1997 Buick LeSabre from North America - Comments

My plastic intake manifold cracked.

I now have a destroyed engine.

If you have a GM car with a plastic intake manifold, you have a ticking time bomb.

Go to Google and type in GM plastic intake manifold and read the horror stories.

I'll never buy another GM vehicle.

Why don't you get to know your car better. Gm knows about the problem and has a fix for it. So, why don't you take the time and learn about the car before you go dissing GM..

Any owner for any model car should understand the history before getting behind the wheel. I feel comfortable with the 3.8 and will definitely be saddened in 2008 when an unbelievable 47 years of this engines history will be closed forever. Find a Honda or Toyota that has as much heritage as Buick's fine V6.

Gimme a break the GM 3.8 is one of the best engines on the road, there is a reason GM has kept going so long.

You who are so quick to defend GM seem to be missing the point entirely. The manifold meltind down and dumping coolant into the engine is an inexcusable defect. GM should have stepped up and accepted responsibility for this long ago. I know the 3.8 has a long history and has been a good engine for much of that time, but when people start phoning up the customer service desk and complaining of hydrolocked or even seized engines on cars with few miles on them, something needs to be done. The only reason GM hasn't done anything voluntarily is because of the enormity of a recall on this particular engine. They used the Series II in such a wide variety of applications that it would likely bankrupt the company to have to fix them all at their own expense. The only thing that is going to force a recall is if enough owners of cars with this engine complain to government watchdogs or form highly publicized class action lawsuits against GM. When GM starts to feel the effects of what they have done with this engine in the form of greatly decreased sales due to public mistrust of the company, then they will have to do something to help the people who bought their cars and are now experiencing problems.

I just bought a 97 Lesabre with 66000 miles and the brake lines and fuel lines are about rusted thru. One brake line failed today. The shop said between $600 & $700 to replace all the brake lines. The fuel pump went out last month @ $465 to repair. Now after reading thru this site, I am nervous about the plastic intake manifold. How can I tell if it has been replaced or repaired?

You can tell if your manifold has been replaced by looking at the date on the top of the intake manifold. There are three circles with a arrow pointing at the correct number. One has the month, the other the date, and the last one the year. On my 1995 buick park avenue the intake has 10/20/03 as the replacement time. I think this is simply the manufacturing date which would let you know if the intake is original or not.

I wish that I would have taken the car into MY mechanic when I got it, then again it was probably too late by then too. The previous owner said the intake manifolds had BOTH been changed when in reality only the lower was, and of course the upper was cracked around the stove-pipe. I'm an idiot with cars, so I didn't notice until it wrecked my engine.

I agree though, GM should have never let this vehicle leave the plant with such a part in it.