A Sad Day, the LeSabre is off to the Big Highway in the Sky...

It will make some nice plastic planter boxes and sign posts when its recycled ! R.I.P.

 

It is amazing how bad those cars could get and still run. You still see a few new entries to the bone yard down here every week. Usually because the ac quit. Not hard to find a good motor.

 

I used to think the same way; until I had a couple of them. Both were trouble free for 200,000 miles, and I only got rid of them once the "darkening shadows" started appearing. The torque steer is controlled quite adequately by the traction control, - the Toyota I have now has a bigger issue than the Buick did. It was a very refined and elegant car; no, it wasn't a sports car, it handled "adequately" (to quote Rolls-Royce) and it was always there, it always started and ran. I got lucky with my LeSabres, we weren't so lucky with a brand-new LaCrosse though, it died horribly at about 150,000 miles, and was about as reliable as a Jaguar XJ-6 or a Yugo towards the end of it's life. The nice thing was that my wife got it destroyed from underneath her (no injuries) and the insurance company paid us way more than it was worth. (we had collision on it)

 

To bad so far away and Canada
This 2001 has just under 80k miles
Leather / it used to be my parents now a friend owns and hardly ever drives it
They would maybe sell

 

Which is exactly the problem; that car looks exactly what I would have wanted, and it's too far away and with a bad currency exchange rate, border and taxes, it'll be too expensive. All of the ones up here are miled out to extinction and starting to rust. This climate is murder on cars.

 

I still miss my 2003, but not the weak areas. It's just like GM to do so much right, and just totally screw it up with a few issues (like the EGR / plastic manifold and coolant leaks, and the weak transmission). Before getting rid of mine I started to think about having a strong transmission built for it, but common sense prevailed. If only it weren't wrong-wheel-drive!

 

With high ratio roller rockers, smaller SC pulley, headers, ported heads, reprogrammed PCM, and dual exhaust. That's how I was able to drive my Ultra.

 

Your motor needs to be spun 90 degree.

 

A year ago I had to get rid of my 92 Lesabre, yup my sig says 95 but thats a typo.
I got the car around 2001 and only put 14,000 mile for a total of 117,000. Motor ran great but had that antifreeze leak where they use the plastic tube on the intake thats under everything and a few oil leaks.
The AC still worked great even.
Wicked reliable except had to change things like exhaust, brake lines and the sending unit which was a pain in the ass and live with the bottom rocker panels rusting more and more, but just the rockers and not to deep I thought.
I was getting ready for the tougher MA inspection laws, "Fall River MA throws more salt in the winter than any other place I ever lived in" hence brake lines and such. I always heard and felt to what I thought was worn tie rod. I looked at the driver side which I thought the noise was coming from, everything was fine so I was in shock when I looked at the front end underneath.
The 2 front passenger side sub frame bushings and frame were just GONE and the rug and wire cluster running to the back were hanging.
How this car didn't break in half baffles me?
In my 6 or 7 years in this part of MA just destroyed this car with rust. Straight body panels, all good glass, luggage rack and a great running motor and I drove it up on the trailer for the junk man for $100
I couldn't part the car where I live.
These style Lesabre's have some pain in the butt design's like the exhaust set up and gas tank in the middle but they ride and handle well. It was never undercoated though but still might of rusted because of its design.
Everyone is right though, I still see people driving them all over the place.

 

My everyday beater is a 2001 Buick Century Limited. I can only guess how many miles are on it because the dash indicator lights have been out for about 2 years. My best guess is around 135,000. It stills run decent but so many other things have quit working on it that I believe it might be the worst POS I've ever owned, so when the day comes when it quits I won't be broken hearted. It'll go straight to the scrap yard and I won't look back. What really bugs me the most is I have friends who have everyday beaters that are used pretty much the same mine is and they have 2 and 3 times the miles on them and they're not even American cars.

 

For some reason, the Century line wasn't as good as the LeSabre; we had the Century's descendant, the LaCrosse, and it was...cheap. It was a POS, the Olds Alero I traded off to get it was a better car.
There are a lot of things that GM got right with that LeSabre, and yes, a few glaring issues. That plastic manifold was the biggest goof, and it ruined an otherwise bullet-proof design. That 3.8 was peppy, good on gas, and completely reliable, which isn't bad considering GM wanted to kill that design back in 1967 when they sold it Jeep. Oh sure, they bought (stole) it back from Jeep in 1975, and then re-worked it, and never looked back. The 3.8 was the heart of the GNX; IMHO it was better than the Chevy small-block for the power and reliability it delivered.
Compared to the Toyota I'm driving now, (which is a great car), there were just a few things in terms of luxury and ease of use that Buick got completely right and Toyota kind of missed.
The other thing that was a PIA in that car was the evap canister; I had a "check engine" light on for the past 4 years that I was never able to source. I carried an OBD II code reader along and periodically checked for other codes, and it never shot any. I replaced all the components to that canister, and it must have been a bad vacuum line or something.
I would have rebuilt that car had it not started to rust out; that in itself is strange coming from me and my dislike of modern cars. I'm going to miss that one.

 

99 Regal GS here still pretty strong daily driver, but getting a bit tired with 192K. Tranny blew at 175K, AC took a crap at 150K, changed rack & pinion. I have my foot in the boost alot and the roads here are 3rd world. I'd get another one if I could find one with really low miles but most of them are extinct in these parts.

 

I would have saved it and entered it in the demolition derby at the state fair. Maby even a figure 8 derby.

 

Looking at your sig. Looks like a fun car. Don' t under estimate what a SC'd 3800 is.

 

It's an extraordinarily bad practice to put 3k into a junk car that probably books for 1500. If you were not willing to do it, you should not expect others to.

This reminds me of an unfortunate story. Back when I was turning wrenches in college I overhauled a minivan for a couple that didn't have much money. It was an old Lee Iacocca caravan. It was gifted to them from her mother. It needed a bunch of work to pass inspection and a transmission to boot. They decided to put about 4k into it. We set them up on a payment plan since they were broke. About 2 months after they took delivery the wife got in a minor accident with it. She was not at fault. Well the van was totaled according to the insurance company and they got a check for 1500 bucks. They owed the shop almost 3k still. Since that day I've always looked at beaters differently. It wise to let them go. The bummer part is we all thought we were doing a good thing to help the couple out. The reality is we set them up on a losing bet.

 

Agreed; and I don't. It's just there are always these a$$clowns who always try and make a person feel bad for doing one thing, and to a guy who runs a salvage lot or a home garage and has a couple of these cars laying around, this car is a good source of parts or a good starter. But this time no one was interested, before that anytime I junked something for a good reason these clowns would always be spouting off how they would have fixed this, done that, lipsticked the pig, etc. this time, nothing, all the big talkers weren't interested. So that told me it's absolutely worthless and I was doing the right thing. The $3K in parts is a Canadian wholesale estimate, I could get them for a lot less than that out of the US including shipping. The biggest killer for me was the time and the fact that the rear side rails had started to rust out and one had just about gone through. I've done enough uni-body repairs on Mercedes cars to know that it's pretty much a death sentence when the rails start to rot out.

 

They call your car a scraper. Hammer out the trunk key hole, kick in a few pannals. Spraypaint the hubcaps and if its got 6 months at least on the tags you can sell it in CA for 1500 easy

 

I would have kept driving my beater 98 GS but unless I replaced all the brake lines it was going to be a death trap. Dual cylinder master still had no brakes when a line blew. I only got 325K mikes out of it ....was trying for 400. Got my money's worth.
Guy I sold to fixed it enough to run demo derby...qualified for final heat and then fuel pump died.

 

The brakes were an issue, that's for sure; the rotors were pretty glazed up and warped and the car shuddered like a dog crapping out 1/2" bolts every time you hammered on them. It needed to be totally redone. The master cylinder was also getting shaky; the pedal would sink. It didn't help that I drove that thing too fast either, so I was constantly using the brakes.

 

Try to find a 97-2001 Buick Park Ave. Either an ultra or the regular one. I loved my supercharged ultra, what a cozy car!!! The only thing I didn’t like about it was paying the extra $ for premium, and i also got a lot of speeding tickets with it. I did the same mods as jay listed and it would do 130 mph easy.

the non supercharged versions are cheaper to run as they work fine on low octane fuel and they still have enough torque to drive around fine.