1988 Buick Reatta Coupe from North America - Comments

The info screen in the dash had to be replaced. Approx cost $400.00.

Recent brake work with power assist. Aprox cost $500.00.

Very comfortable to drive.

Drives like a heavy car.

Old man's sports car.

Touchscreen on 1988 reatta is inop at times, when this occurs the dome light is also inop, instrument cluster and touchscreen have also been checked by model electronics and no problems were found, please help.

1988 & 1989 buick reatta CRT touch screen.

When my CRT touch screen went out, I found a Guy on Ebay that rebuilds the touch screens. I had my touch screen pulled out of my car. I mailed to screen to him first class, he rebuilt it and I had the screen back at my house latter that week. The screen works great now.

If anyone would like his contact info I keep it for any future problems I may have. His service is $150.00. Just go to ebay and punch in Buick reatta his listing should be on one of the pages.

Any question contact me

Animalia26@aol.com.

My 1988 Buick Reatta, is my first car. It's reliable and very comfortable. The car is sporty, yet luxurious too. A Reatta is a great car to own. They are pretty abnormal and rare.

I know the person above as he is a good friend of mine, I have ridden in the reatta on several occasions. It would be a good car if the interior wasn't falling apart and if the touch screen would stop posting error messages.

They did away with the touch screen for the 1990 model year because of issues it was having. I think the touch-screen was much more innovative, but probably not as effective and long-lasting as standard buttons. The biggest thing that wasn't engineered in this car is the fact it is front-wheel drive, any sports coupe/roadster should be rear-wheel drive, esp. the Reatta.

I have a 89 Reatta and would not give it up for a newer year. When I first told my freinds I have a factory installed touch screen in my 89 car they flipped. It is a great thing when people see a Reatta for the first time and say "That's a Buick?"

I have a 1987 Buick Reatta. It is a fantastic car that is sporty and turns heads constantly. These cars were over built by the manufacturer, and are a treasure. They were priced new at 35 K, which was very salty for 1987. High price hurt sales. The touch screen was light years ahead of other manufactures. However Buick dropped the electronic package to lower costs. That also lowered sales and that lead to only 4 years of production.

My car is all original and has over 216 K miles. Has superior power and speed, shifts smoothly, yet provides 28 mpg. This car will set you back in the seat, and beg you to drive it.

I have a 1987 Reatta with touchscreen (no problems) and only 67,000 miles. We have a mysterious glitch: Once every month or so, the car will not start. The engine will start but not turn over, so it is not the battery which runs at a consistent 12-13 volts. We put it into neutral and roll it out of the garage, try it again, and it starts! Runs fine for a month and then same thing.The dealer has never figured it out. Any suggestions or like problems reported thanks! I'll look here for the info.

My 1988 Reatta was having similar problems and "jiggling" the battery cables made the car start and it made me wonder... I am going to replace the cables and screws holding the cable into the front of the battery as they were not properly making a connection! Perhaps my black cable is also kinked... Ya think it might make a difference!

I would get no start at all and then suddenly I would turn the key and nothing would be wrong!

Carchick.

I've never actually owning a Reatta, but I've always enjoyed looking at them. I only wish that the opportunity to actually purchase one had availed me. I myself specifically drive Grand Am's (although I'm going to have to find something else in the future - thanks GM...)

But I digress. The reason I'm posting this comment is regarding the two comments just before about how their vehicles will spontaneously not start only to start minutes later and nothing wrong can be detected - nothing mechanically observed, heard and no error codes. A 1993 Grand Am I once had, I encountered a similar issue. It repeatedly would not start to save its life, and then at the very last moment it would start and run like it was okay. It one time refused to start only to later do so on the wrecker minutes later... Neither the dealer nor the Firestone I was using at the time could find anything wrong.

What it turned out to be in my case was something called the "Neutral Start Safety Switch." It's a mechanical piece that is attached to the transmission and if it detects that the transmission is either in Reverse or Drive it will not allow the car to start. It was included in vehicles many years ago because apparently they were slipping into gear and inattentive owners when they would start their vehicles they'd go through the garage or careening off into traffic. So this device prevented that by preventing the car from starting unless it was either in Park or Neutral. When it begins to fail it appears similar to how a Starter behaves when it begins to fail. Similar to how you have to crank the engine repeatedly until it catches, the Safety Switch when it begins to fail will move just a fraction every time you try to crank the engine. Also excessive jostling of the vehicle worked as well. Eventually when it moves into the correct position then it'll let the vehicle start.

I ended up replacing a multitude of things - the Starter, the Generator, the Battery, the cables linking the sparkplugs to the sensor responsible for sparking them - just about everything but to no avail. Once I replaced that switch though it ran fine. Sad to say however, it's a dealer part and something only they can do according to the Firestone I was using at the time. It wasn't cheap either, between $700 and $1000.00 bucks but can generally be done in a day. However that's on a Grand Am for which parts were readily available and not hard to come by.

Hope that helps. Sorry about the delay in responding, I don't get to this site often and don't look over Buick as I don't drive one...

trapkb@yahoo.com

KB.