ItsShaneBruh
New member
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2018
- Messages
- 2
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 1
- Location
- Texas
- Buick Ownership
- 1992 Buick Park Avenue Base
TLDR; This car is a reliable car, although it has had it's problems they have never costed much and it has taken care of me. I have spent less on this car than most people would to get a more modern car with double the mileage and who doesn't want a Buick with all the cool features and such. This isn't your average first car but when you work on it yourself as a 16 year old in your own garage it turns into fun pretty quick, although I will say there was frustration at times with certain projects. I am now the 3rd owner of this car.
I bought a 92' Buick Park Avenue Base, this is where the fun began.
I had just turned 16, I was looking for my first car essentially. I knew I wanted something American made so I could easily find parts that didn't cost an arm and a leg to get. Knowing this was an older car and not a very common model, I did know it would be slightly harder to find parts. To this day I can't find specific parts. I went to go look at this car that had been sitting in a driveway for 6 months, dry rotted tires and tags expired. This cars exterior and interior were very nice looking though, paint was still shiny, leather seats were cracked but overall still intact.
Initial problems when I looked at the car included, rough idle, warped rotors and no headliner (but this was only cosmetic and it didn't look all that bad). The car had 68,400 original miles at the time I looked at it and they wanted $1,800 for it. Private sale at the time ranged from $1,700 - $1,900 but because of the noticeable problems he cut me some slack and I got it down to $1,000. It ran and drove perfectly, smooth shifts, smooth suspension, and everything was great because I just bought a car for $1000 that ran pretty well.
Over the last year I've put about 10,000 miles on the park avenue, this of course was with many, many repairs to keep it running.
To keep it simple I will just list repairs in order so this doesn't get too long.
I have kept this car as close to the stock exterior look as possible, no changes were made to the outside.
The interior of this car has a new dash, stereo, speakers, seat covers, floor mats and other fun stuff
Initial cost of car: $1,000
Cost of repairs (as of 10/15/18): $2,232
Total cost with added in extras: $3,540
I bought a 92' Buick Park Avenue Base, this is where the fun began.
I had just turned 16, I was looking for my first car essentially. I knew I wanted something American made so I could easily find parts that didn't cost an arm and a leg to get. Knowing this was an older car and not a very common model, I did know it would be slightly harder to find parts. To this day I can't find specific parts. I went to go look at this car that had been sitting in a driveway for 6 months, dry rotted tires and tags expired. This cars exterior and interior were very nice looking though, paint was still shiny, leather seats were cracked but overall still intact.
Initial problems when I looked at the car included, rough idle, warped rotors and no headliner (but this was only cosmetic and it didn't look all that bad). The car had 68,400 original miles at the time I looked at it and they wanted $1,800 for it. Private sale at the time ranged from $1,700 - $1,900 but because of the noticeable problems he cut me some slack and I got it down to $1,000. It ran and drove perfectly, smooth shifts, smooth suspension, and everything was great because I just bought a car for $1000 that ran pretty well.
Over the last year I've put about 10,000 miles on the park avenue, this of course was with many, many repairs to keep it running.
To keep it simple I will just list repairs in order so this doesn't get too long.
- 3 Motor Mounts & 1 Tranny mount had to be replaced because of failure
- Later that week oil started to noticeably drain onto the driveway, found out where the leak was coming from and had to replace the valve cover gasket
- Replaced all four tires due to the dry rot (I drove on them for about 3 weeks)
- This car has had the worst electrical gremlins known to man, fuses blew all the time, wiring is weird and always gave me problems
- Sway bar links rattled, replaced those too
- Cylinder misfires, replaced spark plugs and wires
- Rotors were long overdue for replacement, so I replaced the disc, calipers and pads as well as the drum rebuild in the back
- Stereo went out on me and being 16 that wasn't gonna cut it, so I tore the dash out and replaced the stereo and put in 4 new speakers
- Headlight went out, got pulled over, so I replaced those too
- Couple weeks later, a tail light was out, got pulled over, replaced that quickly too
- The latest problem is the leaking trunk, replaced the weather seal that goes around the inside (Turns out water was going through the taillight fixture and the gasket surrounding that was the problem) [Found out GM discontinued that gasket, so I had to improvise and use silicon to create a new seal on top of the gasket]
I have kept this car as close to the stock exterior look as possible, no changes were made to the outside.
The interior of this car has a new dash, stereo, speakers, seat covers, floor mats and other fun stuff
Initial cost of car: $1,000
Cost of repairs (as of 10/15/18): $2,232
Total cost with added in extras: $3,540
