Not your Grandfathers Oldsmobile

The Oldsmobile, an American luxury car, but what is under the hood is more than luxury. As usual you will not get me to say much about the interior of a car because really the engine is what is exciting. The Oldsmobile has been in my family for years, it started with the Olds Calais and then went to my 1988 Olds Delta 88, and then finally to my moms 1993 Olds Delta Royale 88. So if you think that I am biased then maybe I am, but quality makes repeat buyers. I will write about my 1988 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Coupe. When most people think about the Oldsmobile 88 they think, grandfathers car, but really this is a miss conception for the coupe. It is a two door sort of sporty looking automobile. You truly could see the front end for miles, but what lay under the hood of that car was one beautifully designed engine. It was a 3.8L V-6 engine, and for those less car oriented this is one of the biggest V6 engine this side of the V8. Wow! If these numbers don't impress you the pick-up and the flat out speed will. Now don't get me wrong here this is not a sports car, but it is pretty darn good for being "Grandpa's car". Needless to say this does not mean that the gas mileage is inversely proportional to the size of the engine. I could probably get around 25mpg for city driving and around 30mpg on the road. The nice thing about this car is it had a huge gas tank in it so I could go like 500 miles before a fill up (that is on highway driving). This gas mileage is very comparable to my V6 Toyota pickup, which I just recently reviewed, and most other cars with this large of an engine. Ok! Let's get back to the important stuff, the engine. The oil was easy to change on this vehicle and for a V6 the spark plugs and other things were not that difficult to reach like on some engines. The one dilemma that most people have when changing the oil is that you have to be fairly small to get under the front guard, so ramps were very helpful. My mother now owns this vehicle because she refuses to give up such a good vehicle, and at last check the 88 had 180K miles on it. We have had very minor problems with the vehicle, and even those didn't come about until after 150K. That is impressive to say the least, you would expect this life span only in a foreign made car, but like I always say if you do regular maintenance and upkeep on your vehicle it will last a lot longer than you thought. Some of the other comparable cars in this class would be the Dodge Intrepid, or the Ford Taurus all equally endowed with their own features, but the reliability that this car has given my family would always make my choice the Oldsmobile.