1995 Oldsmobile Aurora 4.0L V8

Summary:

Beautiful car, like a pet tiger -if you don't watch out it'll eat you alive!

Faults:

Steering column harness switch failed and the car died on me during driving! Very dangerous situation on highways! Poor customer service due to several wrong diagnostics - I paid more than $ 300 US on new keys that weren't even needed until the real failure mode was identified and fixed ($ 40.00 dollar switch!)

Gear shift hard to operate at cold outside temperatures, very odd indeed.

Fuel line leaked at 80000 miles.

Heater radiator leaked at 90000 miles.

Wiper washer motor went dead, had to be replaced.

Driver side power window motor died at 84000 miles, had to be replaced.

General Comments:

Very luxurious, nicely designed car with power everything. It rides like a plane and consumes less than what you'd expect from a 4.0l V8 engine.

If it weren't for the many "little" flaws I'd kept the car until the very end, but it simply got too expensive.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Don't Know

Review Date: 6th November, 2005

8th Nov 2005, 16:33

Wow, you must have driven my Aurora!

I had my own swimming pool in the cabin after my heater radiator started leaking! This was quite some experience. Unfortunately it had a lot of green anti freeze stuff that added to the wet bath a nice flavor!

I had the same leak on the gas line, but there was an easy and cheap fix for that. I just covered it with a piece of rubber hose and tightened it with a clamp. I later noticed that this was a bad choice of plastic and many other Aurora drivers had the same problem. To exchange the entire plastic piping system would have cost thousands!

Traction control went down and the annoying bright red light on the dash was permanently on. This is another expensive part due to the fact that the ABS system and the traction control system share the same assembly. If you want to repair one of them, you "repair" automatically the other one for free. Luckily I found that unit on a junk yard for 250 bucks - no warranty though, but it worked.

Other than that this car is really nice to drive. The only other issue I had is its length. Tough to park it, you hardly see the end and the nose of the car and my place is way too small to handle this "ship". Well, at the end I sold it with a tear in my eye. Really liked it...