Not the actual car, but close.
One of my earliest childhood memories is of cutting out pictures of cars from magazines and “collecting” them. My parents sacrificed many an issue of Time and Newsweek to my scissors, sometimes before they have even had a chance to read them. The clippings were always best in the Fall, as the magazines were loaded with ads for the new models, often two-page spreads (that I had to carefully tape back together after clipping out). Summers, by comparison, were lean times, when there may only be one or two car ads per magazine.
One day Mom took me to the library and said she had a big surprise for me. There, in the middle of the periodical section, were stacks of magazines bearing titles like Motor Trend, Road & Track, and Car and Driver. I felt like I had died and gone to heaven! Here were magazines with not just some car ads, but chock full of car pictures! I could even borrow them and bring them home, for a short time at least. The only downside was that I couldn’t cut out any pictures to play with, since the magazines belonged to the library. That was tough to deal with at first, but the greatly increased supply and quality of pictures made it a fair bargain.
This is how I got by for a number of years, gawking at library magazines (luckily the library was just a few blocks away, well within walking distance for my pre-teen self). Once I got old enough to read the articles and not just look at the photos, my fascination deepened even more. These magazines had more than just pictures, but articles, letters, and editorials too! Names like Don Sherman, Brock Yates, Patrick Bedard, and Jean Lindamood became like best friends to me.
Then on Christmas 1980, at the age of 11, came another huge surprise. My very own personal subscription to Motor Trend! It would now show up every month with my name printed on the label. I would carry the magazine around at school making sure everyone could see the label with my name and see that it was mine. I still remember the cover of the first one that showed up in the mail with my name on it: It was the April 1980 issue, with a picture of a Chrysler K-Car on the cover. Little did I realize at that time that my mom (and eventually me) would soon be driving one, but this is the subject of another COAL.
April 1980 Motor Trend
Entrepreneurialism (thank you, spell-check) also runs deep in my family. In 1975, my Dad had ditched the corporate culture of Aeroquip and purchased a small roofing business from his father located in Delaware, Ohio. After a few years of struggling, he grew a company with only a handful of employees to a company with a payroll of close to 100 and a fleet of trucks. After 5 or 6 years, the 71 Ford was pretty much used up (that was about all you could expect out of a car back then), and Dad rewarded his increasing success with a succession of ever more luxurious cars.
Dad leased long before leasing was popular (for tax reasons, being a business owner), typically for 24 or 36 months. The upshot of this (for me, anyway) was a steady stream of new cars. Dad always took me along to the dealership, and I was enthralled by the entire process: The window shopping, the showrooms, the brochures, scouring the lots, the test drives, the haggling, and ultimately, the drive home. I always knew to the day when the lease was up on my Mom’s or Dad’s latest car, and started dropping hints to go car shopping months before.
It is now 1980. Dad would get not one, but two new cars this year, and they couldn’t be more different. The first, a 1981 Pontiac Bonneville Diesel, is the subject of this COAL. It is also the first COAL with which I have personal driving experience (as this would eventually be the car I would learn to drive on). While not a true Brougham model, Dad always bought well-equipped cars, and this was no different. Two-tone (burgundy over red), with a padded landau roof, ersatz wire wheel covers, and a padded red velour interior (again, I didn’t know about leather), it was the height of 80’s “elegance.”
80’s Elegance
The story of the LF9 5.7 liter V8 diesel has been well documented on this site and elsewhere, but a quick recap – In response to concerns over rising gas prices and fuel economy standards, in 1977 Oldsmobile started with their 350 gasoline V8, reinforced it to run at higher compression ratios, added a fuel injection system and called it a Diesel. Originally exclusive to Oldsmobile, it quickly spread to all the other GM divisions in response to increasing market demand for diesels. While I was aware of all of this at the time, I was unaware of the problems that owners were already experiencing with this engine. 1981, after all, was the peak of diesel mania and would turn out to be the sales high water mark for this powertrain.
At the time, it all seemed very exotic. Two batteries! Glow Plugs! The loud clattering and smoke! To me, these weren’t inconveniences, but rather part of the charm. The starting ritual (turning the key to on, waiting for the glow plug light to go out, and then starting the engine) was like a secret handshake that only those in the club knew. Indeed, I was still performing this motion by muscle memory for several years after this car was gone, stopping in “On” for a few seconds before turning the key to “Start.”
At first, the car lived up to its promise, and then some. The Bonneville was an effortless highway cruiser. Inside, it was relatively quiet, and at highway speeds it was no louder than a gasoline engine. It was well equipped with AM/FM/8-Track, so there was always lots of entertainment. I remember an early family road trip to Springfield, Illinois where we clocked an astonishing 30 MPG (a feat that it somehow seemed incapable of repeating a year or two later).
Again, not the exact car, but very close.
It didn’t take long before real inconveniences (not so charming) began to show up. Fuel line freeze-ups were a common occurrence in winter. Dad had an engine block heater installed which solved the overnight fuel freezing problems (and as an added bonus provided instant heat), but it was still prone to fuel line freezing while driving and stranded us on more than one occasion as a result. Automotive diesel fuel was still uncommon, so at unfamiliar gas stations we never knew whether we would be filling up at the auto pumps up front, or the dirty truck stop pumps in the back.
The loud racket emanating from under the hood promised oodles of torque and power, but alas it was all show and no go. While the 220 ft-lbs. of torque wasn’t too shabby by the standards of the day, the 105 hp definitely was inadequate. The ample torque was good for a snappy launch to about 15 mph, however, freeway acceleration was leisurely, and any kind of two-lane road passing was absolutely out of the question.
Our family took the Bonneville on several cross-country road trips. I recall passing over the Continental Divide and watching the speedometer creep down as we attempted to traverse the grade. …55…50… “Are you sure you have it floored, Mom?” “Yes, I do” …45…40… I looked out the rear window at the angry line of cars accumulating behind us and noticed the Bonneville was belching out copious amounts of smoke and soot on them, as if to add insult to their injury. …35…30… We even tried switching off the A/C to get a little more power from the engine, but that just seemed to make us more uncomfortable without actually going any faster. I vowed to myself at that point that I would never own a car that couldn’t get out of its own way climbing up a grade.
The final indignity came around 60,000 miles when it blew a head gasket. Dad decided at that time that he was done with this car, and done with GM. He never bought another GM for the rest of his life, and it would be decades before I would give GM a chance with my own money. Rumor has it that the next owner of our Bonneville swapped the diesel engine for a gasoline engine, as many owners of these cars did at that time.
What can I say now with the perspective of history? Our experience was kind of a microcosm of the US as a whole. Dad, like many LF9 buyers, wanted nothing to do with diesels or GM after this experience. How can any company treat its customers with such contempt by foisting such garbage on them? Don’t they realize that they are losing hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of potential future buyers as a result? Doesn’t GM care? Dad had no interest in ever buying another diesel, and neither did I, for that matter. GM really did kill diesels in the US for generations, and plant the seeds for their own downfall.
Great COAL. I had an 81 Cutlass with the LF9 and it surprisingly was not that bad of a car. It certainly was slow after the initial torque surge, but I somehow lucked out and had no engine problems.
I grew up in the Clintonville area of Columbus – would go to the Delaware State Park often.
We had a Cadillac Fleetwood Coup Diesel. We never had engine problems. We did replace a transmission and replaced it with a 400 transmission. It was a good driving car.
My parents owned three GM diesel vehicles; a 1981 Olds Cutlass Supreme Brougham Coupe and two 1982 Olds Ninety-eight Regency Brougham sedans.
All three vehicles performed well and I don’t remember ever having any problems with them. We did have to replace an injector in the ’81 Cutlass.
I think we had great success with the cars because they were mainly used for highway cruising. We lived about 125 miles (round trip) from my parents work and it was about 30 miles (round trip) to town for supplies. Of course they were also used for our cross-country vacations.
If I remember correctly, we ran the ’81 Olds Cutlass until about 200,000 miles and then traded it in. The two Ninety-eights, were driven to about 150,000 miles each, and we sold them. After that, my parents went back to driving Lincoln Town Cars. Initially, my parents stopped driving the Lincoln’s, and changed to the GM diesel’s, for better fuel economy.
Your childhood infatuation with cars resonates so well with mine. At first it was toys, then reading and cutting and pasting (with scissors and glue of course!) road tests in all manner of print and best of all: collecting sales brochures at car dealers. Of those I had BMW, Renault and Opel. The best part of the brochures was the ink. The multicolored high gloss pages were still effusing their mind-altering solvents. And when I read about your collecting of printed ads I vividly recalled that smell. you can’t get that through the interwebs!
I’m getting dizzy, Tom! 😉
I’ve still got a scrap book with pictures cut out of brochures and car tests cut out of the newspaper. Somewhere.
Me too!
Today I go to second hand markets places and buy the magazines I cut to pieces back in the 1970’s.
I recently came across my childhood collection of sales brochures, gathered at the yearly local new car shows in the 80’s and early 90’s. Needs thinning out, but I’m going to keep the best ones!
Funny thing is, a few of the brochure pictures have been cut out, needed elsewhere for collages or other automotive art…
I was also infatuated with cars from the time I was a little boy. We lived near the local ford dealer and I could walk the few blocks to the showroom. I collected from the age of 10 until about 16 all the brochures on the new cars. I don’t know what ever happened to them. Maybe when I went off to college my parents had enough of them.
The brochures of the sixties were some of the best I’ve ever seen.
The Olds diesel engine problems were a sign of the “beginning of the end” for GM.
In an attempt to maintain profitability while complying with the ever increasing government interference, the bean counters were wining more and more battles. Some of the engineering on the Olds diesels were one of those won battles.
The injection pump problems (governor flex ring) were a result of alcohol in diesel fuel additives attacking the flex ring material. That fiasco almost put Roosa Master (the pumps builder) out of business. (they are now Stanadyne)
It is probably fair to say that consumers at that time might not have gone for the additional cost of the Olds being equipped with a turbocharger to give it normal highway power, but the aftermarket stepped up and some kits were sold. The then 55 MPH speed limit made the lack of power less noticeable.
I’m sure it is fair to say that the additional cost of better head bolts (the real problem on the early engines) would have not been noticed in the option price.
I have four of these cars in my fleet. One is still entirely original with about 230K miles, an ’82 Custom Cruiser. Only problem to date is the metal intake gasket is seeping where the intake coolant crossover attaches to the left head. Another (an ’84) is still on its original head gaskets although the intake gasket, injection pump, and timing chain have been replaced. That one is at 170K. Third is a ’79 cutlass with the smaller 260 diesel. The head gaskets are lightly seeping, but it is still driven and is all original at 90K. Last is an ’81 CC. At 115K, I did the head gaskets/upgraded bolts years ago.
Wow; a current owner of four GM diesels! Very impressive, and I suspect you are in a very exclusive club. Maybe of one? 🙂
You, like so many other owners of cars with certain weaknesses, have mastered the art of understanding just what those are and dealing with them. But the average owner at the time was certainly not in that position.
Add me to the list as owner of a small fleet. 79 Cutlass 5 speed, several 1980 98’s and 88’s, 81 Bonneville, 83 98, 83 Seville. And more. I still think the bad news about these diesels gets all the publicity, and the others that provide good service get no attention.
Ugh when I was 4, I somehow got my hands on a Deutsch Auto Katalog and cut it up and scrapbooked it. What a waste. Fortunately, I didn’t cut up anything afterwards, including the Which Car magazine my mum bought for me every month. I credit a lot of things to a childhood spent reading car magazines.
Oh and as for the Auto Katalog, thank goodness for the internet: I found it on eBay!
In 1975 my neighbor gave me a stack of Holiday magazines from the 50’s. I cut out pics of the cars since their shapes and styles were fascinating. It was only much later that I found Holiday was a gold mine of high value collectible ads. I probably wrecked $2000 of swap meet ads.
Never had a diesel anything, but until now I thought I was the only kid who had to play with cut out paper cars instead of the real toys. My mom came up with a clever solution to preserve their magazines long enough to read. Seems our local library kept periodicals for 10 years. My mom picked up old issues to satisfy my need to cut up magazines. A side effect was all my paper cars were at least 10 years old when I got them. Kind of like the first years of being able to afford a real car. Besides having an continuing supply of paper cars, I learned a great deal of how cars were marketed once I could read. Did you know that the ’58 Plymouth had “towering direction stabilizers” and not fins? Such trivia would serve me well in later life as a car salesman. No matter how old a used car, I could entertain the customer by quoting the original marketing trivia. The customer might have been looking at a 10 year old rusted POS, but I was always describing the car as if it were a brand new unit.
Yep…I too cut out and played with paper cars. I also “customized” a few. I made stretch limos and pickups (El Camino style) out of a few of them.
Ha I did that also.
On YouTube there are several vids where people make paper cars so detailed they look like metal minatures.
This sounds just like my own family’s experience. My dad, a small business owner, leased a diesel Delta 88. Terrible performance (and quality) drove him into the arms of Volvo. (And Volvo’s terrible quality drove him to Japanese cars, where he remains today.). But I thought the Olds, loaded with gadgets and blue crushed velour, was the coolest thing ever.
I have been musing that the old GM’s problem was its emphasis on making ‘great leaps forward’ and having too much faith in itself. Every new design was shoveled out to the public by the hundreds of thousands, for owners to test. One wonders (okay, I’m the ‘one who wonders) what would have happened with the diesels if they had been rolled out in limited production numbers for a couple years before general release. Would GM have been able to discover and correct the faults that ruined the diesel experience for Americans, or did the accountants hold so much sway that it wouldn’t have changed anything? There’s an argument to be made that it would have made no difference as GM was notorious for failing to fix known problems over a multi-year production run, but wishful thinking wants to say that ‘the future’ of diesels could have been much different.
It’s a bit ironic that diesels in general got a black eye in the U.S. because of the GM diesel, and now they’re getting another black eye because of the VW emissions scandal.
Odor, smoke and noise put a lot of people off diesels long before VW.
My impression is that diesels only have made headway in the US “light” truck market; I wonder if their tolerance for low cetane (compared to Europe) could be a factor.
A diesel VW blogger noted his adventures in finding fuel of adequate quality for his Jetta, which isn’t encouraging. Anyway, there’s no maker of diesel cars today I’d trust.
I bought a brand new 81 Rabbit diesel in 1981. I lived in Pittsburgh at the time and had that darn thing towed more times than I can even remember because it wouldn’t start in the low winter temperature. I’d wait for the light to go out indicating it was time to start it and it would just crank and crank. I remember one winter night about 2Am in the morning it froze up while driving it.
In decent weather it was a pretty great car. The mileage for the time was unbeatable. But I finally had enough of a car that I couldn’t depend on in the winter and sold it.
Tom, I too, as a young car-fan, treasured car ads from the the weeklies “Saturday Evening Post” and “Look” magazine and collected them in a thick manilla folder (after my parents had deemed the magazine “read”).
I also scanned the Sunday NY Times car ads and car classifies. The classifies had no photos, but that didn’t stop me from creating the image of the vehicles in my mind and then imagining what it would be like to drive them. The NY times car ads let me know about the foreign makes, the most exotic and impressive to me was the Citroen DS19.
I still love that look, and the promise of a smooooth ride in a DS.
I was also given a stack of old European car magazines from the early 1950s and sat up late at night getting to know the car reviewers of the day, and read every word about exotics from Allards and Alpines to XK120s.
After reading your COAL, I feel perhaps I wasn’t such a weird car obsessed kid after all. That’s a new and comforting, albeit somewhat late, thought.
The 350 Olds diesel was based on the big block engine, not the 350. The smaller displacement with the big block gave extra material in the cylinders and the larger crankshaft for more strength. A friend of mine has a 5.7 powered stepside Chevy truck. Still runs. The later ones held up pretty well if they were driven gently.
The 350 diesel used the same basic dimension low-deck block as the other “small block” Olds V8s, but it did have the larger crank journals as used in the “big block” engines. The high deck “big block” had a significantly longer stroke, so it really couldn’t have been used in the 350 diesel. The diesel blocks are commonly used to build up a hi-po 350 gas engine because of their stronger blocks and bigger crank journals.
This is true…
Yes–a common setup being a 350 diesel block with a 455 crank. (This gives, maybe appropriately, 442 cubic inches.)
442 cubic inches in a 4-4-2 would be fitting!
The Olds diesel was rushed…I would say that another 6 months of testing could have resulted in a durable engine.
To give credit to Oldsmobile they extensively revised the engine right away to introduce the DX block, a close to bullet proof engine. All this in maybe a year, year and 1/2. Contrast this with Buick V-8 and V-6 with the terrible oiling system that they kept for over 20 years.
My room was papered with car ads, mostly from old magazine. Advertising hype has always had such an appeal.
I always wanted my life to be just like that of the people in the ads.
Wasn’t the V6 diesel better in reliability ?
Thanks for the opportunity to realize I was not the only one with such eccentricities, Tom.
When I was a teenager I was able to get Motor Trends from the 50s for 25c from a used bookstore.
They were never cut up though, but prized “scores” for my collection.
The V6 diesel was better. My dad had a Cutlass CIera with the diesel, he had a very long commute so the MPG was welcome. We pulled a camper trailer and a small boat with ours, and I don’t remember having any problems doing so. It sounded cool, compared to the Iron Duke powered Cieras and Celebrities our neighbors had. I got my license in 88, and drove the car many times. We kept the car until it had around 150K, it was starting to be hard to start, and rather than getting it fixed, my dad traded it in. We never got stranded in it, it never broke down on us, all I remember my parents having to do to it were routine maintenance stuff on it.
Hey, I thought that I was the only kid that papered my bedroom walls with car ads and cutouts from magazines. Certainly none of my friends did. When I was prepping my parents’ house for rental after they both passed away, I found bits of 50 year old Scotch tape stuck to the walls of my old bedroom. And I too got a car magazine subscription when I was 11, one year, 1968, of Road & Track. Thanks for a wonderful story and a personal perspective on GM diesels.
Tom your early days with Time magazine, the library and your first subscription to Motor Trend mirror mine exactly! I’m a little older than you but the pattern was the same. My folks didn’t have any subscriptions but my aunt and uncle had old National Geographics I could cut up. I would look through those for the car ads like you did and there were some other pictures I liked. Every issue seemed to have a Thunderbird ad.
Then it was off to the public library and like you I was in heaven. After that came my own subscription to Motor Trend, then Car and Driver and Road & Track. For some reason, everyone started with MT but soon after I discovered that R&T and CandD did a better job with their more stable staff of editors who really did seem like old friends. Like many of us here I remember reading the 1970s articles that Paul and GN have been sharing when they were new.
In high school I discovered microfiche. Suddenly I had access not only to new car magazines but also back issues! Even then I was more interested in the older stuff than the newer but it was pretty close. If the Internet existed I would have probably failed school.
It really was the Golden Era for car magazines, not just because we were young but because there was no competition from the internet. Like network TV was never better than it was before cable.
The quality being better was part of it but so many of us sharing the same experience is what will never be repeated. I had a letter published as a pre-teen and will share that story someday. Back then you had to write a letter with a pen, mail it in then wait to see if they liked it enough to publish. Comment sections on the internet, like this one, are instantaneous and allow folks to interact. That’s a huge cultural advancement that I wish we had back then. As much as we all liked network TV I have to admit that some of my favorite shows are from the cable era and sites like this one entertain at least as much as the old buff books did. I have a problem with a few people (and outlets) having too much influence. Some things were better, some were worse.
Speaking of worse it’s a crying shame that GM screwed up the 350 diesel so badly. I’ve heard so many “never again” stories from guys like your Dad. It was a rush job starting with the gas Rocket V8. Early Rabbit diesels had issues too but became more reliable. I don’t think hanging on to Brougham styling or live axles is what killed GM which is what you would think reading those magazines. It was engines like the Vega’s, the Olds diesel, the V864, the HT4100 and, as we are seeing now, the Northstar. I have just recently learned about the quality and design issues with the 80s X-Car, which are inexcusable.
GM not only hurt themselves with the Olds diesel they tarnished the reputation of diesel and put up a major roadblock for other companies looking to get into that business in North America. Right when the technology was starting to get a little traction from the much better performing common-rail injection and low sulfur fuel along comes VW to pound the final nail in that coffin.
Thanks for the great post!
As an owner of a blown-up Northstar. I would partly agree. The Nstar at least performed very well until it let go, and, more importantly tended to hold together long enough for the average Caddy owner to trade it in.
My father leased an 80 Town Coupe, another car that was a horrible come down from earlier versions. But mechanically, it was better than a GM diesel.
He chose well for my stepmom, going from a 74 Cutlass Supreme to an 82 Cutlass Ciara, avoid some of the pitfalls that snared some other GM buyers.
I, too, had a ton of catalogs, ads and the like growing up. My dad worked in the aftermarket industry and I’d eagerly devour the Automotive News and other trade mags that would come in. Plus we’d get the Chicago Tribune delivered, and the first thing I’d do Sunday morning was grab the Transportation section from the paper and read Jim Mateja’s column. I would bring home bags of brochures from the Auto Show every year- still remember the Gallant Men of Olds dealer advertising on the bags they’d hand out. I’ll bet there’s still a bag or two of those somewhere in my mothers basement, maybe extolling the virtues of the 1987 Regal or the like.
I may be overlooking something here, but after the Oldsmobile diesel had been out for a few years the 6.2 L truck diesel comes along and I don’t remember hearing of similar problems or reliability issues with these. My father had a few of these starting with an 84, and they all logged tough miles with very good mileage. Did GM learn from their mistakes when developing the 6.2, and would it have been possible to eventually use this engine in the B bodies (replacing the olds 5.7)? If not, was it and emissions issue (light trucks vs cars), or weight, or size? Would love to hear any insight on this, and the 6.2 in general.
Love checking in to this site for articles just like this. Thanks to all you contributors.
The 6.2 and 6.5 were better than the 5.7, although over the longer term they too have become known for certain weaknesses, although I can’t really say if these are worse than average (maybe somewhat so). As per Wikipedia:
Common Problems
Main Bearing Web Crack: In both 6.2L and 6.5L engines this is reportedly fixed with a combination of improved higher nickel cast iron alloy and lower block re-design including, but not limited to, a main bearing girdle. These features are in the new for 2007 AM General GEP P400 6500 Optimizer enhanced 6.5L diesel presently being sold to the US Government for the 6 ton armored HMMWV.[1]
Crank Failure: Related to age failures of the harmonic balancer, the vibration-dampened accessory drive pulley, or the dual mass flywheel.
Pump Mounted Driver: Relates to thermal failures. The PMD is screwed to the DS-4 injection pump on the 1994-2001 GM 6.5 diesel utilizing fuel flow to dissipate heat. The injection pump is mounted in the intake valley (a high heat area). The PMD contains two power transistors that should be cooled by proper contact with the injection pump body. If the pump is not precisely machined to make complete contact with the transistors via the silicone thermal gasket and paste, the PMD is improperly installed without the gasket or paste, the PMD is installed off center with the pump body, or corrosion develops on the mounting surface the PMD will overheat. Several companies manufacture an extension harness and heat-sink kits. These allow an owner or their mechanic to relocate the PMD away from the injection pump to a lower heat environment and/or a place that can get more air flow.
Cylinder Head Cracking: higher mileage 6.5 engines can exhibit stress related fractures in the cylinder head bowl. Stronger cylinder heads remedy this problem.
The 6.5 L version is still being made for the military HMMWV! One can presume that the bugs have been well worked out of it by now. 🙂
Yeah, I had looked up that Wikipedia entry too and it seemed to match the stories I heard about both the 6.2 and 6.5 over the years. The 6.2, though lower powered, seemed more reliable and the bigger issues with the 6.5 seemed to involve the turbocharged version.
As SteveC says below, lots of contractors had the 6.2 in the 80’s and they were driven hard. The overdrive transmissions were the bigger issue then. If you had one with a Turbo 400 or like my father, the 4 speed standard with the bull low as he called it, you had a solid powertrain that could haul plus give you consistent 20-25 mpg highway depending on your cargo.
Good article. I’m sure your childhood experiences ring a lot of bells around here.
Not many comments on the 81 Bonneville itself. I have never thought very much of the 80-81 fullsize Pontiacs. I have to say, though, that Bonneville looks quite nice. I especially like how the bumpers are flush with the side of the ‘, which I don’t think Chevy, Olds, or Buick were doing at the time. It is a good way to make the big 5 mph railroad ties more palatable. It worked well for Chrysler in the 70’s and Ford when they facelifted the Town Car in 85 and the Crown Victoria in 88. It’s a shame Pontiac cancelled their full size line for 82!
I always thought the 1980-81 Bonneville/Catalina looked better in Catalina trim (less trim, open rear wheel wells). When Pontiac brought back the 80-81 rear body styling on the 1985 Parisienne, I’m surprised they didn’t dust off the tooling for the front end, also. A quick grille revision and they would’ve done away with the ‘cut-and-paste’ look. (I never could reconcile the 1980-85 Caprice railroad-tie front bumper look with the smoothly-integrated back bumper).
I remember reading the April 1980 issue of Motor Trend in my high school library (freshman year). If my memory serves me correctly, the Dodge Diplomat tested was a slant 6-equipped coupe…did 0-60 in 17.something seconds.
These Bonnevilles have a much better front bumper and grille, but I personally like the simpler headlamp arrangement of the Parisienne. The parking lights between the headlamps was starting to look a little tired in ’81 (if still distinctive) and would have seemed really out of date in ’85. In my opinion, anyway.
Perhaps this is colored by the fact that my family owned an ’86 Parisienne for about 6 years…
I was a technician at a Pontiac/GMC dealership from mid 1984 -87 and I had some experience with these motors and the other diesels of the time. I thought that the 5.7 was OK if used as a basic highway car. The public really didn’t know how to deal with diesel support services at the time also. Fuel filters, winter blend. (I am in Wisconsin), I only did head bolts on 1 5.7 and it was in a Bonneville with over 100,000 miles on it. I also replaced with a Goodwrench motor, a 4.3 diesel in a 1982 6000. That was a shoe horn deal for sure. When I was at tech school in 80 & 81, several of the faculty were converting their 5.7’s to gasoline with what I believe were 402 heads. In this arrangement, these would run forever.
As I understood at the time, the turbo 700 4r was another item that hurt GM. These were supposedly tested in a fleet of delivery vans in St Paul area, but we repaired a lot of them in the 1983 trucks, especially if they were behind a 6.2. The injection pumps and rear main seals were the only things that I remember being troublesome. These 6.2’s were driven hard. Almost any contractor who had a truck had a 6.2 in it, and with the CAFE standards, it was almost impossible to get GM to build a 454 at the time. I did order a 3/4 ton Suburban in 86 with the 454 that I still have in original condition. Great truck!
My wife’s family had 4 of these 5.7 Diesel engines. 3 were half ton trucks. One was an 81 olds delta 88. All were bought new. None lasted beyond a hundred thousand kilometres. 3 of the vehicles were replaced with gas powered vehicles. Only my father in law bought another diesel; the 6.2 in another truck.
It was an 86 model. Bought in February. It was about a month old and he was driving in snow. Parked it in his garage overnight. Sunday morning he went to start it to go to church. Hit the key and BANG! The starter lay on the floor of the garage! Come Monday had it towed into the dealership.
The problem? The air cleaner. It was deep dished in the centre with not 1, but 2 studs, which if not very carefully tightened evenly, meant no seal around one fastener.
So the accumulated snow melted in the air leaner dish. The water from this melt drained into an open cylinder and froze over night. When he hit the started the ice jammed the piston, bent a connecting rod and tore the starter off the block.
Nothing like a brand new truck with a rebuilt engine.
I’ve had huge problems with terrible air cleaner designs living in the blizzard snow belt of Colorado. Unless you cover or protect the top of the engine the melting snow will fill the engine with water. Why did they design them this way? A big problem with International and some Ford truck engines too.
I once drove from Chicago to Seattle in a diesel Pontiac wagon of this vintage. Poor thing couldn’t even keep up 55 mph speed on the rolling hills of Iowa.
As the owner of a 81 Pontiac diesel that loves to cruise all day over 70, there must have been something wrong with your car, as that isn’t normal. Maybe your fuel filter was plugged up.
1981 marked the year GM did improve these engines with water separators and several other modifications that did improve reliability. The general public did not know how to properly care for these engines and I did know several folks that took them to actual diesel mechanics and had much better luck with them as a result.
Regarding the 1981 Bonneville it reminds me when I worked at our local grocery store as an 18 year old and a beautiful mint condition 81 dark blue Bonneville sedan pulled up to have assistance with loading there groceries. I was drooling over this car with it’s mint blue interior and extraordinary shape at the time. Of course I asked the elderly owners all about the car and if they were ever going to put it up for sale. Well that day did eventually come about 5 years later.
I was now in my early 20’s and a certain 1981 Bonneville was listed in the Pennysaver (remember those?).
Of course we had to go and check it out. Surprise! It was the very same car I assisted the elderly couple with 5 years prior. They had just purchased a 1987 light blue Caprice Classic sedan and the Bonneville had to go. By this time she had 124K miles and it was still in very good overall condition but not quite as mint as when I first saw it. They wanted 3000 bucks for it which was a bit out of my price range at the time and we settled on 2400 cash. It had the small Pontiac 4.3 liter V8 which was bone stock original and super well maintained. It purred like a kitten, the exhaust was a smooth whoosh and the engine just sat under the hood as if it wasn’t even running. It was so smooth and quiet in the car I thought it stalled! It also surprised me with better than expected performance feeling like a 307 that I drove a year earlier.
Well it wasn’t to be. A day later my car was in a bad accident which totally put the screws on getting the Bonneville. Yes a drunk driver plowed through a stop light and knocked me clear across the intersection rendering my car totaled. By the time the insurance check came the Pontiac was long gone and instead I ended up with a 1981 Olds Cutlass LS sedan but that is a story for another day.
I sold cars at a Buick dealer in 1980s. We had problems with the diesel, but more often with the transmission. The torque converter routinely failed. Had same trouble with the transmission in other vehicle.
As to engines we had some problems with the diesel but 4.1L v-6; it wouldn’t keep head gaskets. On one test drive with a beautiful 83 Riviera the engine locked up; hard to sell a car that way. It got to the point of me steering people away from cars on the lot with that engine.
Great article! My childhood (Worthington oh!) was spent learning all I could about cars. And my mom bought me a subscription to Motor Trend!
Mom never drove, and dad thought he could then drive whatever he wanted! It was Buicks, Cadillac sedans and a few Lincoln’s. Then in 1978 for the first time, dad said I could pick the next car! My choices were: Chevy Caprice, Buick Electra, Pontiac Bonneville or an Oldsmobile Delta diesel. For some reason, I had misgivings about the diesel and told him to stop thinking about that.
We ended up with a black Buick Electra with a red interior.
He leased so I could buy it at the end. Sadly, it had to go back before we finished the lease.
Thanks for this memory