1995 Oldsmobile Achieva review from North America

Front brake rotors and calipers went bad at 12,000 miles and were not covered under the bumper to bumper warranty.

Power door locks stopped working when the car was three years old. I had them fixed and they stopped working again a year later.

The key lock on the passenger door does not work.

The lower control arm bushing popped out around 50,000 miles and if you look at the design of how that is set up, you have to shake your head and wonder what were they thinking.

They also designed the car to where there is no access to the self adjusters on the rear brakes so that you cannot adjust them or back the brakes off when you go to remove the rear brake drums.

Water pump went bad at 70,000 miles.

Intake manifold started to leak at 75,000 miles. Costs an arm and a leg to repair.

The car now has a tapping valve which will cost another arm and a leg to repair.

Did I mention the door panels are falling off?

My first Oldsmobile had the rear bumper fall off when it was two years old and I had to have the transmission rebuilt three times. In each case there was no recall.

My next Oldsmobile was a Delta 88 and seemed to be a much better car so I felt that the Achieva should be even more of an improvement and I was wrong.

They made this car so that the average Joe can change the oil and that is about it. They want you to bring it in to the dealer so that they can make the repairs that used to to be easy to do to yourself.

The technology is good, but the materials used are cheap and there are many things that could have been changed in the design to make it easier to work on with a little forethought, but they skipped that part.