Why do I want this? (Oldsmobile Content)

Probably because my Civic is loud and bumpy and I have automotive adhd.

"Very clean well maintained car ready for daily driving. Yes it was grandmas car.
1988 Olds 98
6 cyl
good tires, well maintained. Rides great. "

Cuz orphans need love too...... my two olds(aurora/bravado) say hello

Normally I can commiserate with posts like this, but in this case I can definitively say:

No, you don't want that.

Robbie said:

Normally I can commiserate with posts like this, but in this case I can definitively say:

No, you don't want that.

Second.

Probably doesn't ride any better than your Civic anyway.

Ha.  A friend in college had one.  It was relatively comfy but Robbie is probably right.  I think I'm so used to seeing rusted and  clapped-out crapcans around here that a clean nice-looking crapcan catches my eye and I think to myself, "Hey, that's pretty cool."

You might want it, it just depends on why. If you want cheap reliable transportation, go for it. (Assuming its cheap)

If you want a fun car that you can impress people with, then no, you dont want it.

Absolutely not.

Take it for a ride, you might love it or love to hate it.

I would DD one as my grandmother had two of them, they both went the distance with only normal repairs.

Gas mileages of maybe 30 on the highway, tops, and low 20's in town.  Seats should be better and I doubt time has helped.  Would honestly be a good platform to put 300k to 400k on although it will probably need a transmission or two to get there.  

I think I would look elsewhere as the mpg's aren't that hot, they really aren't that comfortable compared to cars that do get similar mileage, but if you just want a beater that will run forever you could do worse.

I have a thing for clean, well preserved cars. Doesn't really matter the type of car. So I can understand the want for that. I see those and similar Buicks for sale pretty regularly and they always get a second look. 

In reply to pres589 :

truth. At the old dealership we had a guy with a fleet of these things. OK, only 4 but still. THe oldest had 600k miles on the engine/trans. 

In reply to Bobzilla :

My mom put almost 300k on an '89 88 sedan.  Faults included a torque converter clutch that went sideway and was "repaired" by disabling the electrical aspect of the TC.  The car oddly went through a few ECU's while my family had the car.  Then it's just normal stuff, fluids and spark plugs and a set of struts.  

Swap the front seats to something less awful (shocking at how bad those were over time), the steering wheel for something with a bigger rim than the diameter of a pencil, and a modern stereo.  You know, in case you want to invest the entire value of the car back into the above.  Cruise the highway invisibly.  

The OP's picture is of a 98, which I know is supposed to be different from an 88, but I don't know how.  The 98 is a c-body, the 88 an h-body, in those years.  But I have yet to find any actual difference in engineering between the cars.  The 98 got those longer rear doors but I don't thing the door opening is even that different, just more sheet metal overhanging at the rear of the door, to make the car look longer than it is.  The cars are both basically Buick 3800's on a platform that slowly evolved from the X-body so you know the engineering is pretty non-groundbreaking.

No.  I had factory fake wire wheel hubcaps on my 1984 Cutlass Supreme Sedan - that option alone will make you sad every time you look at them.  

My buddy's mom had one.  They never had issues with it, just ran and ran, and ran.   After that car, they bought a slew of GM products with the 3800 V6, and had good luck with all of them save the Tornado Trofeo.....but that had electrical glitches.   Great daily, or winter beaters.  Not glamorous or fun, but they get the job done painlessly. 

And in my book 30 mpg is pretty darn impressive for a full-size sedan.

I woudn't really call these a full size sedan.  My Mazda 626 had more interior room for real world use; rear leg room wasn't really hot in the Olds.  The 626 was pretty much leaps and bounds better than the Olds in every single thing I can think of.

OP, just go find a good Mazda 626 turbo instead, you'll thank me when you do.

Maybe this should have gone in the Minor Confessions thread 

Soon you will transform into a short old woman who sits with her chin not an inch from the steering wheel.

So, a bunch of guys who want to drive around in clapped out old Ford cop cars diss an Oldsmobile?  What has become of this world...

Do the opera lights work?  If not, you don't want it...

You know...if you posted this at 10:25pm instead of mid-morning, I would just attribute it to beer goggles. It beats walking, but just barely. 

At least look for a Celebrity Eurosport or something?  ;)

"No other car has suspension tuned exactly like this."

The 98 and 88, other than the slight cosmetic differences that made the 98 a bit longer, also had different standard equipment.

The 88 was also more static over time and was sort of the "volume king" for Olds, while the 98 had premium pricing and got almost yearly updates that tweaked things cosmetically or mechanically. Essentially Olds' Cadillac equivalent without the V8.

If you're going to go Eurosport, you've got to go whole hog....

Peter Egan drove one for a while I think. If it’s good enough for him....

My parents ordered a 1986 Olds 98 Regency Brougham with nearly every option back in the day. It had every box checked, save for the moon roof and the Bose stereo. It even had the full digital "Castlevania Life Bar" gauge package, the in-dash calculator, and the Voice Warning system that used to drive my mom insane. As a kid, I thought we bought K.I.T.T.'s luxurious cousin. IT WAS THE FUTURE. 

They had really good luck with it and drove it trouble free for 12 years and over 100k miles, and then they broke the timing chain. A family friend fixed it up, and they offered the car to me around this time, but I already had my 1964 Buick Skylark and passed on the then-passe' Olds, and they bought a two year old 1996 Maxima GLE. 

They gave the 98 to my ex-brother-in-law, who beat it into submission within about 6 months. He crashed it and went through a pair of transmissions. In 6 months!!! It was crusher bait within a year. Poor car. 

It was a comfortable car to drive, but it has absolutely ZERO sense of sportiness. It had the thinnest steering wheel ever, so much that it was uncomfortable, and it was like riding on a cloud. You couldn't feel the pavement, even here on our Aggro-Crag roads in New England. That says something. I wouldn't mind having it today strictly as a comfortable commuter/cruiser. 

The 3.8 V6 is reliable and makes decent enough power to move the car around and then some. The real trouble area can be the transmission. Like I said, my brother in law blew through the original and two replacements in less than 6 months. He was hard on cars, so YMMV. They also made a 98 Touring, which is kinda cool. It got FE3 suspension (so sporty!) and sweet salad shooter alloy wheels or mesh wheels depending on the year. 

If it was a Touring Seda I could give you a  but not for a regular one.