Faults:

When I bought the car it sat for 3 years I put a starter in it and it fired up on 3 year old gas. since than I've done water pump, thermos stat, choke stat, alternator rad hoses and a coolant flush.

General Comments:

I love this car. it is the last year you could get the Chevy 305 in 87-88 you could only get the 3.8 Buick and the 307 olds. this car was made for the highway and is super fun to drive. very easy/cheap to repair and I don't have anything bad to say about it.

Faults:

-160,000 Miles: Timing chain gear broke. Replaced water pump and thermostat while replacing chain. Also broke radiator from leaning over it, so replaced it also. $35 for timing set from gm, $40 for pump and $90 for radiator from advance.

-180,000 Miles: Transmission stopped going into reverse. Replaced it with tranny from junkyard, miles unknown, $125.

-250,000 Miles: Carb jets gummed up after car sat for 3 months; had to take apart and clean.

-280,000 Miles: Torque converter on junkyard tranny permanently locked, replaced with another $125 junkyard tranny, hopefully to last another 100k miles.

-Windshield fluid squirter doesn't work (don't know when stopped)

-Have replaced valve cover gaskets a few times, but the covers for this engine with only 4 bolts warp over time and don't seal very good. Just plain bad design not having bolts on front and back of cover, only on top and bottom.

General Comments:

I got this car from my grandma with 130k miles on it, she had bought it brand new. In the past 7 years, I have put maybe $500 of parts into it, which I consider great, compared to most people that have car payments that match that in just 2 months.

The comfort/ride quality of this car is what has convinced me to keep it for so long; it floats along the road. In the rain, it holds the road well and is very safe to drive (much much moreso than my mustang) which is why this car is my daily driver.

These cars are plentiful in auto trader/ebay and parts are very cheap. There is nothing cramped under the hood; anything can be accomplished by a shadetree mechanic in an afternoon, or at most a weekend (it only took me 2 hours to change the transmission!).

The interior shows proof of the quality that was built into this car; all metal door handles, metal locks and glove box; 20 years later, they still work and look great.

The only thing that I can gripe about is the model of transmission on mine, the TH200. Most mechanics have told me that transmission was a weak model, and that I should replace it with a TH350. Yet I have not taken their advice and replaced the 200 two times now with a used 200.