the Olds from hell
The GM B-bodies get an inordinate amount of love. Even people who have never owned one are convinced that these were great cars. And maybe some of them were. In the abstract, I like them myself. But show me a B-body Olds in shades of beige, burgundy or brown, and it’s a flashback from a horror movie. It all started like this…
After the engine in my 1979 Monte Carlo died, I was left with a choice: a new engine, or a new car. After some deliberation, I decided on the latter. The replacement car was an ’82 Olds Delta 88 that I found in the local classifieds. I needed something right away and the Olds appeared to be one of the better choices that week. There it was, a little newspaper ad full of alphabet soup – “83 Olds, 4dr, a/c, p/w…”
What did you expect, a long, detailed description and lots of nice color photos before you’d even consider texting “is it still available”? No, we were still in the 20th century, and so one immediately got on the phone (that’s land line, quite possibly still with a rotary dial if you were calling from your grandparents’) and hoped to catch the seller at home before somebody else did. There weren’t a zillion other choices to text back and forth about. Going through the classifieds, you usually only circled a couple worth looking at, and if somebody beat you to them, good luck, try again next Friday when the following week’s paper came out. And yes, that’s the actual ad that somehow miraculously survived in my scrapbook. Now git off my lawn!
The Olds was being sold by its original owner, a rather distracted young lawyer who had just upgraded to a BMW, a rather typical scenario in those days. An Olds still meant solid and respectable, but it would no longer suffice to convey prestige for somebody with upwardly mobile pretentions. The asking price was $2250, which I quickly bargained down to $1600 – only a little more than replacing the engine in the Monte would have cost. The owner appeared clueless about the car’s mechanical condition and actual model year, which turned out to be ’82, not ’83. While the Olds was indeed “well kept” as far as the exterior went, my mechanic pointed out that the car badly needed tires, all four shocks, a transmission mount and a few other issues addressed. I figured I was still getting a good deal as long as the seller agreed to adjust the price accordingly. At the time, I congratulated myself on my bargaining skills. In retrospect, I should have been suspicious at how easily the guy agreed to drop the price. He must have been as thrilled to get that car out of his life as I eventually was.
To me, the Olds represented a newer, bigger car with lower mileage, a step up the Sloan ladder from my old Chevy, as well as a step up in responsibility. Fresh out of college, I had temporarily moved in with my grandparents while saving up to get my own place, and thought that they would appreciate being chauffeured in a big four-door Olds rather than the two-door Monte or some small and overpriced Japanese compact. It was the kind of responsible, adult car I decided I needed at this stage in my life.
Here’s the Olds the first day I brought it home. The name is still an impressive mouthful: 1982 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale Brougham. Note: this one above is the only photo of my actual car. All the others were found online.
Most Delta 88’s were Royales in 1982. Few buyers chose a vinyl interior of the base Delta 88, apparently, most went for the velour Royale. The Brougham package added bodyside moldings, opera lamps (on the coupe only) and not much else. So the long name was really all sizzle and no steak. Instead of politely asking “Can We Build One For You?” the ads now stated “We’ve Had One Built For You”, as if there was no longer any choice. My car was beige with a brown vinyl roof and a burgundy velour interior. The engine? The same exact 3.8 V6 as in my previous car! At least it wasn’t that dreadful diesel. I was willing to settle for a six again for expediency’s sake. My GM loyalism and the general goodness of GM’s B-bodies of that era made me feel proud of my choice, the base engine notwithstanding. I really, really wanted to like this Olds.
But on the very first day, a trunk spring broke, dropping the lid on my head when I opened it. Ouch! This was only the first dose of pain the car would inflict on me. A minor thing, easily remedied with some springs from a junked car, but we were off to a “great” start.
The next morning, the brakes failed. When I had to make a panic stop due to some young kid going into an unexpected illegal U-turn in front of me, the brakes faded suddenly and I ended up t-boning him. I hadn’t owned the Olds for 48 hours before it was wrecked! Insurance paid for the bodywork repairs and the Olds soon looked like new again, revealing its Christine-like nature. My mechanic went over the brakes, but I never felt confident about that car again. The trust was gone, replaced by wary uncertainty.
Over the next few months, the Olds turned out to be a nightmare of unreliability. It failed to start in the mornings – sometimes, hitting the starter with a hammer helped, but intermittent issues remained even after I replaced the starter. The headliner drooped. The dashboard disintegrated into pieces of flaky, sticky foam, with entire chunks cracking and falling off. The rear bumper rusted out from the inside. The turn signal stalk stopped cancelling itself out after turns. The metal trim came loose from the side of the driver’s seat. Power windows shorted out in a thunderstorm, leaving me drenched and furious. Even the horn button broke one not-so-fine Friday afternoon, beeping on every bump and confusing other drivers. I had to drive like a total putz with a randomly beeping car for three days until my mechanic opened up on Monday morning. I have never had anything so insidiously minor yet hugely annoying happen on any other car before or since.
In the summer, the radiator failed. My merry Oldsmobile chose to overheat at 3 am on the FDR Drive. The FDR doesn’t have a breakdown lane and this was long before cell phones, so the only
thing I could do was nurse the Olds off the nearest exit into the heart of Spanish Harlem and go looking for a pay phone. The two shifty crack dealers on that corner were too shocked to do anything but point this white boy in the direction of the phone when I came straight up to them and asked. I was too angry at the car to be scared. Miraculously, the phone worked and the wheels were still on the Olds when I got back.
Then the transmission started slipping. Shortly after the transmission was replaced, the engine started knocking. Apparently, it decided that it couldn’t handle the stress of a rebuilt transmission working properly. According to Grandma, as a small child I could distinguish certain cars by the sounds of their engines. There weren’t all that many different models in Russia in the early 1970s, so if it sounded like a bunch of tin cans, it was definitely a Zaporozhets, the old joke went. The Olds, in the spirit of Yeltsin’s democracy, began to sound like tin cans too.
So, having missed my perfect chance to swap a V8 into a much loved Chevy, I ended up replacing both the engine and the transmission on the Olds, among a myriad other woes. The car only had 76K miles on it at the time. I finally had my proper V8, but I no longer cared. I felt cheated and hated that Olds with a passion. It hated me right back by getting me into another accident, when a bus sideswiped me while making a turn. It could have happened to anyone, but by then I was convinced my car was out to get me. The bus company paid for the damage and so the Olds came out looking great again, almost appearing to have fixed itself like Christine for the second time.
Weekends were spent sourcing parts at junkyards and on my back doing stuff like replacing the rotted bumper, installing new muffler brackets and reattaching the headliner. For more complicated stuff, there was my friend Alex, the mechanic. According to my logbook, Alex was very happy to see me at least once a month.
January: stuck driver’s window (again)
February: transmission leak – new filter and gasket
March: another brake line replaced
April: power steering rebuilt
May: wiper motor and pump, new battery, turn signals shorted out
June: radiator
August: valve cover gasket
September: water pump, starter
October: intake manifold gasket
November: power steering issues again, fuel filter replaced
December: exhaust pipe and muffler, carburetor issues, new transmission
January: new engine
February: now on the new engine, again water pump, again valve cover gasket…
Nothing happened in July, which was a minor miracle.
Having continuously thrown money into a black hole for almost two years to keep the Olds running, I had none to spend on its replacement. So I took $100 and bought the first running beater I came across – I figured it couldn’t possibly be any more problematic than the Olds. This was a spontaneous step in a completely random direction, although those who have paid attention reading my Monte Carlo installment, just might hazard a guess as to why I chose that particular beater. To my family, this unexpected plot twist made no sense at all, fighting a problem by taking on an additional problem. And for a few months I had two cars that never both ran at the same time, but between the two I could usually manage to get to work. Moving one semi-operational car twice a week for alternate side street parking is no fun, moving two such cars is a special circle of Brooklyn hell that even Dante couldn’t imagine.
When my brother needed a car for a summer job in New Jersey, I lent him the Olds, with a stern warning. Two weeks later he called me, asking what he should do. The Olds had failed spectacularly for the last time. The driveshaft came loose on the highway. Thankfully, he managed to pull over and not hit anything. This was the last straw for me. I drove straight over to where he was, cleaned everything out of the Olds and called the nearest junkyard. My last memory of the Olds was seeing it hooked up to a tow truck, glinting malevolently in the summer sun. The guy drove away shaking his head, convinced that we were a couple of idiots, junking what looked like a perfectly good car over an obvious and simple repair. But I knew better. After two years of regret and maddeningly endless repairs, I couldn’t stand to even look at that Olds anymore. I was done with that car. We took the $50 we got for it and went to get some beer and celebrate its demise. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the Olds was quickly repaired and went on to terrorize a hapless third owner, like a bad horror movie sequel.
All this happened when the Olds was just 8-9 years old, with 60-80K on the odometer. It did its best to turn me into a former GM loyalist. I had my $100 beater for a while (which deserves a COAL of its own – stay tuned), but when the time came to get my next proper car, it was a Chrysler product, followed by string of Japanese imports.
Is there nothing good to say about the Olds at all? Well, when it wasn’t channeling Christine, it was a very comfortable cruiser. On long road trips, when everything worked properly, it was magnificent. I could just lean back into that soft velour, line the hood ornament up against the lane markers on the highway, pop a cassette into the stereo and ride in style. The trunk could easily swallow a full drum set and still have room for all the weekly food shopping at Brighton Beach. Parts were plentiful and cheap and mechanics knew these cars inside and out. It was a handsome and potentially capable machine that I really, really wanted to like, but to date it remains the worst car I have ever owned in over 35 years of driving. When the Oldsmobile brand was discontinued some years later, I wasn’t surprised at all. They built one for me, and made me wish they hadn’t.
After reading this, my 1990 Cavalier doesn’t seem so bad. It’s quite reliable, at least the drivetrain is. The body is basically a four door Vega. Luckily, the A/C works fine.
There were so many boxy looking cars in the late 70s through the early 90s, with some brands fielding better examples than others. It was also during this period when the lines between Buick, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac were most blurred.
That yellow car pictured above would be my favorite, but really, any GM big car from this period is decent looking. Unfortunately, while they look good…they are also dated looking.
The ’80 refresh of the B-Bodies, in my opinion, made them all look less distinct from each other. Still very handsome cars though.
If it helps any, you weren’t alone in your B-body hell. My grandparents had a ’77 Impala and a ’92 Roadmaster (with two nearly flawless Dodges in between) and both were awful.
The Impala never tracked straight. The Roadmaster required two engines, three transmissions, and five torque convertors.
At least the Olds was a good looking car….
Your Olds had something you didn’t often see – the optional “gage” package which included temp, oil pressure, and voltage gauges below the speedometer. In this case, it sounds like the gauges were really needed.
Gotta love the 1955 hood ornament in the last photo.
I have been there with a vehicle that seems to be possessed. Mine was a 1993 Saab 900- in 9months it required many different minor and major
repairs and thrice left me stranded. I traded it on a 2004 Bonneville which was very reliable and cheap to fix.
I’m so sorry to laugh at your misfortune but damn if this wasn’t one of the most entertaining COAL entries I’ve ever read. That part about you getting stranded in East Harlem really got me! I’m surprised you didn’t go at “Christine” with a crow bar when it finally died.
Great article. I hope you had better luck with future purchases although, selfishly, I hope they were all this entertainingly awful!
It’s OK to laugh now, it was a long time ago. And I did come close to smashing it with something many, many times. As to future purchases, every subsequent car was a paragon of virtue in comparison.
When my mother was researching Consumer Reports for a new car in 1985 I was amazed to learn that the Ford Crown Vic got better reliability ratings than the Olds 88, by then in its last year. Your car must not have been the only one like that.
My rwd 1984 98 also ate a transmission at 54K, although the car was 13 years old at the time. Mine also had some electrical issues. There was evidence of some old fixes (like power windows routed through a circuit not controlled by the key) and my mechanic did some tedious work tracing a short that kept blowing the dome light fuse.
Your car, however, sounds like it really needed to be stolen and stripped. 🙂
JPC, you’re too polite. “Burned with fire” sounds more appropriate for this particular Olds! 😉
+1 to William Stopford, above. I also enjoyed this post. Very much a Murphy’s Law kind of tale.
GM used aluminium wiring on some of these Olds’ which caused all kinds of electrical issues, especially in the salt belt. I don’t recall what model years now, but I knew to avoid them.
I think one of the big reasons for Ford improvement in reliability ratings was the early switch to FI compared to GM. The carburetor equipped cars just had more to act up. While often times the problems were minor and easy to fix, Joe Citizen was not happy when a choke pull off failed and the car ran like crap. The Ford CFI system used until 1985 still wasn’t the best when it got older. The MPFI system introduced in 1986 was excellent though even over the long term, and a big step ahead of GM’s E4MC (feedback carburetor).
Good call on the EFI situation. IIRC, GM was the last of the Big 3 to have a vehicle with a carburetor (early nineties’ light pickup?). None of the domestics were yet up to the Japanese in overall quality but at least Fords didn’t have the carburetor problems anymore. Hell, I think even grungy ole Mopars all had a reliable EFI system before GM.
You really have to wonder what the hell GM management was thinking back then with everyone (including Ford and Chrysler) taking bites out of their market share with engineering improvements while GM just sat there with the same old archaic systems.
I believe the last GM vehicles to use carburetors were the 1990 B-body wagons (Buick Estate/Chevrolet Caprice/Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser) along with the Cadillac Brougham equipped with the Olds 5.0 (307) V8. The Ford LTD Crown Victoria Police Interceptor with the 351 had a Variable Venturi carb up until 1991 before it was redesigned. And the Jeep Grand Wagoneer also used a carb on it’s (American Motors) 360 V8 all the way until 1991 as well when it was retired.
Depends on which engines your talking about. The old carry over Olds 307’s and Buick 231 V6’s used carburetors up until 1987 for the former and 1990 for the latter. When it came to 4 cylinder engines GM had TBI on it’s 2.5 Iron Duke starting in 1982 and on the Cavalier and Brazil made 1.8 OHC engines in 1983. Mopar had 2 BBL lean burn style carbs up until 1989 on all 3 M-body cars and on the Omni/Horizon until 1987. The K-cars didn’t get fuel injection until 1986. Chevy built 2.8’s has port injection starting in 1985 available but it took Chrysler until 1987 to get the lousy Mitsubishi 3.0 with FI. Ford had more FI engines starting in 1983 than either but they all eventually caught up in the later 1980’s
Note too that GM had FI before either Ford or Chrysler with the 1975 Cadillac Seville and it was an option on all Devilles and Fleetwoods up until 1979. The earliest Chrysler tried FI was the trouble prone setup in the 1981 Imperial that most owners converted back to a carburetor.
This reminds me of my first, and only, new car; my 1988 Monte Carlo SS. The Olds was 8-9 years old, with 60-80K on the odometer? Every major system failed on my car in the first few years. The trans was a complete POS, and you couldn’t run the air without overheating. I was a faithful GM guy. But, damn, I needed a reliable car! I finally got tired of fixing it. In 1997, I bought a 1994 Thunderbird Supercoupe. I still have it.
That’s a horror story which would seem like Stephen King level fiction in today’s world, except GM products from the eighties, well, that’s how they really were.
And I strongly suspect the car’s first 63k miles weren’t all that different, either. It really sounds like the typical built-on-a-Monday-or-Friday car which, for GM, really is on the Christine level of build quality.
Which is probably why the seller was so eager to drop the price. I have no doubt that the car had caused him nothing but grief during its first few years. And if you consider the depreciation hit he took, then I got off lightly in comparison.
Our possessed car was a 1976 Chrysler Cordoba we inherited from my father. I swear it knew when I got paid as it would crap out some part or another. It got so bad my wife and I wouldn’t discuss finances in the car fearing we would be overheard. It was a happy day when we traded it in on a new ’84 Honda Accord.
Great story of your pain, complimented by appropriate imagery, without resorting to an actual Christine image. Made me feel for you. Nicely done!
Thank you! What really kills me is that no matter what that Olds pulled, it always ended up looking great again, right until the end.
Great story! As much as I love GM B-bodies, I am well aware of how inconsistent the build quality of GM cars of the 70’s and 80’s were. When I worked in auto service industry there were definitely some “good” cars and some “bad” ones even thought they were seemingly identical on the surface. When cars got traded, we know which ones were the good ones and which ones were to avoid based on service history.
Although both your Monte Carlo and the Olds had a 3.8L V6, the Olds would have had a Buick V6 while the Chevrolet would have likely had a Chevrolet 3.8L V6 (there are some exceptions). In any case, back in my B-body buying days I avoided the V6 cars like the plague. These engines were not that great in either iteration and were dreadfully underpowered. They always came with the lightest suspension and drivetrain parts, TH200 transmissions, 7.5″ rear axles. GM junk. I would only buy V8 powered cars, and stuck with OD transmissions only if it was built after 1980. The OD transmissions (TH200-4R and TH700-R4) held up fine if maintained, and were better than the TH200.
I actually bought a few old B-bodies for dirt cheap because they were problematic. I bought an ’88 Custom Cruiser that had carburetor problems that was an easy fix for me. I also bought a low mile ’90 Caprice that had numerous issues for next to nothing. I ended up parting that Caprice, although in hindsight I should have kept that one as a driver. It was very solid, but I wanted the transmission for another project car.
FWIW, one of my most reliable cars and certainly highest bang of for the buck was my old ’85 Olds Delta 88 Royale. It was a 307 car with a TH200-4R transmission. Being a Canadian emissions car it had a mechanical Q-jet and no ECM. The only problems in the six years I owned that car were related to rust due to the road salt around here.
Actually I did have a horn problem with mine too. I got cut off and punched the horn so hard the button didn’t return, making the horn stay on. I got quite the looks until I was able to pull over and disconnect the horn. I took the button apart and was able to pop it back out later on.
Lots of good info, I wish I knew it at the time.
And Ford and Chrysler also had very inconsistent paint and build quality during the 70’s and 80’s based on my 1979 Fairmont, my grandfather’s 1980 Fairmont wagon and his 1975 Granada 5 years before. The Chryslers were especially bad starting with the Volare and Aspen, anything with the dreadful Lean Burn carburetors or even the 1BBL setups on the Slant Sixes that would chronically stall out and hesitate just like my Fairmont’s 200 six and numerous other paint, interior and rubbish plastic bumper surround trim that fell apart. I remember seeing 3 year old R-body New Yorkers sitting on the dealership floor back in 1984 that I could pick apart all the assembly flaws such as the plastic surrounding the bumpers that was already lifting and warped, misaligned back window blank outs that were ill fitting and loads of felt on the pillars and doors that was already separating. True garbage
Yikes! Some cars truly are lemons I guess.
I’m surprised the radio didn’t start playing Bon Jovi or Human League when NOT tuned to a radio station. Maybe you weren’t the Arnie it was looking for?
LOL… No, I guess I was the wrong Arnie. But that would have been the icing on the cake, wouldn’t it?
My dad had a similar experience with his ‘83 Delta 88 (diesel). He’s never bought another American car.
I have five experiences/impressions/memories of the Delta 88
1) My friend’s Dad bought a brand new burgundy 1984 Delta 88 Royale with every option.
It was quite the upgrade for his family whose previous vehicle was a 1975 Nova with no options. They were quite proud of their new Oldsmobile. It was essentially, a Cadillac Sedan de Ville! My family got a brand new 1984 GM sedan as well. Except ours was a 1984 Chevy Cavalier.
2) Early in my driving career I had an opportunity to buy from an older gentleman, an 83 Olds Custom Cruiser Wagon, which he owned since it was new. The car looked and drove like it was brand new. I ended up not buying it for two reasons: 1) He removed the third row seat for more underfloor storage. 2) Although the car looked and drove like it was brand new, it had 158,000 miles; which was considered a lot in the late 80’s. He even had a detailed log of service and maintenance for the car. But that didn’t matter to me. All I cared about was the fact that the car had over 100,000 miles. Of course looking back now, those were silly reasons to turn it down especially since he would have let me have the car for $900!
3) In 1995, a friend of mine had an 82 white Delta 88. At the time, I had a 78 Chevy Caprice Classic. His Delta 88 looked better than my 78 Caprice which had quite a few battle scars but my Chevy ran a lot better and was way more reliable. His Olds, smoked, shook, smelled, ran roughly, barely started, and was probably running on no more than 6 out of the 8 cylinders!
4) A Steven Segal movie set in Alaska featured one that crossed a river partally submerged
5) Tanya from the A Team had a two door Delta 88 which I believe was destroyed by the bad guys and replaced by a Cutlass Ciera.
My automotive “Christine” was my 1975 Ford Granada. That car probably murdered someone on the assembly line….
Mine was a terrible 1979 Ford Fairmont that literally fell apart and was so cheaply made I’m surprised it made it to 66K miles. These types of stories can be found in most any car company including certain Asian ones back in the day starting with a neighbor that lived 3 houses down form us that bought an 80’s Subaru that gave them fits after the first Winter when the white steel wheels started rusting up making them really difficult to get off followed by engine related issues in year 2.
The really stunning thing about this horror story was I seriously doubt it was all that unusual for an eighties’ GM product. But what’s truly amazing is this wasn’t a brand-new, from-the-ground-up fail like the X-body Citation.
This was GM’s bread-and-butter, a full-size car they were supposedly experts at building. Worse, yet, was it wasn’t a bottom-feeder Chevy but an upper level Oldsmobile where GM’s really big profits resided. If GM couldn’t get their primary money-makers right, why the hell would anyone buy anything from GM?
Today’s GM has come a very long way from the eighties’ depths but, honestly, anyone who suffered through a money-pit experience from the bad old days can really be forgiven for swearing off GM products, forever. It took a while, but GM eventually learned that there was a finite number of suckers born every minute.
rudiger, I agree. In the old days the people that were burned by GM went to Chrysler or Ford, the ones burned by Ford went to GM or Chrysler and so on. This was ok by the manufacturers and they kept pushing out the quickly engineered and partially assembled products. This ended in the late ’70s and early ’80s when cars like the Accord and Camry hit these shores. Suddenly there was someplace else to buy cars from.
I know the sagging headliner was really the least of your problems, but on the off chance that it helps someone else who may be reading this here’s a simple fix that I found when I had a Buick with the same problem. I found something in the sewing section at Wal-Mart called “twist pins”. They look like thumbtacks but with a corkscrew shape. As I recall their intended purpose is for attaching slipcovers to furniture, but they work great for reattaching headliners, too. Just stick one every few inches. It gives the headliner a sort of “quilted” look (not unlike the seats in some brougham cars) but it does the job.
Headliner sagging was hardly limited to GM. Numerous Chrysler and Ford examples can also be found in these eras as they all used the same basic thin fabric with foam backing glued to particle board. It depends of course on the car which some used vinyl headliners like my 1981 Trans Am as an example.
Wow this story reminded me of my first car. Mine was an grey 80 Delta 88 royal brougham sedan with red velour seats. It came with a 350 v8. It was just as bad as this one. It guzzled gas, it rusted, the windows would go out of the tracks if you raised them going over 30 mph. The seat sagged and had a depression the size of the former owners ass. It came from a doctor who had gotten a Benz. It had a plastic cow hood ornament and a bandaid bumper sticker on it. The car guzzled gas. Usually Getting 8 mpg. The 350 smoked out blue clouds when started and if you stepped down on it it smoked. Fun for leaving tailgaters in a cloud of smoke. It drank oil. Quart every 500 miles. The power was good. But car was terrible in rain and worse in snow. The car was poorly put together. One day the top of the drivers door actually fell off. Another time the hood ornament flew off and broke the windshield. That was replaced with the plastic cow. The rocker bridges broke. The power stuff all failed. The valves burnt, the paint would come off if you washed it. The cruise was on the turn signal and often would if you used the cruise and made a turn with signal engaged as you were halfway through the turn and the big tired 350 would open up as the cruise tried to resume at like 3/4 throttle. If rain or snow on the ground car would spin like a top. It would ping and miss if you didn’t use premium. It leaked oil. It was an evil terrible car. I bought an 800$ 78 LTD landau to replace it which was bigger, faster, completely reliable, more comfortable and burned 1/3 the gas. I sold the olds to a tire guy who switched the tires from the olds to the Ford for 500$. He was going to derby it. However 22 years later I saw it was still on the road terrorizing someone else. Still grey, still had cow hood ornament and faded out bandaid bumper sticker. Since then I had another b body a 79 LeSabre with the mighty 301 pontiac which has the power of a 6 and the economy of a big block. That car was a turd. The trans started to slip so I sold it . Later heard engine failed that week though it was fine when I sold it. Been driving the far superior Ford LTD or Lincoln full sized cars ever since. No gm cars for me ever!
Great post. My first red flags would have been the wrong year in ad and wrong year front grille. Is that an old ‘Newsday’ ad? It sure looks like one. Do you recall the original selling dealer? Anyway, you made a Monday better!
V6 and diesels should be avoided.
Inspite of the better looking rooflines, the 80 redesign substantially decontented and lightened the cars. They got worse as the yeas passed, while the Ford competition got better.
There is no comparison between a Delta 88 and grand marquis. The Mercury is more luxurious, has a standard injected v8 vs the olds with it’s awful carburated 6. Marquis is heavier, handles better and gets better gas mileage. Only thing better on the olds is the vynal top. Thr Mercury had a better transmission and axle too. A marquis is close to being a Lincoln. An Oldsmobile 88 is like a Chevy
Gotta say I never heard of any B-body so cursed with issues like this car. In fact most of the B brethren cars I owned or were in the neighborhood back in the day regardless of mileage were some of the best most reliable cars there owners ever had up to that point.
With that said I would never have bought this car with the underpowered 110 HP 3.8 V6 and would instead have looked for one with the more common Olds 307 and 200R 4 overdrive automatic. Looking on Craigslist reveals plenty of clean solid V8 survivor cars in existence which speaks volumes on how well these cars held up overall.
And I cry bull on the early 1979-1983 Panther cars as being vastly superior. Those VV carburetors were utter garbage cursing owners with ill or non running or chronically stalling examples. The 255 V8 was an underpowered joke and the 130 Hp 302 wasn’t much better, mileage was poor when they had the 3 speed, the 4 speed AOD automatic was involved with a major recall that saw numerous examples stalling while going into 4th gear lockup and the same 4 speed AOD was no better than the 200R4 for longevity from any transmission shop I have ever spoke to. These year panthers also had wafer thin door glass, more road noise and very tinny sounding doors that closed with what everybody referred to as the Ford clunk. Lemons can be had with either a B-body or Panther and the R-body Chryslers were worse yet.
I also never ever heard of a properly maintained Olds Rocket 307 or 350 that got 8 MPG or burned oil like crazy. These were some of GM’s better engines and we bought, sold and serviced loads of them with many happy owners overall.
I agree that most common B bodies were not bad, compared to the infamous X. I knew of many Olds 88’s lasting well into the 90’s, some just had to be junked due to rust.
I had a 1984 Caprice in the same paint color and the same color roof. Never any trouble with it btw.