28th Oct 2021, 18:49
I agree it is a rather odd review. I live in the UK and we have lots of 4 cylinder cars built by GM under the Vauxhall brand. They are reliable cars; I have had lots of them since the 1980s till today (Cavalier, Vectra, Omega, and most recently an Insignia) all reliable and I have put in excess of 100,000 miles on them without serious issue. Review rightly states however that Toyota is reliable, this is true also. I have no bias to either manufacturer, but will give credit where it is due. GM is a far from perfect company (no manufacturer is) but they can make good cars when they try.
28th Oct 2021, 19:00
Very true. The 4 cylinder used in these cars dubbed "the iron duke" was a very tough and reliable engine that got good fuel economy. It may have been noisey, un-refined and a little on the slow side, but it did the job. Built by Pontiac and used in many GM vehicles from 1977-1993. Also used in US mail trucks taking stop and go abuse.
29th Oct 2021, 23:38
The Iron Duke was the 3.8 six cylinder. We had 4 of these 6000 cars circa 1990 as company cars. I had a 90 Bonneville LE back then. Also that engine. I briefly had a 20’ small cabin cruiser with that engine! Wasn’t fast, but sipped fuel. Had 2 tanks. Old Starcraft.
30th Oct 2021, 11:24
Not a great deal of useful information in this review, and no description to back up the claims of GM 4 cylinders not lasting 50,000 miles. In the ‘90s, my family owned a 1984 Chevy Cavalier station wagon, 4 cylinder manual. It was a cramped rattletrap with cheap plastic interior, but it had 200,000 miles on it when we finally junked it. Paid less than a thousand for it and put over 50,000 on it. No complaints, considering what it was. In the early 2000s we also had a 1989 Pontiac 6000LE station wagon, much better than the Cavalier and still had over 200,000 miles when the transmission locked up. There you go, two GM 4 cylinders from the same era as the reviewer’s with over 200,000 miles. People need to get some perspective. We were real happy with ours, instead of crying that our high mileage beaters that we got for a thousand bucks only lasted 5 years and 80,000 miles.
30th Oct 2021, 16:48
"Iron duke" was not the 3.8 Buick V6. It was the nickname for the Pontiac 4 cylinder on the reviewed car. Due to the block and heads being made out of cast iron. Also the 3.8 was never used in the Pontiac 6000 model. V6 choices over the years were 2.8, 3.1 or a 4.3 diesel. Yes the 3.8 was used in the Bonneville.
30th Oct 2021, 17:32
Where do you get your information from? The Iron Duke was a 151 cubic inch 4 cylinder.
31st Oct 2021, 02:32
Curious review.
I worked for a Buick dealer in the early-mid nineties, and major engine issues with the 2.5 were non-existent - unlike some other GM engines of that era :(
The valve cover gaskets leaked. The timing gears sometimes knocked like a bad rod bearing, but did NOT fail. They would sometimes develop a misfire due to the fact that the distributor was hard to access in a front wheel drive installation, so mechanics would skip distributor cap/rotor maintenance. MAP sensor vacuum hose routing led to frozen moisture in the vacuum line feeding the sensor, sometimes causing drivability issues.
Would love to know some - any - detail around what led up to the event - not the event itself. Context is everything ;)
This engine served a lot of people well who would - due to their budget - been pedestrians.
31st Oct 2021, 19:40
I made a mistake. Probably first one ever on here to admit vs a prolonged defense mechanism at play. Company cars was told otherwise. We never had 4 cylinder vehicles. This was one of the better sedans according to others in our company. Good room, trunk space for equipment.
3rd Nov 2021, 01:36
The reviewer bases it on their experience, that is what a review is. What else do you want him or her to do?
3rd Nov 2021, 19:36
So... when someone makes a claim like GM 4 cylinder motors don't last beyond 50K miles, with absolutely no proof beyond their ONE experience (the description of which is, shall we say, a little lacking in details) you just accept that as fact? As already seen in the comments preceding yours, there is a lot of question as to whether that claim has any basis in reality.
4th Nov 2021, 16:34
I remember those old Iron Dukes, or as we called them in high school "Iron pukes". They would indeed run forever and even when severely damaged it seemed. A friend of mine had a mid 80's Pontiac with one. One day it snapped a piston rod. He drove it for a year with the god awful sound of the leftover bits slapping the sides of the affected cylinder. It still ran when he parked it in a field.
4th Nov 2021, 18:19
You mean one of those trucks where the frame rusts out, causing serious safety issues?
4th Nov 2021, 19:33
Good suggestion, certainly better than a Pontiac.
These GM fours sound like something from the 1920's.
5th Nov 2021, 18:13
They also never had sludge and oil consumption issues like the Toyota 4 and 6 cylinders.
6th Nov 2021, 18:11
GM, Ford and Chrysler also have had issues with oil sludge. Any brand can. The Toyota bashing is getting old.
6th Nov 2021, 18:38
One would assume that GM had the ability (but perhaps not) to manufacture a more modern alternative to these archaic fours.
Datsun, Toyota and Mazda as well as the continental manufacturers were certainly making and had for years perfected fours that were rugged, economical and dependable.
In contrast GM were building what was basically a “Stovebolt“ four.
7th Nov 2021, 21:13
The Pontiac bashing is getting old too. Also name an engine built by Ford or GM that had a well documented sludge problem like Toyota or Chrysler. I like how you represent all US brand cars but no Japanese with issues.
7th Nov 2021, 22:28
I think the point was that they were still making the same fours in the 70’s and 80’s.
8th Nov 2021, 18:49
The four cylinder in the Pontiac 6000 is the same four cylinder made by “GM” in the 1920s. Sure, got it. Man, you learn some really interesting stuff on the internet!
9th Nov 2021, 12:17
Even the domestic V8s are bashed. But if there’s free electric at work the story changes. Get from A to B the cheapest way possible.
9th Nov 2021, 18:27
The Iron Duke was a massive improvement over some of the 4 bangers GM Made in the 70's. Like those god-awful aluminum block engines that shook themselves to death in Chevy Vegas. GM had some serious teething issues - as did other American carmakers - when it came to developing true compact car platforms when faced with both the fuel crisis and the increased competition from import brands. Toyota came to the US with cars that had engines and drivetrains that were in some cases already decades old and had had all of the bugs worked out. GM and others were competing against them with almost entirely new platforms. So of course there were problems.
Most people don't know that the old mail trucks out there made by Grumman are still using Iron Dukes and some have close to a million miles on them by now.
As far as the worn out American versus Japanese cars? The automotive industry is not the same as it was 30-40 years ago. All of them use parts from multi-national parts suppliers. All of them are in some cases using global platforms. The level of automation, the improvements in metallurgy, computer aided design and so on have made it possible for most cars, regardless of brand, to easily go 150,000 miles without much to replace or fix.
9th Nov 2021, 23:07
Couldn't have put it better myself. If only the few individuals on here that have bias towards certain brands could acknowledge what you say here, maybe some comment sections would not go on forever and end up being locked.
9th Nov 2021, 23:12
Give credit where it's due. V8 GM and Ford vehicles from 30-40 years ago never had major problems even beyond 150,000 miles. Been there and done it with a few.
10th Nov 2021, 18:25
Once you sleeved the Vega you were fine. We put a small block V8 Chevy in one instead.
11th Nov 2021, 14:48
Legit comment, both of those automakers used their same V8 platforms and design for many years. Tried and true.
And it's not like the front drive smaller cars were all that bad, The Pontiac on review along with its siblings from the other GM divisions were a huge improvement over the early notorious X body cars.
I actually still see some of the last Cutlass Ciera and Buick Century variants still driving on the road.
12th Nov 2021, 19:21
Who would want to restore a Lucerne? As far as the Ciera goes, there’s not a lot left where I am
28th Oct 2021, 18:47
The old iron duke may not have been the most powerful or refined engine, but it was reliable enough. I’ve only had one car with it (1981 Phoenix). The engine was the only strong feature on that car.