1987 Buick Skyhawk review from North America

Couple of alternators over the years. Have replaced a few batteries, but most of this was my fault for leaving things on or for letting a friend attempt to jump start his car with mine and he hooked up the battery cables backwards.

The air conditioning has been an ongoing issue though. When I first got the car, if I was stuck in traffic and running the air conditioning, the car would overheat.

By about 2000, the car would overheat if the AC was run at all for more than say 5 minutes. It still blew cold then though!

2001, I got the radiator replaced - turned out that was the overheating issue with the air conditioning after all. Had good working AC for a while.

Then AC began blowing warm. Got it recharged. Helped briefly - system has leaks apparently. It was late in the season by then so didn't bother doing anything about it.

2002 went to get it fixed - was told I needed a new compressor and condensor. Got second opinions - same story - then was told in a car this age and mileage that if I got it fixed it might hurt the engine. So left it alone and sweated a lot.

2004 was told that info on it harming engine was just wrong and have seriously considered getting AC parts replaced, but by now the engine is getting kinda tired and starting to knock so not sure what I'm going to do with it at this point.

Other than that just regular maintenance things like brakes and tires have been needed for this car.

Oh yes, and the tape player died around 2002 but I replaced that with a whole new radio/CD system and new speakers - I thought the old original speakers were pretty darn good though for original speakers!

Bottom line though is I love this car.

This car can fit through teeny little places. This car still, at its age and mileage, has better pick up than many MUCH newer cars I've driven. It needs a paint job at this point, but really never rusted - it just has some paint wear and its sat outside in a VERY hot climate the past two summers which really did the paint in, but before that it looked pretty good still!

I would so buy this car again if I could! I've looked and looked at other cars, newer cars, cars with AC that works - and still haven't found one that's made me want to turn this one in. I wish Buick still made this car because if they did, I would buy another one!