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Comments
And the '87 "evenfire" with SFI developed a conservative 150HP and would wind up to 5500RPM. Nice little engine that could push a Cutlass Cierra to 75mph all day and still go better than 30mpg with the A/C on.
Maybe I just got some good ones?
The later ones were much, much better but got plastic intake manifolds later in production that ruined their image for many people.
I forget when the 181/3.0 Buick V-6 got phased out, but I think it got beefed up for 1985 as well, while the larger 252/4.1 version was phased out.
Then there was that nylon-mesh timing gear thingie that tended to make them die early, but I think a lot of cars had those back then, not just the 231. I knew someone who had a 1969 or so Delta 88 with (I think) a 425, and I remember him mentioning that the nylon mesh thingie went bad in it.
I had a '85 231 that went 152,000 trouble free miles, and the sprocket held up fine, but the average life may have been in the 90,000-120,000 mile range. Transmission failure (tranny number 3) finally did in my '85 Olds 98. By that time the car had numerous other needs as well, so the crusher put it out of its misery.
Also if you got a SC 3800 you got a metal intake gasket.
True, and for that reason alone it was best to get the supercharged models. The problem was that very few buyers were aware of this issue, but certainly GM knew.
Is there a regular interval that you should replace the timing chain, as preventive maintenance? I know they used to say "life of the car", but back in the day, people often ran their cars into the ground by 100,000 miles. My pickup has about 123,000 miles on it now.
Also, is the manifold just something that fails at random, or do you have to do something to the engine first, like make it overheat? I think most of these manifold failures tend to happen once the car is pushing 80-100,000 miles, well out of warranty. I've heard that the 3.1/3.4 (maybe the 2.8 as well) were also known for having the intake manifold go bad. One of my cow-irkers has a 1999 or 2000 Olds Silhouette minivan that her mother gave her a couple years ago. It had about 100,000 miles on it when the manifold went bad. She was royally pissed. How DARE a 6-7 year old vehicle with 100,000 miles on it have something break on it! Oh, and when the heater quit working, she just didn't understand it. Her reasoning was that her mother lived in Florida and rarely used the heater, so why wouldn't it be like brand-new? :confuse:
I think you can still run timing chains for the life of the engine, generally. Why generally and not always? As I understand it, in some cases the chain links get loose after many miles, causing the chain to skip. In these cases, which aren't all that common, it's best to replace the chain. Also, in some cases, the teeth on the sprocket, even the metal ones, can break from metal fatigue, although that's really uncommon. In these cases, it's best to change the sprocket, and probably the chain too, since it may have been weakened, and because most if the cost for this repair is in the labor. If I can state the obvious to make a point, even the best materials CAN break from fatigue, but the probability of such an occurance is far smaller than with an inferior material.
Insofar as your '89 PA, lemko, are you beating the odds? I don't know what percentage of the plastic manifolds failed, because to the best of my knowledge GM never released those figures. I'm guessing that it was less than 50%, and maybe far less, but the failure rate was high enough, particularly given the number of engines on which those manifolds were used, to be a serious problem. So, we're dealing with the law of large numbers here, where even 5% of 2,000,000, say, just to pick a random number, is 100,000, a large number. My guess is that the failure rate was sufficiently low for GM to decide to manage the problem rather than fix it. I doubt if Toyota or Honda would have taken that approach, or, for that matter, whether GM would today, either. Incidentally, that component was fixed, and current the 3.8 is bullet proof. Long answer to your short question.
Incidentally, I like your PA, lemko. I had a '85 98 Brougham.
DuPont used to make the manifolds out one particular composite and now they use something else.
Tons of cars have plastic intake manifolds now and they don't have problems like those 90s 3800s did.
Then again, my 93 LeSabre has the plastic intake and no real problems at 120k. I add about a pint of antifreeze a month which is attributable to an intake leak but I can live with that.
At first, I attributed this to her just not being very knowledgeable about cars. So I tried to explain it to her that if she's losing antifreeze, that's going to affect her heat. Explaining it to her was akin to the old analogy of leading a cow to water, but it's up to that cow to take the drink! :P
I just hope that they fixed the intake problem by the time of the 2003 Regal, because that's what my old man has.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
It's got a new tranny which is a trouble spot for this car. What else should I watch out for?
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
If it's a Neon engine, it dates back to the old K-car 2.2/2.5 4-cyl engines, which were non-interference, so if the timing belt went south, you were just stranded, but with no engine damage. However, I dunno if the DOHC design might be different. And if it's a Mitsu engine, I have no idea if it's interference or not.
I know the timing belt interval on the old Mopar 2.2/2.5 was every 60,000 miles, but I imagine that by 1999, they had it stretched to 105,000 miles.
As for struts, how often SHOULD they be replaced? My Intrepid is pushing 133,000 miles now, and they feel fine to me. But since that kind of stuff usually deteriorates very gradually, who knows? I drove the car this morning and it felt fine. A little cramped, though, after getting re-used to stuff like '85 Chevy pickups, '79 New Yorkers, and '76 LeManses. :P
Are struts expensive to replace?
I know that when my stepson replaced the struts on his 2002 Saturn L200 recently it cost him somewhere around $1K .. his car has, I think, 130-140K on it.
Murrays/Kragen/Schucks have a "loaded strut" that is the strut, new spring, and new bearing cap all assembled. That whole assembly just gets dropped into the car.
$1000 for new shocks seems really high, unless they also did other suspension work, like a control arm or a ball joints or something.
They were KYB GR-2s. So far so good, they were better than the 110k old Honda shocks, and I preferred them to Monroe or Gabriel. I could see Koni or Bilstens but this is a 15 year old Honda here lol.
What shocks do you like on your vehicles?
So, at 130,000 miles, I'm guessing that if I bought some halfway decent struts for my Intrepid, there's a good chance it'd be the last time I ever have to spring for struts? I seriously doubt I'll still have this Intrepid at 260,000 miles! At the rate it's been getting miles put on it lately, I figure that'd be 11-13 years away!
But you know most people don't even notice bad struts unless they are clanking and bottoming out or ruining tires. The average driver just doesn't demand much of their suspension systems and if you feel okay in your car then why bother? I stress my cars and in a sense that is wasteful----but fun!
Doh, where were you before I bought them :P They have about 20k on them now, I am hoping the car is replaced before I get 50k on them though.
Hahahah..... :P
I think that temperature extremes cause them to wear out faster as well. 50,000 is about all the miles they last here, but at -50F all sorts of things can break. The Maryland area has a fairly moderate climate.
I'd rather have one of those Dodge conversions with the pop top.
http://www.msu.edu/~steine13/conv.html
Apologies to those who've seen it on CCBA.
That thing is absolutely miserable to drive, though, in tight traffic. Sloppy suspension, old tires, it's a bear to keep going straight. And 13 mpg no matter what; 305 V8, 115k, no oil smoke (thank Goodness!) and a 3sp auto with a 2.73 rear end.
No 8-track, though :-<
-Mathias
I've actually been able to nurse my truck up to about 16 mpg, in a mix of about 50/50 highway/local, but it takes some doing.
As for 8-tracks, I'm not sure when they finally phased them out, but as of the 1985 Buick lineup, they were no longer available. I still have all the old literature from when my grandparents bought their '85 LeSabre. My '82 Cutlass Supreme's owners manual did show an 8-track in it, though, so I guess it was around that timeframe.
Also, what is your daily driver? If you were forced to drive that van on a daily basis, you might get used to it and it might not seem so bad. In my case, my pickup is pretty much my daily driver. Now I'm lucky enough that my suspension's still pretty tight and it has good tires on it, so that helps, and for visibility, it doesn't get much better than a boxy pickup where you have no blind spots and can see all four corners. When I get behind the wheel of something like my Intrepid or my uncle's Corolla though, they feel downright odd, because I've adapted to that pickup. I still hate trying to parallel park it, though. :mad: