1990 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera SL review from North America

Right from the beginning, the transmission was slow to engage in cold weather (below 0 C). Under those conditions, I need to warm up the car for several minutes in order to get the transmission to engage. Changing transmission oil, filter and adding oil additives didn't resolve the problem.

At about 240,000 km the blower fan failed and had to be replaced. Around that time the engine also began to leak coolant from the head gasket. I never really fixed this problem, but was able to control it by adding a variety of sealants to the radiator fluid.

At 245,000 km I had an intermittent problem with the engine electronics, which caused the car to stall when idling. The problem recurred a couple of times, but seems to have gone away since.

At, 275,000 km I had to replace the alternator.

Recently the radiator has developed a leak, which is most likely going to be the end of this car.

This car looks decent, has a pretty comfortable interior compared to similar GM products, and a fairly sporty dashboard layout (including tachometer). However, it's by no means a sports car. I drove it like you would, if you want to save the expense of having to replace a head gasket. That way, I didn't have to spend anything on the brakes either.

For a while I closely monitored fuel consumption, which was generally between 12-13 liters/100 km (around 20 mpg) using regular octane grade.