Faults:

This was a time when the Dex-Cool so called 150 mile coolant was first introduced and not completely proven until later years. Therefore the thick muddy sludge water was always forming. The car never overheated, but the system had to be flushed religiously. After 3 years of this I decided to rebuild the whole cooling system including radiator, water pump, upper intake, lower intake gaskets, overfill bottle and all hoses. Flushed the block until all the Dex-Cool was gone and refilled the system with regular green. Never had to add coolant again.

Replaced the motor mount on the front of the engine cradle.

Oil pan and valve cover gaskets replaced.

Replaced one ignition coil with a random misfire.

Air conditioning evaporator started to leak shortly before the car was sold.

Very easy car to work on.

General Comments:

This was more or less a second car, especially towards the end of ownership.

Always driven long distances with comfort and reliability.

Good power and MPG for a V6 pulling a rather heavy car. Smooth shifting transmission and a very soft and gentle ride found on all your older Buick’s. When driving, the soft ride made the car feel bigger than it actually was.

Lots of head and legroom inside. Well laid out instrument cluster with full gauges.

This car served every purpose it was needed for in 7 years. Just keep the cooling system maintained and you’re good to go.

Still a quite few of these daily driven on the road today.

Faults:

Leak in the power steering system.

Leak in the coolant system.

Oil leak.

Leak in A/C system.

General Comments:

This was my 97 year old grandmother's car that she bought new and only recently had to sell because she moved into a retirement home.

These are what I'd call typical of your average American land yacht. Great big car with a huge interior, plush upholstery and a lazy, floaty ride quality with almost zero feedback.

The good:

Amazing fuel economy for something this big. It had a large 3.8 liter V6, but even so on the freeway it would easily get between 25 to even as high as 30MPG if you were gentle. The gearing on the transmission was such that at highway speeds the tachometer would just be sitting there at 1500RPM. On long trips the seats were pretty comfortable. I drove her to Florida several times and never got sore.

The trunk was HUGE. As in you could just about lay down in there as it was a giant cavern. The car had every whistle and bell imaginable for a 90's era car. Power everything. Power seats, power antenna, power windows, locks, mirrors, automatic head lights... and so on. And all of it worked.

The bad:

The handling was almost non-existent. It also wasn't exactly what I'd call fast. Punching the gas resulted in a brief half second of hesitation before anything happened. The ride was akin to floating on marshmallows. If you ran over a bump or whatever the car would lazily heave up and down slowly long after you'd hit it. Absolutely no feedback in the steering. As such it was about as exciting to drive as watching paint dry.

The car started to leak power steering fluid during the last 3 years she owned it. In fact the car seemed to leak... everything except gas. It leaked oil, power steering fluid, transmission fluid, and engine coolant. As she was barely driving by then we would always top it off whenever we saw her. Whoever designed where the power steering reservoir was an idiot: It was shoved all the way back against the firewall and was impossible to get at. That and DON'T get me started on the spark plugs... Some of those were ALSO shoved all the way back against the firewall and nearly impossible to get at. It was like GM didn't think about what mechanics would do in the future or something.

I could not believe how cheap the interior was for what was supposed to be a luxury car. At one point she ran into a pole at the grocery store and put a dent in the rear door. So I pulled the interior trim off the door to pop the dent. The entire panel was made out of cheap blow molded plastic. The whole interior was like that. Just a vast sea of cheap plastics and cheap upholstery. Then again, to be fair most American cars back then had these kinds of interiors.

That said, the car did its job for over 20 years, which was to get my grandmother around in relative safety and without any major issues. I'd heard the 3800 engines used were among the more reliable engines from GM at that period. And with the exception of the leaks, the drivetrain never really had any problems.