 LeSabre gets similar mileage on the highway, slightly lower around town. Exact same 3800 Series II engine and 4T65E transmission. . . .

Next modifications are polyurethane swaybar endlinks and an aftermarket PCM. I've heard good things about both, and both together will only run about $160.

Will the polyurethane endlinks make the car ride more firmly, or just reduce sway on turns? (Mine doesn't sway much; I suspect it has the touring suspension.) And what is an aftermarket PCM?
 
I thought I'd put this in the same thread, since it's kind of the car's history.

This month I paid the car off, almost two years early, and saved, I calculate, about $580 in interest! That will go to the new tires I'm getting tomorrow. Oil changes every 6 months, coolant and transmission fluid every three years and brake fluid every two, and I think I'll be set for a while.
 
Originally Posted By: Benzadmiral
I thought I'd put this in the same thread, since it's kind of the car's history.

This month I paid the car off, almost two years early, and saved, I calculate, about $580 in interest! That will go to the new tires I'm getting tomorrow. Oil changes every 6 months, coolant and transmission fluid every three years and brake fluid every two, and I think I'll be set for a while.


The way you take care of your cars you will be set for a while...The Buick has a good home.
 
Yeah, I like to think of it as a big pet . . . one that carries me around. Like a cowboy and his horse in the Old West.
 
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