2003 Chevrolet Malibu Heater Pipe - C'mon, Man

When this light kept coming on after repeated top-off's of the coolant reservoir on my son's 2003 Chevrolet Malibu, I asked him to take the car to the Firestone Service Center in the town where he goes to college, that would be Athens, Ohio where he attends Ohio University, and have them see if they figure out what was going on. I knew the car was losing coolant but I could not figure out where the leak was coming from. Often times leaks appear to be coming from one place when they're actually coming from some place else. Firestone did a pressure check and diagnosed the problem as a bad heater core pipe and gave me an estimate for the cost of repairs to be around $460.

While I was thankful for the diagnosis, I was less than thrilled with the estimate for the repair. I thanked them for their detective work telling them it was more money than I wanted to spend. I offered to pay them for their time (bless their heart they they never did) and instructed my son to make sure he had plenty of coolant on hand for the next time he made the two hundred twenty mile trip home as I was going to do the work myself. I mean, how hard could it be to replace a heater core pipe?

Well, honestly, it was a lot harder than I thought it would be but I did manage to get the damn thing out and see that it was fine - it was the rubber o-ring on the end of it that had worn out. That part, which is proprietary - you can't just go to Autozone and find one that will seal coolant off from leaking out of the manifold, ran me $5.26. While this project did take me a while to figure out, once I did, I couldn't imagine a professional spending more than an hour on it. Mark up the o-ring and a $75 an hour labor charge and I would have been fine with $125 even $150 for someone to do the job, especially with the car being at Ohio University some three plus hours away. But, $460? C'mon, man.

Their estimate was that high because the entire pipe, which I bought and returned, runs a cool $100 from Autozone let alone what a Chevrolet parts counter would charge. Mark that sucker up and we kind of see why the estimate was so high. While I don't have access to a shop service manual detailing how much a shop is allowed to charge for repairs, I can only hope they were fair in their estimation to replace something that, candidly, did not need to be replaced.

I'm not so much upset with the shop for giving me an estimate for a repair that really didn't need to be made as much as I'm more leery of shops than ever. I mean, seriously, how many people get charged more for repairs than they should be? Yes, auto repair is a business and especially at name brand shops, they're responsible to a corporate bottom line to get as much out of customers as possible; being unscrupulous, however, is never the way to go about it. Even in this day and age where that kind of behavior is seemingly acceptable. C'mon, man.

2001 Cadillac Seville STS - Why the Hell Not?

This 2001 Cadillac Seville STS popped up on my latest "cheap car search". For sale with an asking price of $5,900, with only 28,500 miles on its clock, it begs the age old question, "why the hell not"? Well, there are some very good reasons why not to buy this car, chiefly it's head gasket devouring engine, but on the surface and all things being equal, this car would seem to be an excellent value. 

While certainly nothing that I would ever aspire to, it is more stylish than a mechanically very similar  DeVille of the same vintage while not being nearly as alluring, to me at least, as Cadillac's  Eldorado. Style, of course, when cheap car searching shouldn't be a priority but if you can have your cake and eat it too, again, why the hell not? 

Be careful what you wish for. To review, the single biggest problem with these cars is it's handsome engine. Oddly enough, these engines are not as derided as other infamous Cadillac mills of the last forty years or so like the V8-6-4 and HT4100 (and others). That's probably due to the fact that when they're not blowing up on their owners they're strong, efficient performers. Then one day the temperature gauge pings into the red and the check engine light comes on. Game over to the tune of four to five thousand dollars. All of sudden your six thousand dollar old Cadillac becomes a ten or eleven thousand dollar old Cadillac with no long term guarantee those new head gaskets are going to be around for long. 

Updated for 1998 and packed with much of the stuff that we take for granted today on the least expensive of new vehicle offerings, some critics took issue with their front wheel drive layout and overly fussy tuning of Cadillac's, at the time, state of the art of hydro-magnetic suspension system. Ironically, most if not all critics raved about the NorthStar V-8's smoothness, power and relatively good fuel economy. 

When new, if these cars had any real problems, aside from an engine that was a ticking time bomb, despite sticker prices a good twenty-five thousand dollars less than the cars it was allegedly supposed to compete with buyers for, it was that they weren't those cars it was to compete against for buyers. That in lieu of the fact that to the seat pants of its targeted buyers, they more than held their own in terms of creature comfort and, especially in STS trim, performance. 

Reality check time - how many buyers of luxury cars actually care about zero to sixty times and lateral g's? Well heeled buyers of cars like this are all about the bling and for most of my fifty plus years on this earth, "Cadillac" hasn't held nearly the "oh-wow" firepower of even the lowest buck BMW or Mercedes. And over the last thirty years Cadillac has been pushed back even further my Lexus and to some extent Infiniti. I've said this time and time again here in relation to Cadillac's and Lincoln's - if you "got it", would you spend "it" on a Cadillac or Lincoln? Honestly, I'd only do it if I absolutely preferred whatever Cadillac or Lincoln had over anything the imports had going on but by and large, a Cadillac just wouldn't do. That shallow? Hey, just being honest. 

It's crazy how a car that stickered for nearly sixty grand years ago is worth about as much now as a Chevrolet Impala of the same vintage with similar mileage. And, sadly, given its NorthStar engine, I'd probably spend that same money on the Impala. Why the hell not? Oh, and for the record, Cadillac eventually sorted out the issues with the NorthStar's head gaskets but, get this, it was in the engine's thirteenth year of production. Kid you not. How many times have I said here that it's nothing short of a miracle Cadillac is still around? 

2017 Chevrolet Camaro - My Son Bought a Car

Just as you think you don't have any influence on your grown kids along comes a circumstance that lets you know you still have some sway in their life decisions. Such was the case recently when our twenty-two year old, freshly graduated from college and now gainfully employed older son bought himself a 2017 Chevrolet Camaro LT.

Now, being the son of a "car guy" you'd think his buying something like this would have been a given but understand his mother is a risk aversive, pragmatic woman. At the behest of her to buy something "sensible and practical", the process of his purchasing a car started out as far from a sports car as one could get - road testing a 2014 Mazda 6.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with the Mazda 6. In fact, I happen to think it's one of the prettiest sedans on the market today regardless of price point; but it's still a four door sedan. Nicely styled with front wheel drive and amply powered by a fuel efficient, in line four cylinder engine, there's not much to not like about a "6". Unless, of course, you're like me and the thought of driving something with four doors, that's not a full size SUV,, knots up your insides. Still, being the devoted father some accuse of me being, I went with the flow and joined my son on his first traipse into purchasing a car on his own. Meanwhile, I schemed. Oh, how I schemed.

On our way to the dealership where the "6" was I had him drive so that I could continue to peruse various car websites in search of anything (I found) more alluring than what we were going to look at. And, wouldn't you know it? I found it; a super low mileage, base model 2010 Dodge Challenger that was for sale not far from the dealership we were going to. "Hey, look at this when we get to a red light" I hissed as my devil horns pushed my ball cap all but off my head. Enraptured, he insisted we set course immediately not for the Mazda dealership but for the Chevrolet dealership where the Challenger was. 

While my son is not as impassioned by automobiles to the extent that I am, compared to most "kids" today he's a relative car geek. I knew he'd love the Challenger and that black on black Challenger SE that was dressed up to look like an R/T didn't disappoint him. On the test drive he was fairly impressed with its overall road going dynamics but compared to the 1996 Camaro he was driving, that rides and handles like a flimsy, rickety-rackety old carnival ride, most anything from the last ten years would feel like a nimble, rolling bank vault to him.

Styled, of course, after the painfully magnificent 1970-1974 Challengers of yore, it had, and surprisingly so, many of the same interior quirks of the original. Specifically that the interior was not nearly as spacious as the bulky exterior would let you believe that it should be. Visibility was also, and this is atypical today of sporty two door cars these days, dreadful. Since he knows what "real power" in a car is like having spent considerable time with my 2005 Ford Mustang GT, he also found the Challenger's 3.5 liter V-6 to be lacking in the oomph department. Still, for his first car purchase, he could do a whole lot worse. 

After the test drive we couldn't get the numbers to align with where my son felt comfortable and with the car being as old as it was, for the money, the lack of contemporary equipment like a back up camera and blue tooth didn't seem worth it. At the end of the day, that Challenger was just an old car with low mileage and we (he) passed on it but the dye was set. He wanted something that was more than just a car.

Much to the relative disapproval of his mother, his test drive of the Mazda 6 drove that sentiment home further. The 6 was exactly what we thought it was going to be and in many ways should have been - a handsome and practical "family car" but it lacked the verve and moxie of even that base model Challenger. We went through the cursory process of crunching numbers after the test drive and the deal on the 6 was almost too good to pass on. Whether he knew it or not, he had set his mind on something at that time and the Mazda 6 just wasn't going to do it.

In the end, I had little influence on his ultimate decision as to what specific car he'd buy. Much as I tried to convince him to take my 2005 Ford Mustang GT off my hands, he had his mind sent on getting soemthing that was his and his only and not "Mom or Dad's" car. And even if he ended up with something more practical, if he was happy with whatever then, most importantly, I'd be happy too. 

Mom's happy as well. The dog too. 

Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet Monte Carlo #899 At 200K - It Ain't Rocket Science

Coincidence or not, back on December 3rd, I was east bound on 680 just west of my office in Youngstown, Ohio when the odometer on my 2002 Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS dialed past 200,000 just a couple of days past the car's eighteenth birthday. Responsible road goer that I am, I pulled off to the shoulder to photograph the event. And, if we're being honest, pulling off to the side of the road assured my taking a steady photo free of any blurriness.

It's funny, I would never buy a car with this kind of mileage on it but when you've put most of the miles on a vehicle yourself, much I guess in the same way we kid ourselves we're really not that old, the high mileage doesn't seem like that much.  Well, that is if you've taken care of your ride over the years. I've driven cars with well under a 100,000 miles on them that couldn't hold a candle to my good old boy here. The only inkling I have that I have a lot of mileage on my car is the expression I see on people's faces when I tell them about it.

It most certainly doesn't ride, handle or look like a car that's gone the equivalent distance of most of the way to the moon or more than seven times around the earth. In fact, dare I say, save for a forever on check engine light, that's on, allegedly, because of a bad and pricey EGR valve, I'd say it rides and handles much the same way it did when I first got it going on ten years ago. And besides a scratch or two here and there, when it's all washed up, it's as good looking as the day I got it too.

So, what's the secret to being able to hold onto a car as long as I have this one and put this many miles on it? A number of things but essentially I believe it boils down to luck, desire, patience and maintenance.

I'm lucky in that over the years nothing catastrophic has occurred that would necessitate its replacement. And by catastrophic I'm inferring damage from an accident (knocks on Tupperware like dash board top). I'm patient as well knowing that it's fiscally irresponsible to fix a two thousand dollar problem, like a blown transmission or internal engine issue, with a twenty, thirty or forty thousand dollar solution. Not that anything like that has occurred but that's the plan in case anything like that did happen.

As far as desire goes, I bought this car with only less than 15,000 miles on it in 2010 "on the cheap", well relatively anyway, with the desire to keep it as long as possible to save money. To that end this car has paid dividends ten fold. I know scores of people who have had three if not four new cars in the time I've had my one oldie here and each of those cars cost them well over $30,000. Think about that - that's over $100,000 spent on a depreciating asset.

It also helps that I know how to use a torque wrench and I'm not afraid to tackle projects that make many a mechanic wince. With the exception of swapping out the upper and lower intake manifolds and gaskets and the AC condenser recently, I've done all of the myriad repairs this car has required over the years myself. Saving, repeat after me, thousands of dollars. And people wonder how I put our two sons through college. Hey, this ain't rocket science.

Driving responsibly is important too. No jack rabbit or drag strip type starts and I baby it with grand fatherly type transmissions shifts. My family says I drive like an old man, if the slipper fits, wear it, but that kind of driving pays off. I also never slam the doors, trunk or hood and freak out whenever anyone else does. Trust me, that sort of thing takes a toll on the structure of the car.

Finally, I really love the damn thing and since no one makes these types of cars anymore, let alone the fact that GM hasn't made a Monte Carlo since 2007, what would I replace it with? My fondness for it, I think, is because it reminds me of the NASCAR inspired Monte Carlo SS' that Chevrolet made between 1983 and 1988 that I've always been a fan of. That's ironic too considering I could care less about NASCAR let alone my having no clue as to who Dale Earnhardt was, what he accomplished and why Chevrolet ever made a car with his name plastered all over it. I guess I'm like a football fan who's a fan of the ball but not of the game itself.

So, what does the future hold for what many refer to as "The Dale"? Honestly, I have no idea but I'm going to hang in there with "him" because, with my now one thousand mile a week commute, it doesn't pay for me to sell it an incur the expense of paying off its replacement. While miles are piling up at a stunning rate, the fact is most of my driving is turnpike cruising with the tach rarely going north of two thousand rpm's. I venture to guess every one thousand miles on my car is like a hundred miles on a car that's city driven.

Besides, if I got rid of "The Dale", what would I do with this jacket?

1983 Cadillac Eldorado - Everything It Could Have Been.

From the fuel injected, gasoline fired Oldsmobile 350 of 1979 to the Cadillac 368 in 1980 that became the V-8-6-4 for 1981, the HT4100 that debuted for 1982 and even a Buick V-6 in 1981 and 1982, of the bevy of engines you could find in these 1979-1985 Cadillac Eldorado's only one was available through all seven model years - the 350 cubic inch Oldsmobile Diesel V-8. Our black beauty here was born with one and hails from 1983. 

With the gas crisis of 1973-1974 taking Detroit by surprise and GM especially hard since at the time they pulled more than fifty percent of sales in this country, GM charged their Oldsmobile division with developing a diesel powered engine. The first one debuted for model year 1978 to much accolade since cars powered by them could purportedly get up to thirty miles per gallon. Pretty heady stuff for an America still ouching from the 1973-1974 gas crisis. 

Problem was  Oldsmobile under engineered them. Using a similar sized block with the same bore and stroke as their venerable gasoline 350, Oldsmobile used the same head bolts on the diesel engine they used on their gas engines. With a compression ratio some three times higher than a gasoline engine, the gas engine head bolts had a propensity to not only stretch but many times snap leading to head gasket failure. What's more, Oldsmobile didn't employ a water separator. Unlike gasoline, diesel fuel is subject to condensation. Water in the fuel meant water in the engine and rusted cylinder bores, pistons and fuel pumps. All these issues in addition to general drivability challenges since the engines made no more than one hundred twenty horsepower and two hundred twenty pounds of torque and were tasked with moving some cars weighing north of two tons. 

A class action lawsuit reimbursed owners for up to eighty percent of the cost of a replacement engine upon failure and spurred creation of early lemon laws. 

Speaking of replacements, sometime over the last thirty six years, our lovely '83 here had it's Olds diesel replaced with an Oldsmobile gas 350. Breathed on somewhat with a pricey Edelbrock Performer intake, heads and camshaft, it's lumpy idle and burly exhaust might seem out of place to those whom remember these cars when new. 

However, the first stab of the gas and the slightly modded Oldsmobile V-8 moves the big Caddy with the kind of verve whomever bought it new could only dream about. That's all well and good but it comes at a cost. A pretty steep cost. And not just at the gas pump either. With an asking price of $8995, someone thinks they've got a pot of gold on their hands here. As much as I'm drawn to this thing, and I should know better since I had a very similar '82 Buick Riviera years ago and it was a nightmare, that's all the money in the world for it. 

Even if it is everything the original could have been. Here's the listing if you're interested. 

1972 Buick Skylark - Church Lady

Once again thanks to cookies, which knows my taste in cars better than any person I know, this pretty old thing popped up on msn.com on me yesterday and of course I immediately clicked on it. Looking for what, exactly I don't know, but with GM's announcement this week that Buick would be all "crossover" by 2021, it spurred the hopeless Buick loving nostalgiaist in me.

For sale down in Akron, Ohio at some BMW dealership of all things, thanks for water marking every photo, guys, the asking price is an eye brow raising $16,500. Wowza. Yeah, it's original and unrestored but her mileage is unremarkable at 79,400 (and  impossible to verify) and she's entry level and all but options free. Thank goodness her Buick "350-2" was the standard motor back then otherwise this car would borderline suck. Wonder if the Buick rims even came with it when it rolled out of Lansing some forty-seven years ago. Wasn't that long ago that kind of money could get you something really, awesome. Not that this Skylark is not awesome - it's just that it's a painfully ordinary, albeit well preserved, grocery fetcher.

From a trim level back in the fifties to a version of the infamous GM X-body (Corvair, Tempest, F-85) in the early sixties to mid size models in the mid sixties and early seventies and back to compact and sub compacts from the mid seventies through the nineties, "Buick Skylark" has meant different things over the years. To car fans of a certain vintage and GM wonks (like me) in particular, if you said to them, "I found an old Buick Skylark for sale that I'd think you'd like", we'd pray to the old car gods that one of these 1970-1972 Skylark's is what they found. "Holy crap bombs it is a 1970-1972... but they're asking how much for it?!?"

This 1972 Skylark is one, ahem, relatively rare bird. Originally, like all GM intermediates, Buick's 1972 mid size line was to be the 1973 "Colannade" models but due to a prolonged strike at GM, the '72's got pushed to 1973. Just as well since Buick didn't use the Skylark name for 1973 and 1974 opting to call their new mid size models "Century". Starting in 1975 Buick festooned "Skylark" to a Chevrolet Nova based compact coupe they had been calling "Apollo" since 1973. The four door version still carried the "Apollo" moniker in 1975. For 1976, Apollo was gone. Why Buick dropped Skylark for "Apollo" in the first place is anyone's guess. Err, because of the space program?

As much as I liked the 1973 Century coupes, they couldn't hold a candle to these '70-'72 Skylarks two doors hardtops. Even in this color combination that even The Church Lady wouldn't be caught dead driving. That's saying a lot because being part of GM's reboot of their mid size line for 1968, Bill Mitchell and his team uncharacteristically botched the Skylark up. I wasn't too fond of the Olds offerings either but there was nothing quite like the out there styling of the '68-'69 Skylark's. I recall being a child walking to school on my own, yes, alone, and having to look away from a neighbor's '68 Skylark because I found it so ugly. Hey, times were tough.

All that changed in 1970 when someone on the 14th floor on West Grand Boulevard over in Detroit convinced Mitchell and company to revise the rear end treatment on the Skylark. Maybe they knew all along it needed to be changed; we'll never know for sure. All I know is the changes that were made resulted in arguably one of the best looking designs GM has ever made. Even my wife is fond of these cars and she's anything but a fan of anything "Buick". Here's a link to it if you're so inclined. At the asking price it's going to be around for a while. Good luck. 

Look for more old Buick stuff from me before the end of the year. Merry Christmas. 

1969 Oldsmobile F-85 W-31 - It Ain't Easy Being Green

Contrary to what you may have heard it wasn't the OPEC Oil Embargo of 1973-74 that killed muscle cars as we once knew them but rather insurance company surcharges on anything they construed as being a performance car. In an attempt to circumvent those surcharges or at least diminish them somewhat, from 1968-1970 Oldsmobile offered a less powerful "muscle" engine on their two door Cutlass models. Taking things a step further, they also offered the less powerful option on their entry level F-85 two door sedans. 

Checking "W-31" on the order form got you cold air intakes feeding an Olds 350 cubic inch V-8, intake and exhaust valves from the Olds 455, higher compression heads than lesser Olds 350's, streamlined exhaust manifolds and a big fat cam. A cam so big, in fact, that it reduced engine vacuum to the point that all W-31's could not be had with power brakes. 

Throw in a Hurst shifter or a hopped turbo-hydramatic transmission and Granny's grocery getter could do zero to sixty in under seven seconds and the quarter mile in under fifteen. Not too shabby; just hope you have a long runway to stop in after that drag run. All that bolted to the same taught suspension, everything is relative, that underpinned the 4-4-2 and the F-85 W-31 seemed like the  stuff performance bargain dreams were made of.  

However, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to realize the combination of brute force and the comfort of a church pew didn't sell very well. This not original and restored but numbers matching F-85 is but one of just 212 built for model year 1969 equipped with the hallowed "W-31" option package. It's also said to be the only '69 Olds pushed out of Lansing wearing retina searing "Chevrolet Rally Green" paint.  

Speaking of scientists, Oldsmobile marketed their W-30 and W-31 equipped cars back then in a series of print ads featuring a Dr. Frankensteinian character named "Dr. Oldsmobile". While the mixed metaphors of horror movies and muscle cars is lost on me, that's not to say the ads themselves weren't memorable. Even at the tender age of now fifty plus years old, these ads somehow still appear to be quite contemporary. Even if the car itself is really showing its age. Curiously, Oldsmobile never marketed the W-32 option in these ads. 

There's got to be a compelling story behind how someone was able to order this Chevrolet shade of green on an Oldsmobile. But like we've said a million times before, anything we can come up with is probably way more interesting than whatever the reason is. 

Personally, I'm not a fan of this car and I'm sure I'm not alone. The combination of austerity, cheap thrills and, I may be alone in having the heretical gravitas to say this, I think the rear end on 1968-1972 F-85, 4-4-2 and Cutlass models is ugly. All sins forgiven with the rear end styling treatments on 1970-1972 Cutlass Supreme models which never got the "W" treatment.

Well, one person's trash is another's treasure. Five years ago or so this car, which is not original and has been restored, sold for around $45,000. A ton of, ahem, green. And now in this booming economy, the current owner is asking $65,000 for it. I don't know about you but if I could get that kind of return on investment in just five years, I'd put up with the electric vomit green paint. Safe to say I think "Dr. Oldsmobile" would too. Who said it ain't easy being green?