… Or this one:
Nice Buick. But when the brake fluid starts leaking out of the power windows it will eat the paint off the door sills and rocker panels. And the vacuum (not electric) operated wipers aren’t the greatest either.
2 Likes
Details, details, details. How do you know that this low rider isn’t as updated as Leno’s Roadmaster?
1 Like
Vacuum wipers are fun! Slow when accelerating, and fast when slowing down. Makes sense to engineers at the time!
1 Like
So that was the problem of the windows not working in Winter? Way back my BIL had a 56 Buick convertible and outside of other ills, had trouble with the power windows. They’d go down but not up. For years I was afraid of power windows after that. When it’s -10 you want the windows to go up again.
Not in Green Bay! Remember the TV commercial with the folks going to a football game in the snow with the convertible top down? C’mon @bing, you aren’t going to let those Packer fans outdo you, are ya? 
When it’s -10 you want the windows to go up again.
Why would you even think about opening the window’s -10?
1 Like
It’s a trade off—The problem being, only older vehicles are not computerized. I’ve been a five time jaguar owner; And I think only the first two I owned we’re not computerized. My 95 still had a distributor and I was able to change the spark plugs myself even the disc brakes myself. It was a good car and the 4 L straight six (cylinder) had a lot of power! (I even raced a Corvette once!) But I bought it in the late 90s so it wasn’t that old.
I realize what a difference that made a few years after moving to South Florida. I bought a 97 XJ; still a six (Cylinder-the last year!) But computers galore they were in the engine bay, under the seat, under the dash; I think even in the trunk! And I didn’t really drive that car much because my work was under a mile away and I’m in the Florida Keys and the weather is mostly great so I rode my bike! Except being originally from the Pacific Northwest where the climate us more like England then not; I didn’t know what the heat could do to vehicles. It literally fried my computer that goes under the dash where the sun beat down in the upper 90s-probably making the interior of the car 130-150° (I’m sure when these cars were designed in the United Kingdom they weren’t thinking about scenarios like that.)
I promise I’m not babbling I’m getting to a point!! The point is I bought this 97 a few years after 2011. So it was more than 15 years old and if I needed parts they had to come from a junkyard or someone that specializes in reselling used parts that they got from junkyards or other sources. You see Car manufacturers are only required to make parts available for five years after a model is released. After that it’s up to aftermarket demand and used parts from scrapped vehicles.
So as much and as I may have appreciated that 95 that I used to own; In a few more years it’ll be at its 50th anniversary and I imagine getting parts for that now would be a real pain! Probably nearly impossible. Because parts are only manufactured aftermarket if there’s going to be a significant demand. And then the quality is a crapshoot.
I think an individual coil on top of every spark plug can get expensive because you’re no longer just replacing a distributor cap or or a rotor. But think of what they do using the car‘s computer they control the exact amount of spark that is needed for each cylinder precisely timed so your car will respond better accelerate better and get better gas mileage! The fuel pump used to run continuously, now it uses a sensor to determine when it needs to run & when it doesn’t! (Imagine how less often that needs to be replaced .) Auto leveling air shocks on one hand seem like a nightmare because they can leak and they’re expensive to replace or repair. But after removing them and replacing them with standard coils over struts—I can tell you the difference is felt immediately!!!
See that’s the thing about today’s cars; Because of the computerization; all cars are expensive to work on! So it’s not like my jaguar stands out from all the other vehicles in repair costs.
The solution? Make sure you buy a vehicle with a good warranty or consider mechanical breakdown insurance or what some people call the service contract. It’s basically insurance paid for needed service on your car. I think those companies are betting that if you care enough to insure having your car worked on you’ll probably take better care of your car than most so there cost covering your repairs will probably be less than your premiums and they’ll make a profit!
Apparently you are saying buy an Extended Warranty Contract. Those things are mostly not worth the price as they have legal loop holes bid enough to drive a Semi-Truck through .
If they are actually from the manufacture of the vehicle they are better but still not worth the cost.
2 Likes
When I hit a deer with my Riviera, the first body shop I went to said we’ll just total it because parts aren’t available anymore. I’ve never had an extended warranty but I have to believe that somewhere in that fine print is a clause that leaves them off the hook if parts are no longer made.
My BIL bought a Jag, not sure what year it was but maybe a 2015 or something. Anyway a beautiful car (made by Ford then) but he stopped by and had a warning light of some kind and couldn’t get it to shut off. A year later he swung by again and I asked him if they figured that light out and he said he had it to at least three different people and no one could figure it out, so he just learned to live with it. He’s always been a Ford fan and I just kept silent.
Ehh, probably. The power windows were hydraulic, they were smooth and quiet to operate, but they used brake fluid, or some such fluid that would eat away paint. When the seals would get weak gravity helped the window down but there wasn’t enough pressure to get them back up.
The other possibility is they used oil instead of brake fluid. Site I found said that really slowed down the windows in cold weather.
I wonder what the viscosity was? Maybe the newer synthetic fluids wouldn’t thicken as much in cold weather.
I had an aunt that owned a 1948 Buick convertible. One time when she came for a visit, the hydraulic cylinder for the driver’s side power window sprung a leak. When she would raise the window, it would slowly lower itself. The Buick was 10 years old at the time. I took it to the Buick dealer and the hydraulic mechanism was repaired. I have no.idea what type of fluid was used.
Every vehicle I have owned as far back as 1988 has had power windows. The power windows have never given me a problem on any of these cars. However, on cars with crank operated windows, I have had to replace a crank on a couple of them. It wasn’t an expensive repair. There used to be a rack marked HELP at auto parts stores that carried universal fit parts. I could get a replacement window crank for a couple dollars that worked, but it didn’t match the original.
If something gives a problem, it’s easy to want to return to “the good old days”. I once owned a 1955 Pontiac. It was the first year Pontiac had an overhead valve engine. The valve train always gave me problems. I had to replace the hydraulic tappets and still had problems. I wanted to go back to a flathead 6 as I had in my 1947 Pontiac. As I shopped for a used car in my price range back in 1963, I found a low mileage 1959 Dodge with the flat head 6. A quick run out on the highway in that Dodge convinced me that I didn’t want to go back to the old technology of the flathead engine. I don’t think any new car. By 1966, I don’t think any car was available with a flathead engine. Today, even the cheapest one cylinder push lawnmower comes with an overhead valve engine.
And let’s remember that Buick and Chevrolet, from the time each company was founded, used only overhead valves. “Valve in head, ahead in value”.
1 Like
@old_mopar_guy For engines of the same displacement, the overhead valve is much more efficient than the flathead engine. When I was in high school, my parents had a 1952 Dodge with the flathead 6 engine and the “lift and clunk” semi automatic transmission and a 1954 Buick with the overhead valve V-8 and a manual three speed column shift transmission. The Buick not only had much better performance, but also got better gas mileage. Which car did I prefer to drive? The 1952 Dodge. With the Dodge, I could go on a date with Little Iodine right beside me. I could steer with my left hand and have my right arm around Little Iodine and not have to shift gears.
Your parents had to be some of the very few people that had a mid fifties Buick with a standard transmission. I forget what the “take rate” for Dynaflow was by 1954, but it was pretty high.
1 Like
@old_mopar_guy I think I read that in 1954, 95% of the Buicks that year were equipped with Dynaflow. My parents bought the Buick in 1955 from friends of the family. The husband had retired from GM when they bought the Buick. GM then gave him the opportunity to go to.Australia for a couple of years. Part of the enticement to take the job was a new car to use in Australia and another new car when they returned to the states.
My parents traded the 1952 Dodge for a new Rambler in 1960. .I bought the 1955 Pontiac that was such a problem from the Rambler.dealer in 1962. The service department had overhauled the engine. The 1960 Rambler was totaled in 1963. The Rambler dealer had a 1960 Rambler like the one that was totaled. The.insurance company of the party that totaled the Rambler got a guaranteed price on the replacement Rambler. My dad could have taken the cash or the car. The dealer allowed more on trade for the 1955 Pontiac than the 1954 Buick, so I traded cars with my dad and the dealer got the Pontiac back. In the meantime, my dad purchased a 1963 Studebaker Lark with a V-8 engine and a manual transmission. That car was really fast for the time period.
I’ve still got a screwdriver someplace with the tip bent on it for pulling the clips for the window crank. Pretty hard to roll the window up with the knob broken off.
And I still have a screwdriver I bent the end on to adjust the drum brakes, hard to believe I had to be so cheap I would not buy a proper adjusting tool, Must be ingrained, sure I could call a plumber, but I am going to fix it myself, working on a slow draining sink, and messes up the seal on the bottom of the drain, and my old plumber putty was as hard as a rock. Tomorrow fun. Damn water won’t drain but willing to leak aaargh!