1981 Buick Century Limited from North America - Comments

Radiator has bee leaky since August 2001.

No heat for two winters.

Blown wheel cylinder, Sept. 2002.

One bad cylinder, fouling the plug badly (It's probably a valve seal)

I just discovered that my oil level is increasing, thus coolant must be leaking into the oil somehow.

The glue holding the cloth interior on the ceiling has completely let go, creating a canopy effect inside the car.

There's a lot of rust developing at the bottom of all four doors, where the previous owner obviously had several accidents.

I bought this car in January, 2001, for $500 Cdn. and have had two-plus years of reasonaby hassle-free transportation. And it always starts!

I had a friend replace the wheel cylinder, so that only cost $15, and because this car was a beater from day one, I haven't bothered to fix the heat, rad, air-con or the bad cylinder.

I had a tune-up and rear brakes done a year and a half ago, and this winter put a couple of new tires and a battery into it.

Had the transmission kit done last august, but the car still goes through a prohibitive amount of transmission fluid.

Although my car, "Sluggo", is very bad on gas and getting worse every week, it is a joy to drive for the comfort factor, the safety factor, and the intimidation factor. And because it's only a mid-size, I can park it almost anywhere.

Unfortunately, there are too many thing wrong with it now to put the cash into it, so the end is near. If I could get another one just like it with an engine that's still good, I would.

I had a 1981 Chevy Citation V6. Mine started misfiring for no apparent reason. It turned out to be a bad distributor cap. The bad cap looked fine inside and out.

I used to average 13 mpg. The only cause I could think of was they had a very crude ignition timing design. It was either 10 degrees at idle, or 20 degrees at higher rpms.