Six month review: 2003 Buick Park Avenue

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Originally Posted By: Benzadmiral
Crown, I've driven the Crown Vic and the Mercury Marquis, and liked 'em both, but I've never tried a Town Car. One of those three might well give as good an ownership experience as the PA has.


Did you go look at that Cadillac? Drive it?
 
Originally Posted By: G-MAN
Originally Posted By: Benzadmiral
Crown, I've driven the Crown Vic and the Mercury Marquis, and liked 'em both, but I've never tried a Town Car. One of those three might well give as good an ownership experience as the PA has.


Did you go look at that Cadillac? Drive it?

I looked it over early that morning, before they were open. Cosmetically it was in terrific shape, a dark dark brown, almost black, over cream leather, with a dark steering wheel -- the BMW/Mercedes look that appeals to me. Sharp looking beast; exactly the kind of car I'd want to have if the Buick were totaled -- and I almost went back to drive it.

But I'd washed the Buick that morning. And as I sat at my barber's, looking at my gleaming car through the picture window, I said to myself, "Self, yours looks like a million bucks. And you own it already." So I passed on test-driving the Cadillac.
 
Originally Posted By: Benzadmiral
Originally Posted By: G-MAN
Originally Posted By: Benzadmiral
Crown, I've driven the Crown Vic and the Mercury Marquis, and liked 'em both, but I've never tried a Town Car. One of those three might well give as good an ownership experience as the PA has.


Did you go look at that Cadillac? Drive it?

I looked it over early that morning, before they were open. Cosmetically it was in terrific shape, a dark dark brown, almost black, over cream leather, with a dark steering wheel -- the BMW/Mercedes look that appeals to me. Sharp looking beast; exactly the kind of car I'd want to have if the Buick were totaled -- and I almost went back to drive it.

But I'd washed the Buick that morning. And as I sat at my barber's, looking at my gleaming car through the picture window, I said to myself, "Self, yours looks like a million bucks. And you own it already." So I passed on test-driving the Cadillac.


Probably a smart move. If you had driven it then you'd be driving it now.
grin2.gif
 
Originally Posted By: Benzadmiral
In the last year, among other things, I've had the water pump and A/C blower motor replaced; two tire patches; a refurbishment of the A/C controller panel; two oil changes, the most recent to Quaker State High Mileage. At a little more than 1000 miles on that fill, the level has moved very very little on the dipstick, suggesting the QS may help with my oil burning. The rear defogger: still out.



Combined with the oil consumption issues that sure sounds like a lot of problems for a 9 year old car with less than 100,000 miles on it.
 
My list of repairs sounds worse than it is. The "refurbishment" was simply having the lights replaced in the A/C dash panel box. Everything worked, and I could have let it slide, but I wanted the lights to work too. The oil burning had settled down to about a quart in 3000 miles, so it's not like I was popping a quart of oil in every week or two.

As for the tires, well, when you live in a city that's Third-World and proud of it, you shouldn't be surprised to pick up some debris now and then in your tires. Can't blame the car for that one!
 
My dad has an 01 Buick lesabre. 190k and still running. AC doesn't work and dash lights burned out but other then that its been decent. The trans does have a shudder to it at times. My sister now has it at college.
 
The big beast hit 100,000 miles on Thanksgiving Day. It's at 100,500 now; I'm taking it in for plugs and wires on Wednesday.
 
Hola, damas y caballeros,

Today marks the sixth anniversary of my purchase of the Great Gray Beast. It's at 107,nnn miles today. In the last year I've had to do some maintenance, but very little in the way of repairs:

Tire patch
January and July oil changes, 10W-30 QS Defy and Wix filter
Replaced chrome grille with an inexpensive but well-made aftermarket part
Added perhaps two quarts of makeup oil
New spark plugs and wires (100K miles)
New illuminated door and instrument panel switches; the old lights had burned out, though the switches still worked
Trunk detailing due to a water leak
Air filter & PCV valve (I do those every 2 years)
And the big one, the A/C compressor and dryer. Can't be without A/C around here.

Things to do:
Repaint front bumper
Detail entire car
Lights in the OEM stereo
Either reupholster the front seats, or purchase sheepskins

One of the great bargains of my driving life, the big Buick remains smooth, quiet, and squeak- and rattle-free. As I've said here many times, I may be tempted by other, newer cars; but the infatuation doesn't last beyond a test drive or a little Internet research into the potential new car's reliability record and gas mileage stats, or the insane costs in this stupid state of insuring it.

"Nope, I think I'll stick with the Buick." (A new tagline for the new century, like 1967's "Wouldn't you really rather have a Buick?")
 
Thanks a lot for posting all this. Reading from top to bottom is really interesting. Wife's Mercury Marquis is giving out and there is not too much to replace it. I believe the Park Avenue must be the best highway car GM ever made. They are kind of elegant looking, but perhaps their excellent function clouds my vision.
 
Thanks a lot for posting all this. Reading from top to bottom is really interesting. Wife's Mercury Marquis is giving out and there is not too much to replace it. I believe the Park Avenue must be the best highway car GM ever made. They are kind of elegant looking, but perhaps their excellent function clouds my vision.

P.S. If you get the BMW 5 series it will make up for all your good luck with the Buick.
 
I had the good fortune to drive a friends Buick Le Sabre about 11 hours from Vermont to New York several times.

That car is firmly entrenched in my mind as the most comfortable long haul highway cruiser produced.
 
Originally Posted By: cchase
I had the good fortune to drive a friends Buick Le Sabre about 11 hours from Vermont to New York several times.

That car is firmly entrenched in my mind as the most comfortable long haul highway cruiser produced.

I see LeSabres all the time, and even a few Park Avenues. But around here most look tired and unkempt, like a long-haired cat whose family doesn't bother to groom him. Sure, I'd go for an '04 or '05 Ultra to replace this one -- but where are they? California and Florida?
 
Originally Posted By: jimbrewer

P.S. If you get the BMW 5 series it will make up for all your good luck with the Buick.

That's what I'm trying to avoid. My '97 C-Class Mercedes was a fun car, but looking back over my records, I see I had to do some repair or maintenance, or have it done, almost every month I drove the car. This year with the PA, there were entire months where the only thing I needed to do was to put gas in it and check the oil and tires!
 
And . . . the era of the Great Gray Beast has at last come to an end.

Last Friday I traded it in on a CPO 2011 Buick Regal, not the turbo or GS, in the same granite gray/cream color combo as the PA. Though I'm excited about the new car, I was sad to see the big one go. It had begun to have little-to-big problems, a rattling seat belt retractor ($500 at the dealer), the intermittent transmission jerk that I've written about before, no rear defroster, etc. One of these things alone I could have shrugged off, but the combination was daunting. And I guess I was ready for something newer.

For 6.5 years, from 44K to 110K miles, the big beast served without complaint, riding smoothly, being economical and simple to maintain, and keeping me cool and warm as needed. Only twice did it ever fail: once when the battery died (but it did that when I was arriving at work!), and when the engine overheated in July of 2012 (but it did that as I got home from work!). So those were hardly real failures. And until the advent of the Regal, there was hardly a car I test drove that I liked as much, and none I liked more. As people have said here many times, the 3800 V6 was one of GM's best engines, and the Park Avenue a GM hidden gem.

I wish I could have sold it to someone who'd appreciate its virtues. In fact I did test the waters by posting an ad at
a local mechanic whose customers would have probably been the perfect demographic for it. Alas, no nibbles; and so, the dealer tells me, the Park Avenue has gone off to the wholesaler. Here's hoping a BITOG-type with a discerning eye will scoop it up before it ends its useful life languishing unkempt on some gravel lot in the rain.

Pics? I'm sure the link from 2003 isn't working any more, so here are pics taken by the dealer when it first went on sale: http://s1239.photobucket.com/user/Benzadmiral/library/2003 Buick Park Avenue Except for the cell phone antenna, the car looked exactly the same the day I traded it. (Two pics in that album are from cool GM ads; I couldn't resist putting those in.)

Farewell, big car. We shall not see your like again!
 
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