Despite remarkably robust sales at first, General Motors first attempt at a six-passenger, front-wheel-drive sedan was, being kind, less than spectacular. With myriad engineering and assembly maladies, the "X-body" Chevrolet Citation, Pontiac Phoenix, Oldsmobile Omega and Buick Skylark had scores of embarrassing and expensive recalls. By 1986, they were all gone. Well, sort of. They lived on thanks to another series of car's GM launched in 1982 using a lion's share of their DNA. Those cars where the front-wheel-drive "A-body" Chevrolet Celebrity, Pontiac 6000, Buick Century and Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera. My blue-on-blue Facebook Marketplace find here is a 1994 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cierra from model year 1994. A scant 81,000-miles on its 29-year-old analog ticker and an asking price of just $2,500. Gosh, what could go wrong?
Now, being honest, I didn't find all that much to find fault with the Citation and company. I took my, he looks down at the floor to avoid eye-contact, second-driving test in a brand new '81 Pontiac Phoenix that the driving school I enrolled in to help me pass had just bought. While I thought its styling odd if not ugly and its interior appointments bizarre, compared to the oafish, shuddering mess that was my old man's '72 Cadillac, the car I failed my first road test in, I thought the Phoenix nimble, zippy, and fleet-on-its-radial-feet. Well, what the heck did I know? I had a favorable impression of the rolling little shoe box despite the darn thing's propensity to stall-out if I turned the wheel too far right or left; I figured that's just what "new cars" did. Frankly, that could have been "fail-this-kid-again" worthy had I stalled out when maneuvering the mandatory parallel parking portion of the quiz. Thankfully I didn't stall it and I passed with flying colors.
My first experience with what GM called an "A-body" was in the winter of 1989 when a college buddy and I rented a 2.5-liter, inline four-cylinder Cutlass Ciera for a road trip up to New Bedford, Massachusetts. A friend of ours lived up there and was working overnights at a radio station. After a weekend of hard drinking in that oh-so-depressed old whaling town an hour, without traffic, south of Boston, I didn't know what was worse - how god-forsaken New Beford was, my hangover or the numb handling, bog slow exhausting to drive Ciera. The only good thing was it didn't break down and it was pretty good on gas.
Subsequent experiences in these were in versions with one of a number of GM's stalwart 60- and 90-degree V-6's that were much better to drive - I wouldn't say they were "enjoyable", though. My Marketplace find here is powered by GM's "L82", 3.1-liter or what they referred to as the "3100" V-6. GM put the L82, not to be confused with the 5.7-liter, V-8's of course, in a gaggle of front- and rear-wheel-drive cars between 1994 and 1999. My 1997 Chevrolet Monte Carlo LS had one and it went through its thermo-plastic intake manifold gasket twice in eight-and-half-years and not even 110,000-miles. TWICE!
Despite the 3100's propensity to melt plastic, that didn't stop me from buying a 99,000-mile, 2003 Chevrolet Malibu for my younger son back in 2019 with an updated version of the L82 GM code-named, "LG8". Allegedly, the LG8 had an improved intake manifold gasket design and through about three years of ownership, my son and I never had an issue with the engine. However, it seemed we had a problem with just about everything else on the car.
From cooling system issues to electrical gremlins, brakes, suspension, power window regulators, catalytic converter foibles to who knows what I'm forgetting, from a reliability standpoint, that car was one of the worst cars I've ever owned. To make matters worse, my son had it down at Ohio University, more than three hours away. Nothing quite like attempting to diagnose issues on Facebook Live and or dealing with unscrupulous mechanics in a college town trying to take advantage of mommy and daddy when kid's car breaks down. As if that wasn't enough, I thought the car homely, and the air conditioning never worked.
As if I need another excuse not to inquire about this '94 Ciera that appears to be in about the same shape my son's Malibu was when I bought it. Buyer beware - older cars with low-mileage, especially domestic ones, that are reasonably priced like this Ciera and my son's Malibu are a Pandora's Box of sorts and they're usually too good to be true. There are exceptions like the 1995 Lexus SC400 my wife and I stumbled upon in 2019, but they're few and far between. You've been warned.
No comments:
Post a Comment