2000 Buick Century custom limited from North America - Comments

The check engine soon light comes on very frequent. Buick dealers have "removed" it a couple of times and found something about loose gas cap, ect.

My car also had the loud piston slapping during cold starts. My local buick dealer in Cambridge Mn replaced the pistons under warranty.

Buick Century is just plain a lot of car for the money. A plain jane Buick usually has more bells and whistles than any other vehicle in its class.

The Buick ride is really comfortable compared to, Ford Taurus for example.

Although you can sit 6 in the Century it would be crowded unless some of the passengers were children.

If comfort, price, six passenger room, and bells and whistles are your thing, consider Buick Century.

What exactly was the problem causing the piston noise, and why was it necessary to replace pistons?I took mine to my dealer and they said nothing to worry about as it is ususal for this engine. Noise happens on cold start and goes away in about a minute.

I'm surprised to see the piston problem has still not been corrected. I own a 1993 Regal with the 3.1 liter engine that has had the same problem. After reading in a consumer's magazine about a problem related to piston noise, I went to a GM dealer and ended up having the pistons replaced under the extended warranty. There is still a slight noise upon starting the engine, but it sounds like noisy valve lifters. The magazine did not say much about the problem and the dealer kept the faulty pistons.

I have a 99 with 85,000 miles on it and have done very little to it. replaced the hubcaps with custom rims do to the noise the made. the 3.1 runs great I use 10w40 in it and have never had to deal with the piston slap (caused by the pistons slapping side to side till they heat up and expand at start up) try using this oil instead of the 5w30. I will buy another one just as soon as I run the wheel off this one. the gas cap has to be tight or the engine light will come on. found out when I did not put it back on as fill up.

I have a 2000 Century Limited with the piston slapping issue. I bought it used with 5,800 miles on it. (The former owner was a little old lady) I bought it in the summer and the salesman had it started and the air conditioner blasting when I took it for a test drive so I failed to detect the ticking pistons. After I purchased the car I discovered the piston noise. I complained at the dealership and they tried to blow me off. I am a woman and they weren't taking me too seriously. Then I contacted Buick directly and had done my homework regarding the piston slap problem. After a bit of back and forth they ended up giving me a 6 year 60,000 mile extended warranty on the engine. The ticking noise is annoying and sounds terrible when the car is started, but goes away after a minute or so. The folks at Buick assured me the engine would be fine and gave me the extended warranty to make me happy. I've had the car about 2.5 years now and have about 52,000 miles on it with no problems. I will be trading it in 2006, however, since the piston slapping issue still causes me some concern and my extended warranty will be running out.

I was test driving a 2000 century today as a potential used car buy and noticed the piston slapping tapping sound as well for about 20 seconds upon startup. It went away though and the engine was very quite during driving. I opened the hood and heard the familiar GM engine ticking sound. You know I hear a lot of people say that if a GM engine doesn't tick or make some noise there is probably something wrong. Don't' know if it's just poor engineering, but it doesn't seem to cause a problem. This noise would only be a problem if it was happening during acceleration at high miles.