Shopping for a friend, and quite frankly, I'm berkeleying tired. Neighbor has a 97 Lumina with 140,000 miles. Auto. "Well maintained." If I buy this GD thing for said friend, am I going to be replacing an engine or transmission six months from now? Any trouble spots to look for? Thanks dudes and chicks.
I have a friend that's managed to blow 3 of them nasty berkeleyers up, with less mileage than that. I finally had him buy a GOOD car, and then like an idiot he wrecked it and bought another one. I don't know a lot about them other than that, nor do I want to. Motors are reportedly VERY weak. I don't know beyond that.
Transportation appliance. Change the intake manifold gaskets if they haven't been done in the last 50k, drive it till it quits.
Grandpa gave my son a 1995 Lumina with 75,000 miles. Son drove it for 3 years with minimal issues.
F-I-Law did zero maintenance so I got to fix some basics after 16 years. Plugs, wires, fuel filter.
Changing the battery causes the clock to glow brightly thus draining the new battery. Fuse unplugged.
http://www.fixya.com/cars/t1658722-digital_clock_radio_displayed_all_time
For a big guy the front seat sucks - I sort of hated this car.
The lower intake manifold gaskets tend to leak on the GM V6s. Just open the oil cap and you will see if it is. It is also quite a pain to replace them, and mine started leaking again (1999 Century). They will develop a rod knock right away if you push them hard when they leak--which can happen during a test drive. The engines are otherwise fine. Mine had over 200,000 miles on it.
Pretty junky imo. There's a reason they're all gone. 3.1 is annoying to work on in a lot of ways and doesnt really reward you with anything other than decent torque right around the converter stall rpm, so its not too bad to putz around in. Lower intake gaskets fill the crankcase with coolant, plastic heater pipe fittings break, 4t60 trannies break, interior falls apart. Build quality fairly bad from what i remember. Seemed about as well put together as the contemporary cavalier which always felt like a POS to me.
I dont like them. my .02
I'd get another second generation Chrysler LH over another W-body. Those are actually pretty easy to work on. I also liked my Oldsmobile Intrigue, but I bought that one almost new, and it had a much nicer engine (Northstar derived V6.)
i have nothing bad to say about the 3.1 (called the 3100 after 95 or so).. not powerful, but reliable.. and if it hasn't died yet, it probably won't for a while..
my current daily is a 97 Monte Carlo (2 door Lumina) with the 3100.. it needs head gaskets because it poured a wall of steam out between the heads and block when the cooling system built pressure when i got it. i "fixed" it with a bottle of some Bar's Leak head gasket repair 2 months and 3500 miles ago and it's still holding up. i was going to do head gaskets in it- still might some day- but i needed a driver and didn't want to deal with all the crap that breaks on 15 year old cars with 203,000 miles when you take them apart. head gaskets aren't too bad on them if they do need to be replaced down the road.. i did both head gaskets on a co-worker's 96 Monte a couple of years ago, and had a total of about 10 hours into it by the time i was driving it out of my garage.. and that was the first time i had ever done head gaskets on one of those engines.
i like it, it's comfortable and gets good mileage for a car it's size- on my long interstate jaunts it has seen as high as 29.7mpg, but it normally gets 25ish in my day to day travels. now that spring is here, i'm gonna make an air dam and maybe some side skirts out of some lawn edging, add a ram air scoop to it somewhere, and see if i can go for 35mpg's..
If you are going to play that end of the spectrum, try to find an Oldsmobile. Who really goes looking for an Alero or an Intrigue? Based on that, they tend to depreciate faster than their stable mates.
poopshovel wrote: Shopping for a friend, and quite frankly, I'm berkeleying tired. Neighbor has a 97 Lumina with 140,000 miles. Auto. "Well maintained." If I buy this GD thing for said friend, am I going to be replacing an engine or transmission six months from now? Any trouble spots to look for? Thanks dudes and chicks.
Those cars are GTOs. Gas, Tires, and Oil.
When the lower intake starts leaking (first spot is almost always the driver's side of the rear bank) install the updated aluminum-backed gaskets, which last basically forever. You won't need new bolts, they only say you need new bolts because they think you're too dumb to clean the old ones off and install new blue Loctite. Prove them wrong. Follow torque specs religiously.
Be very careful bleeding the cooling system out. If you can, use an airlift, or you can jack the front of the car 3 feet off the ground. Improper coolant bleeding will leave an air pocket around the #1 cylinder, which will eventually cause a blown head gasket and/or a pulled rocker stud after a valve sticks and the threads in the head lose the battle. (Easy enough fix with a Helicoil, don't even need to pull the intake)
In a nutshell, all of the "problems" with the engine like cam siezure, and head gasket failure are due to improper servicing. The non-fingerquotes problem can be fixed once and ignored forever after.
I second the comments about looking for a chrysler LH instead. I also prefer the oldsmobiles to the luminas.
jrw1621 wrote: If you are going to play that end of the spectrum, try to find an Oldsmobile. Who really goes looking for an Alero or an Intrigue? Based on that, they tend to depreciate faster than their stable mates.
Aleros are fun cars. They're fun like Grand Ams but they don't have all of the Little Tykes plastic body cladding.
Worst foot ergos of any car, ever. Size 12 and above shoe size need not apply, the lower dash comes so close to the floor that your foot can't be straight up and down on the pedals. Mildly annoying at first, then down-right anger inspiring having to slide your heel over as you go from one pedal to the other.
Vigo wrote: I second the comments about looking for a chrysler LH instead. I also prefer the oldsmobiles to the luminas.
Wait.... anyone would seriously consider an LH car for anything? Like, people buy those cars on purpose?
I like Chryslers, but the LH cars are some of the worst junk to darken the roads. Awful engines, awful bodies, awful suspensions, awful interiors, horrid electrics.... you know the car's bad when a Chrysler 4-speed is the car's best part.
Sure, both are very cheap used cars. There are better used cars but they are priced according. Just like any other car, if they are maintained properly they are fine. I've owned:
2000 Oldsmobile Intrigue GX (bought in 2001)
2001 Dodge Intrepid SE (bought early 2009)
1999 Buick Century (bought late 2009)
I am now quite happy with my Toyota Sienna, but good luck finding a V6 Camry/Avalon for W-body/LH pricing.
I prefer the second gen LH suspension to the W-body. I didn't try the police package/GMPP suspension parts. There is also a local company that sells Koni based coilovers for W-bodies. I did add new Intrigue front springs to my Century. The Century seats sucked, especially the driver's seat. The Intrepid back seat is huge. The Intrigue and Century/Regal look quite nice--definitely the best W-body exterior designs. The second generation LH cars are more aggressive but also dated.
My Intrepid came with a junkyard Jasper engine. It ended up breaking a timing chain guide when I buried the throttle merging onto a highway (the little engine was actually quite fun when it worked.) This particular engine hadn't been maintained, and Jasper hadn't done anything to it other than replacing the water pump. It had a shiny water pump in a sludged up engine. I think they must have also overtorqued all the bolts and studs as way too many of them broke.
I've seen plenty of those engines in good shape, and I would much rather have another one rather than a GM pushrod V6. The water pump and timing chain are easier to replace on a longitudinal engine than the intake gasket is to replace on the ancient GM design. I'm sure the larger SOHC Chrysler LH engines are more reliable.
Knurled wrote: You won't need new bolts, they only say you need new bolts because they think you're too dumb to clean the old ones off and install new blue Loctite. Prove them wrong. Follow torque specs religiously.
I bought new Fel-Pro bolts, which were too short. One of them stripped the head while being torqued. Avoid.
Neighbor had one until the body wasn't safe to drive (rust) at 276,000 miles on it.
i would never love, but do not hate, the 3.1.
they have piston slap when cold. power output is adequate at best, the same with fuel efficiency. but they run and run... parts are cheap and plentiful. nothing about them is complicated. in short:
they're a fine car for someone else.
Shopping for a friend could result in the end of the friendship.
A friend of mine had one for awhile. It was beat to E36 M3 when he got it, he beat on it even harder. Easily among the worst cars I have ever driven.
Never failed him though, it never broke down no matter how hard he tried to kill it.
I have known a number of people who went well in to the 200K range with only a few issues on this type of car/ engine.
If its cheap I might give it a go.
Intrigues are so cheap I have no idea why anyone would look at a Lumina first. Early Intrigues (like mine) came with the 3800. Here's what I would do if I bought one (CHEAP, they aren't worth anything on the market);
Perform a trans fluid swap with a new filter so you can clean all the metal off of the pan magnet. Flush the cooling system extremely well and refill with normal coolant, including the overflow, I hate Dex-cool and the stuff hides in the nooks and crannies so you'll have to be thorough. Then just take care of anything that seems off.
These cars develop weird electrical issues that all seem to come back to cost cutting at GM. I started to write the list of issues mine has and got bored with it after item five or six.
The only electrical issue I had with my W-bodies was with the rear speaker output on the factory stereos (both had the more premium stereos). Never had a problem with Dex-cool in the Intrigue, but I only owned it to 100k miles. I've heard the 3800s from the same period can also have intake manifold gasket problems. The pushrod V6s are certainly more common than the 3.5L which was only used in the Intrigue and the second generation Aurora.
iceracer wrote: Shopping for a friend could result in the end of the friendship.
I am slowly realizing this.
My parents put over 300k on their Olds cutlass, and I had a friend do the same. They where both running and driving great when they sold them.
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