Oldsmobile Intrigue

ab348

I feel responsible for your new indebtedness... after you drove my GX you just had to go and one-up me! Even got the "fool's gold" package - it'll go nicely with the white belt and shoes I'm thinking of getting you for Christmas in preparation for your seemingly impending move to a retirement community down south.

Note to Board: Rocketman and I are buddies and I have been ribbing him ever since he bought it with lines like the above. It's actually a very nice car. Unfortunately he probably won't be driving it much until spring. It might end up being the last suriviving Intrigue 40 years from now given the care he provides to his vehicles.

Question to all: does anyone have the 2002 GLS with pewter 2-tone leather? I've never seen one with that and I wonder if the metal-look trim (which replaced the wood) looks good. I'd be interested in owner opinions. The trim might be something to order for mine.

dindak

I like the Terraza interior / dash a lot. Best thing about the van.

b4z

Interior is nice, but GM needs to wake up and realizw that 200hp can't move a 4400lb vehicle.

rocketman71

Thanks for the welcome to the board. I haven't had a chance to try the 28 mph and floor it experience; I can only imagine as it must be in the right range to start spinning through 6500- enjoyed the comment "report back"

rocketman71

Poor ab348, only has the GX model and is looking to upgrade to chrome wheels and now interior trim panels - a parts bin special in the works! Perhaps a whip aerial and curb feelers are next. It's only appropriate he has the GX model, as his 68 Cutlass is just an "S", and my loaded 71 SUPREME goes nicely with my loaded GLS. Is there a trend here? Ha Ha.

dindak

220 ft lbs of torque though

b4z

Pacifica weighs the same and has 250 hp 250 torque and is called sluggish by most.
0-60 is 9.8 secs.
Gm needs to get serious and compete with the Asians.
3.9L with 240 hp will do will in that vehicle.

vcjumper

Seems pretty marginal for a car 1000 lbs heavier than our Intrigues. Too bad they can only put the 3.5L Honda mill in the Saturn Vue and not the vans oops sorry sport crossovers LOL (Saturn now seems about irrelevant/pointless as it can get with the Equinox and Cobalt coming out).

v8lincolnguy

Chrysler has always had problems making decent hp numbers translate to decent performance. Look at the outgoing 300M. 250 hp and maybe 100 lbs heavier than our Intrigues, yet no quicker. A 3600 lb GM car with a 250 hp engine would probably be doing 0-60 under 7 seconds.

rocketman71, one word of caution when trying b4z's trick. Make sure there are no cops around! Cause you will not want to let off on the gas once you exceed the posted speed limit. Oh and turn the radio off and enjoy the music that engine makes:)

evandro

That's right. It seems that Chrysler transmissions sap a lot of power...

b4z

Many years ago chrysler put a ZF transmission in a 300M and the 0-60 time dropped by .5 secs!!!!

ab348

Don't know if the follwoing will work if you haven't registered, but it's a nice collection of Olds & GM screensavers to download:

https://www.mygmlink.com/html/US/en/go2content/privileges/oldsmob- ile/oldsmobile_intrigue.html

taycron

Cool Intrigue screensaver.. Thanks..

This was my first snow storm with my Intrigue. I thought it handled well in the snow. I was very confident driving it. I do have a couple of problems. First, the windshield defroster is crappy. It didn't defrost the top third of my windsheild. I had it on windsheild defroster at full strength, and as usual, it was bringing in the outside air. It also did a poor job on the side windows. I had to open them when I needed to make a turn.. secondly, I was disappointed with the rear defroster.. It worked ok but it could be better..

dindak

ab348 : Great link, thanx!

b4z : Chrysler numbers are all inflated. Honda Odyssey has 242 ft lbs of torque, new GM vans have 220. Not a big diff.

vcjumper

Will be replaced in 6 months. That is what GM will be competing with. I'm guessing one will have more nifty interior configurations and more power than the other. I'm disappointed in GM's mainstream offerings lately just trying to match the competition but be a few $ cheaper (Ion, Malibu, these "crossovers") rather than be clearly class leading in performance, interior quality, and styling. Still may get a CTS in a few years if they improve the interior, or a G6 in 2005 when it gets the 3.9L if it is more impressive than the earlier mentioned vehicles.

v8lincolnguy

Back in the mid to late 90s, GM cars often offered class leading power levels. Remember the 97 GTP and Regal GS? Where else could one get a 240 hp sedan for 25K? Even the standard issue W-bodies had 200 hp which was par(or a bit above) for that time.

mfletouva

Funny thing happened on the way to work Monday in my '02 GL. Glanced down at the radio, listening to the 24 hour Xmas music on WASH-FM here in DC, and I see the name of the song and the artist scrolling through the radio. Now, I always knew that the RDS radio was capable of this, but until Monday I have never seen it.

I flipped through a few more stations, and saw that the same thing was happening for other stations, including BIG100, the Oldies station. All the channels that had the song titles were ClearChannel Worldwide radio stations. Its very cool--and something that few other people have. My girlfriend and her friends went nuts and wanted a radio that did it. It starts out with the name of the station, like BIG100.3 or HOT99.5 and then says the name of the song, then the artist, and then scrolls back to the station name and cycles back through. I feel like I suddenly got a new option on a car that's over a year old now. Anyone else noticed this? Do other markets have stations that do this--I haven't seen it no matter where I've driven, and the car has been up and down the East Coast. Some of the stations did have their call signs show up on the radio (like WQSR in Baltimore), but not the song info.

b4z

It seems that the Chryslers are putting out their rated power but the transmissions are taking about 7-15 more hp than a GM transmission to operate.
About 3-4 years ago there was a lot of posting on this thread about the Intrigue vs. Intrepid vs. 300M.
For instance the 300M and Intrigue post identical 0-60 times. Of around 7.7-7.8 secs.
The 300M has 35 more hp but weighs only 200lbs more, but can't beat an Intrigue.
When Chrysler put that ZF transmission in the 300M it explained the discrepency.
Their transmissions are some of the most inefficient made.

ab348

Yeah, that RDS audio system was one of the new things for '02 on the Intrigue. Here in Canada I don't know if we have any stations that support that though - certainly I have never seen mine kick in locally. There are a bunch of things on that radio that I still haven't figured out, RDS being one of them.

dindak

About 60-70% of stations in the Toronto area at least partially support it. Some just have a station name, others have song titles, advertising and even contests. It's pretty big here though when I leave the city I rarely find another station that supports it. Our Alero has it, our Intrigue is older and does not. It's a great little feature though!

ozznet

I live in canada and mine doesn't do that, but I did just notice that one radio station will come up and advertise their morning show, the time of the show and who is on it and it will scroll across the screen. No other radio station has that here. Thought it was kind of cool.

focus

Deonon home audio bought out rds at least 10+ years ago, it was more hype than anything else; it seems that the stations finally made the investment to make it work, but there are quite a few digital radio format to choose from now.
Fm quality seems to improve quite a bit over the last few years, they now rival or sometimes better than cd. (e.g. jazz 91.1 in toronto)

dindak

Ya, some stations in Toronto sound much better than others, I figured they must use better technology of some kind. I like the RDS, Q107 has weather forecasts on it very regularly.

evandro

Interestingly enough, a couple of stations started sending out the RDS data last week. There was only a station that did that and only its prefix. Both the others now display the artist and the song title. It could be that the local stations here belong to the same holding as those up there...

But this is in my '02 Bonneville. The '00 Intrigue can't display RDS information.

b4z

Not picking at you, but FM rivaling CD is pretty difficult.
FM has a frequency response of 30-15KHz and a S/N ratio in the seventies.
You are probably responding to a station that uses very little compression to preserve the dynamics of the music.
Unlike rock stations where the quiet parts are boosted and the loud parts are compressed.
Unfortunately the trend in the music business is to set the faders all the way up and record it loud.
It is a shame.

The closest I have heard to CD quality is XM radio.

v8lincolnguy

My LS has this fature and all of about 3 stations here broadcast it. And all you get are call letters and one of them scrolls the station tagline. None of them give artist and title of whats playing. Of coarse, with XM radio(which I have now installed in the LS) I get artist and title on everything.

b4z, as for sound quality, XM is close to CD quality, but not quite there. Still better than nearly all FM stations as there is no static or interference. Unlike FM which gets fuzzy(even strong local stations do in certain places) you either get the XM signal or you don't. And there are only a handful of areas where I have experienced spotty XM signal.

dindak

I wish they had XM up here, I would give it a try for sure. Apparently there is a plan in the works to bring it to Canada soon though. We shall see.

redline65

About 6 or 7 stations I like in Dallas started broadcasting the artist and title, only in the past week or two. A very nice feature. Of course my wife gets to enjoy it in her Envoy since my Intrigue doesn't have RDS. Oh well...

mfletouva

Did a little digging, and what I suspected to be true is the case. Turns out ClearChannel Worldwide, which I believe is the 2nd largest radio network, is launching RDS across the country on their affiliates--I would estimate there to be at least 2 or 3 ClearChannel stations per market in most markets where you will see RDS.

Apparently Entercom, which is not as large as ClearChannel but still a player (for you Bostonians I believe they operate WEEI (home of the Red Sox) and WRKO in Boston,) is also launching RDS. Right now, Infinity Broadcast Systems, which is the nation's largest and is part of CBS-Viacom, has limited RDS support with call letters. They may expand that to include song title and artist name as well. So, that's the deal, look for it if you have an RDS compatible radio.

focus

Yes, technically the figure is not impressive, in fact, the low cut off at 150; but subjectively it can be very musical and airy on some broadcast, sort of like a good record on a good turntable - under spec. but sounds a lot warmer than a cd.

b4z

I guess specs are not as critical in the nosiy car enviroment.
Electric bass guitar doesn't go below 41Hz.
I can only hear to 16khz now so a roll of at 15Khz is no big deal.
I own a pair of Spica TC-50 speakers that I bought in 1984.
They roll of at 15Khz and are some of the best speakers I have heard.

dekester

I was a little leery on the drive home Friday with about four inches on the ground and more coming. Since this was the first Winter with the Yokohamas, I didn't know what to expect.

Well, I barely lost traction even once! The AVIDs held MUCH better than the standard Eagles! I even stopped at the mall on the way home to cash my paycheck and decided to have some fun in the nearly deserted parling lot. When I was clear of everyone, I floored the gas....Traction Control kicked in within two seconds and straightened me out. At no time did I feel like I was going out of control. This is a '98 base model - PCS didn't come for a couple years yet.

With the Eagles, I would have been doing donuts with the TC system banging away.....

Saturday morning before the second storm hit, same thing. Great traction in the slush/slop. Only complaint, though, there was WAY more frozen slush in the wheel wells than ever before. This morning's drive was a little noisy until it fell off. Tonight, before I leave the lot, I'll use the scraper to get the rest out.

Deke

dindak

Thankfully that storm swung just south of lake Ontario and missed us. We had a nice sunny weekend so I washed the Intrigue. It was pretty dirty.

I was surprised how much snow Boston got, yikes!

redline65

I put Avid Touring tires on my Intrigue last week. So far I'm very happy with them. Of course we haven't had any rain or snow here yet. I'm crossing my fingers that they don't get chopped like my Dunlop SP Sport A2s did. After reading owner reviews on Tirerack.com, I see I'm not the only person who had that problem with their Dunlops.

focus

Yes, technically the figure is not impressive, in fact, the low cut off at 150; but subjectively it can be very musical and airy on some broadcast, sort of like a good record on a good turntable - under spec. but sounds a lot warmer than a cd.

akitadog

I actually had the chance to street drag my Intrigue 3.5 against a 300M. I was not expecting to beat the guy, just wanted to see how well I could keep up. Turns out that we ended up being neck-and-neck the whole way up the hill. You would have needed a photo finish to see who was ahead. A line of cars in my lane made me hit the brakes before he, but before that, he never gained on me at all. I was amazed at the turnout and did all kinds of power/weight ratio math the next day. Turns out that he still should have a better p/w ratio even if he had a full tank of gas and was a little on the chubby side, and I have a near-empty tank, with my current weight.

dekester

I think I've put about 2500 miles on my Avids and see no wear at all. Quieter than the Eagles, though there's some not-unpleasant road hum at about 65MPH that I've gotten used to. Nothing at all like the Goodyears for traction, looks and, apparently, wear. For $53 each from Tire Rack, I think they were a good buy - replacement Eagles were $104 each!

Didn't get the wife's Camry out on Saturday like I wanted to see how the Contis handled....

Only accidents I saw were SUVs spun out or up against guardrails. The best was a new Explorer who rear-ended a Silverado with the pickup's trailer hitch and rear bumper puncturing the Ford's radiator... Also, the Explorer hit the curb hard enough to knock the rear axle loose! Rear end was making a left turn. How's he gonna explain THAT to the insurance adjuster?

Deke

evandro

They're thinking of digital FM. The bandwidth allocated per station in North America allows easily for 128Kbps MP3-encoded audio, IOW, nearly CD quality. The neat thing is that there's enough room in the channel for both the analog signal and the new digital signal, so that legacy receivers would still work. But so far everything is very preliminary, hitting the market only several years from now.

Hey, FM stations had to react to XM and Sirius! Don't you just love competition? ;-)

vcjumper

Michelin Pilot Alpins on my car now.. Waiting for a real snowfall to put them to the test. Pretty quiet for winter tires and nice handling. Probably not great winter tires though better than all-seasons.

b4z

Your experience echoes mine.
I beat lots of cars that were supposedly faster.
others that were supposed to be faster where the same.

focus

Northstar engines rules!

sda

Out of curiosity, I checked the CarMax online site to see if they still had my '00 GL that I sold to them. They had it listed for $12998. It had sunroof, spoiler, cloth,cd, radio controls on steering wheel. Midnight blue, hand painted pinstripes that matched interior color (neutral). Clean, sharp car. They sold it in less than a week. I hope whoever bought it will enjoy it as much as I did. Take care of her please. She's special!

dindak

sda : How many miles on her? I'd be tempted to buy if I lost my Intrigue.

focus : Love the shortstar.

rjs200240

There is much more to an engine than just its peak horsepower number. So peak power/weight isn't really a very meaningful comparison.

evandro

It went out in my Intrigue... :-( Now, starting it requires cranking for 3 to 5s and the engine is not as powerful as it used to be, but no slouch either.

I went to an AutoZone store and the guy confirmed that the sensor is gone. Unfortunately, he didn't have the part and neither did the warehouse, so he couldn't even order it. It could be only a faulty connection, but I stopped at a Buick-Cadillac dealer and when I knew that it had only 2, I got one anyway (for about $100).

The dealer quoted the service as a $125 job, an independent shop, as a $75 job plus about $100 for "diagnostics"...

Knowing the history of the Intrigue, I'm leaning towards having the service done at the dealer. AFAIK, it can be replaced from under the car by removing the starter.

sda

It had 38700 miles. Someone bought a nice car:) I thought it was encouraging that the car sold for $12998. Resale value holding up reasonably well.

dekester

I checked out the Carmax web site, did a Kelley on my 98 base (34300 miles, 3.8, spoiler, AM/FM/Cassette/CD) and came up with a trade-in value of about $4300 (OUCH!). When I checked their available cars, a similar Intrigue with about 10K more miles was going for $8G+! What do they base their prices on when they buy a car?

There are no Carmax outlets in New York, but I'd be tempted to take a trip to Baltimore if they'd pay a decent price for mine!

Deke

dindak

Resale around here for Intrigues is the same as for Grand Prix's, maybe even a touch higher. I know in some areas resale is not great but Oldsmobiles sold well here and we have a good local dealer.

v8lincolnguy

FM can add digital transmission and features like RDS to try and compete with XM and Sirius, but until they vastly improve the variety and quality of their programming, it will be an uphill battle. My number one reason for paying $9.99 a month for XM is not the digital sound(which in the car is no better than FM) but the MUCH better program offerings and far fewer commercials.

evandro

I agree, the worst part is indeed the typical contents of FM radio.

However, another monthly payment gives me the creeps...