My wife’s 1996 Subaru Vivio Bistro was done for. After two front-end collisions, I was done with it and so was L. We needed a new car, and we needed one as soon as possible. I detest debt, and so financing a car was out of the question. L also had two serious collisions in about a year, and so I would not spend more than I could afford to lose. This meant whatever I bought would be as cheap as possible. Fortunately, by early 2024 the used car market had recovered considerably, with old beaters returning to the market albeit at still-inflated prices. My wife noticed a red 2005 Buick Terraza sitting in the local lemon lot. She brought me the phone number, and I made an appointment with the seller to look it over.
As with most Buick drivers, the seller was a nonagenarian. She was not, however, the proverbial little old woman who only took the van to church on Sundays. The Terraza had more than 290,000 miles on the clock, and it was clearly well-used. The only useful knowledge of the Terraza’s history I was able to gather is that it was a one-owner car, bought new in Arizona and used primarily to shuttle its geriatric owners between Arizona and New Mexico, where their daughter and grandchildren lived. This meant that most of those 290,000 miles were highway miles at the hands of a fairly mature driver, and thus the Terraza had a fairly easy life. That said, it was not in great condition. The transmission, a four-speed automatic driving the front wheels only, was clearly reaching the end of its life. While under normal driving conditions it shifted smoothly, it would buck and slip if the throttle were pushed too far toward the floor.
Additionally, the doors did not work properly. One of the automatic sliding doors had long since stopped talking with whatever computer was meant to control it, and the other was barely on speaking terms with it. We could not use the driver’s side sliding door at all, and sometimes the passenger’s side door would refuse commands to close. The wheel speed sensors on all four wheels could not make up their minds as to whether they would fail or not, and so about three or four times a week an error light would pop up on the instrument cluster, signifying nothing worth reacting to. The CD player was error-prone and would shut down almost at random. The gas tank leaked from the top, meaning that anything more than about half a tank would be wasted as spillage.
Worst of all, however, was the heater. The seller had mentioned that the dealership had “fixed” it, but in a way that required them to switch the heater on and off each season. She did not understand how they had done this or why. It turned out that the complex system of motors and servos that controlled the blend doors had failed somewhere, and rather than deal with it properly, the dealership had simply elected to gut the system. In its place was a single Phillips head screw crudely jammed into its remains, which worked by securing the blend door in a particular position. Also, the overhead DVD player would occasionally spring to life, making awful noises in the driver’s ear incessantly. Note that this did not mean the DVD player actually worked as designed, and in fact I see no evidence it ever worked at all. However, the price was incredibly good for the time; $2950. We needed the car, and beggars can’t be choosers.
And we did well, as far as beggars go. Despite its many flaws, the Terraza drove surprisingly well. The 3.5-liter LX9 V6 was a gem of an engine. On paper, the LX9 was nothing to write home about. An evolution of the 60° V6 of the 1980s, it only belted out about 200 horsepower when new, and about 220 ib-ft of torque. Despite its unimpressive specs, it moved the Terraza with reasonable urgency, and it was smooth as butter. Practically speaking, the Buick was incredibly useful. It had more storage than we could ever practically use, and was comfortable as could be. I never complained about the Buick’s utility, even if some features left me scratching my head (for example, the onboard air compressor was a neat-sounding feature, but I never saw any use for it). My wife and I even considered camping in it, but it was gone before we ever got the opportunity.
While we never expected the Terraza to stay with us for a long time, its replacement came within four months. During that time, it brought home our first bundle of joy; a kitten my wife found by the side of the road. She named him Garfield, and despite my protests, we kept him. He is now a full grown house cat who has annoyingly imprinted on me and not the woman who rescued him. He has less intelligence than the other bundle of joy my wife brought home in the Buick–an average guinea pig. We named him Donut, and I like him better. Donut, however, is largely indifferent to my existence.
In March 2024, about a month after we took the Buick home, L found she was pregnant. This was wonderful news, and we thought we would bring the baby home in the beat-up old Buick. However, my wife (fairly) did not like the Terraza and before her pregnancy came to term, she found a much better family car and jumped on it. We handed off the Buick to my brother’s estranged wife, who was in need of a second car, as she was sharing with her cousin and his family. The Buick ended up in his hands and became his family car. While this might have been a happy ending in any other situation, the cousin, who had desperately needed it, beat it like a rented mule. Every time I saw it, it had suffered new damage. At some point, he was thrown out of his family home and began living in the Terraza. Even after it became his home, he did not treat it any better. I learned, while helping him retrieve it, that he frequently drove it on Jeep trails, and continued to drive it after it blew a head gasket. The cousin complained bitterly that it seemed worse each time it overheated and was not reliably starting anymore. He had nothing nice to say about the Buick, which fell into his lap in a time of great need and stood up to the worst treatment I had ever seen a car endure. Apparently, beggars can be choosers after all.
While I did not care much for the Buick, I have come to appreciate it for what it was. It was not by any metric a “good” car. Even in its prime it was notably unreliable and barely competitive in a fading market segment. But it embodied that old truism that a GM will run poorly longer than other cars will run at all. That’s worth something in my book.
Related CC reading:
2005 Buick Terraza – GM’s Deadly Sin #34 – The Answer To A Question No One Ever Asked
The 2005-2009 GM minivans were quite popular here in Canada especially in their Chevrolet Uplander and Pontiac Montana SV6 forms. Generally, these were second to Chrysler (the company, not the make) in terms of sales.
However, these GM vans (along with the Ford Freestar to a lesser extent) were outclassed even when new. They were perfectly acceptable for fleet/rental vehicle duty but most retail buyers went elsewhere. Even the Gen 4 Chrysler T&C/Dodge Grand Caravan was a better vehicle than the GM and Ford products.
American band vehicles are still popular in Canada, I believe partly because they are more affordable, and also the Big Three are still with a large operation in Ontario Province even Honda and Toyota came in twenty years ago.
Sad ending to a car with some life still left. Likely a better choice than a modern car running super thin oil, a cvt or 8+ speed auto or an engine that requires removal to replace an alternator that sits behind a hot turbo like a Kia 3.3 V6.
I have no-count relatives like the cousin. You can’t even give them anything because they don’t take care of it or deliberately abuse it. I’d say it’s strange, but it’s all too common.
It’s plain entitlement. I had a distance relationship ask me for a “loan.” After several months I finallly suggested he pay, and offered to take payments interest free. There was a profound misunderstanding as “loan me” meant “give me” to him. Never got a cent back.
I have never understood beating on the car that takes you to work. I have a rather complicated relationship with work. I do just enough to get by and live cheaply. Beating on my car would cost money, for which I had to work.
I even saw it in the taxi business. Drivers would beat on their cars because they weren’t making the repairs. Then when a busy time would come, their car would break down when driven a little hard. I never understood it.
These were everywhere in China, at least 15 years ago. Black, and chauffeur-driven. I rode in quite a few of them. Branded the GL8, the model is still on the market though no longer based on that platform.
Good to hear it at least was reliable .
I like the removable rear floor storage compartments with tie downs no less .
Some folks are just not to be trusted and any time you help them they’ll twist it to where you either didn’t help them or cheated them, I learned this the hard way as many do by selling my pristine 1961 “Cat’s Eye” Mercury Comet two door granny mobile to a couple who begged me for it then trashed it to junk in a matter of months then claimed I’d screwed them by taking $600 for it when I sold that beautiful looking if terribly underpowered little gem .
As far as loans, anyone who ever asked me I expected a carefully worked out in advance plan of payments and expected them to have same clearly written on paper ad signed before I’d even consider it, this is how I’ve approached others when asking for a $loan since I was a young man, I always wonder abput those who clearly have no expectation of paying back .
-Nate
The rear under-floor storage compartments are there to disguise that unlike other minivans of this era the GM vans didn’t have a deep well just inside the rear liftgate that the 3rd-row seat(s) folded into to create a flat floor. GM instead had to *add* height to the floor there so it would line up with the 3rd-row seat when folded down – and it folded forward rather than back. This meant (a) the load floor behind the 2nd or 3rd row seats was much higher than in other vans, and (b) the floor created by folding the 3rd row forward was considerably higher than the floor from that point to the first-row seats, while in most other vans it was flat from the tailgate to the first-row seats.
You never fail to surprise me every Sunday morning, and that’s a good thing. I’m a fan of your story telling and your unexpected automotive choices. Keep them coming…
As I was reading this – sitting on my porch – a Ford Windstar pulled up to my neighbor’s house. It was being driven by a delivery driver, but I haven’t seen a Windstar in months. Then I read about your Terraza, another quasi-forgotten minivan from 20-odd years ago. To honest, I had forgotten what Buick’s minivan was called.
Sounds like you got a pretty decent deal on this one. Cars at that price range could definitely go in either direction, so I’m glad this was a good one. Sad to hear about your relative’s treatment of it afterwards.
I was a GM service advisor when these things were new. If there ever was a car designed to break down the second the warranty was up, it was these. Heck, many didn’t even make it that long. In addition to the maladies mentioned, the 3.5 V-6 was prone to intake manifold gasket failure. They ALL did it, and the only way to prevent it from destroying your engine is to get it early. If I recall correctly, it was ten hours of labour.
The fact that your car had 290,000 miles on it is amazing, because these vans were not designed for the long haul. As I write this, there is an identical car in my underground, immobilized, probably for the intake gasket.
Seems like a pretty good buy… at, say, $950.
I’ve always thought these look like London cabs.
The fate of your Buick also afflicted more than few Buick LeSabres as the elderly owners passed them down to younger relatives or sold them. They were run into the ground instead of maintained and are now Chinese washing machines.
The last gasp of the GM minivans with the big nose to make them look more like an SUV was almost as desperate as the luggage rack on a Cadillac Cimarron making it compete with a BMW.
Count me as another who is amazed that the car was as good as it was with almost 300k on it. It has been my understanding that GM’s 3.6 was not an engine that you can expect to remain hale and hearty at that kind of advanced age and miles, but it looks like you squeezed the rest of the life out of it.
Is this the first COAL to ever feature one of these?
Looks like it. I knew these were thin on the ground even when new, but I didn’t think they were that rare.